By Iain Gilbert
Date: Wednesday 19 Apr 2023
LONDON (ShareCast) - (Sharecast News) - Analysts at Canaccord Genuity raised their target price on power products manufacturer Volex from 380.0p to 400.0p on Wednesday after the group's full-year trading update came in "strong and ahead of expectations"
Canaccord Genuity said Volex had seen "good demand" across structural growth markets including electric vehicle, complex industrial, and medical, which has driven share gains as supply chains improved through the year and boosted manufacturing output.
The Canadian bank stated reassuringly, new client wins and increased volume allocations had also allowed the group to "largely mitigate against a well-flagged normalisation of demand in consumer electronics" following the Covid-19 pandemic.
However, Canaccord thinks the most important piece of new information was that strong cash generation, in part due to some unwinding of strategic inventory, had driven "a significant deleveraging" of the group's balance sheet in H2.
"As a result, we think M&A may feature sooner rather than later once again to support the group's strategic growth ambitions. We have raised our forecasts to reflect the upgraded guidance for FY23E which subsequently lifts our outer year expectations. Adjusted EPS rises by 5%/3%/1% for FY23E/24E/25E, respectively," said Canaccord, which reiterated its 'buy' rating on the stock.
Reporting by Iain Gilbert at Sharecast.com