His former employer might be struggling but Charles Wilson’s Booker is flying at the moment.
The one-time right-hand man of Sir Stuart Rose at Marks & Spencer is presiding over a particularly fine year for the cash-and-carry wholesaler. Booker’s share price has already risen nearly 25% in 2012 and the recent deal to snap up the UK business of rival Makro has been applauded across the board.
Yet today some more level-headed voices were urging the Square Mile not to get too carried away.
According to analysts’ calculations at Shore Capital, only a handful of consumer stocks in the world have a higher earnings rating than Booker, including such giants as Coca-Cola and Guinness-owner Diageo. Calling it a “an excellent company” and “a market leader in its field”, they nonetheless added that they “struggle to justify a premium” to blue-chip consumer giants Unilever, steady at 2127p, and Reckitt Benckiser, 10p up at 3523p.
As a result, the scribes announced they were recommending selling Booker’s shares, which prompted it to lose 3.05p to 88.23p and made it the worst performer on the FTSE 250.
Still, they certainly weren’t talking down Wilson, saying they “hold [him] in the highest regard in British food retailing”, arguing he “may in time enter a hall of fame that contains the likes of Sir Kenneth Morrison, Sir Terry Leahy, Lord Sainsbury and Archie Norman”.
With the latest GDP data from China proving no worse than feared, while still being weak enough to give a fillip to those who are hoping that the Chinese government will galvanised into boosting the economy, the FTSE 100 climbed 37.01 points to 5645.26.
Stocks particularly responsive to news from the Far East were mainly on the rise — luxury brand Burberry shifted 39p higher to 1197p as heavyweight diggers Eurasian Natural Resources and BHP Billiton advanced 8.3p to 402.1p and 29.5p to 1780.75p respectively.
ITV was in the gold medal position, advancing 2.85p to 75.13p, as broker Berenberg reiterated its “overweight” advice. At the same time, traders highlighted — and were simultaneously dismissive of — that the broadcaster is always a favourite of the rumour-mill, with the group last month the subject of reheated rumours claiming private equity could be interested in a possible move. Meanwhile, they also pointed out that ITV has been weak in the run-up to its interim results late this month.
Amid the handful of fallers, its inability to provide enough staff for the Olympics was continuing to hurt G4S: the security company’s drop of 9.9p to 273.1p means that it has now shed 6% in two days.
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