Davy Morning Equity Briefing
Jul 16, 2026
Food and beverage manufacturers
Preview of Greencore and Cranswick trading updates
Greencore and Cranswick will release their Q3-26 and Q1-27 trading updates on July 22nd and 27th respectively. We believe both companies remain particularly well positioned, with the themes outlined in “Private label growth: a detailed study” continuing to support medium-term growth prospects across both businesses. For Greencore, we maintain our view that the scale of the recent share price decline is fundamentally unjustified and has created an attractive entry point ahead of the update. For Cranswick, we believe the market does not fully recognise the broader growth opportunity embedded within its forward investment pipeline. We maintain our price targets of £3.60 (+81% upside) for Greencore and £66 for Cranswick (+20%).
Kenmare
Q2 production report
Kenmare’s ilmenite production in Q2 was impacted by the ramp up of new dredges on Wet Concentrator Plant (WCP) A and lower grades on WCP B, as expected. It has tweaked full-year production guidance on ilmenite but maintained it for other products, as well as for all other operating metrics. We are leaving our forecasts unchanged.
Diploma plc
Very strong Q3 trading statement
Diploma’s Q3 trading statement for the nine months to June 30th is very strong. It reflects organic growth of 15%, which has increased slightly compared to the run rate in H1 despite tough comparatives in Q3. As a result, the company has significantly raised guidance for EBITA in FY2026 once again.
UK economy
Underlying growth weaker than the headline May result
May’s result for gross domestic product (GDP) in the UK was stronger than expected, expanding by 0.1% compared to April whereas the consensus expectation was for no change. However, the details show that the result was not broadly based, with many sectors declining and more energy-exposed parts of the economy such as construction and industrial production particularly weak. Services overall registered strong growth, but mainly down to professional services which had an outsized increase. The underlying position looks weaker than May’s 1.3% annual growth rate; downside risks remain for our GDP forecast in 2026 of 0.9%.
Irish economy
Transactions data augur well for Q2 new housing supply
An encouraging sign in yesterday’s residential property price data was that transactions for new properties grew 19% in May. This augurs well for new housing supply in Q2. Property prices grew 6.2%, matching the April growth rate. With typically strong price growth in the summer months, we see possible upside risk to our full-year forecast of 4.75% growth this year. We also note faster price increases for counties outside Dublin at the same time as strong growth in new business formation.
