Davy Morning Equity Briefing
Jul 08, 2026
Vistry Group
H1 to swing to a net loss; strong focus on cash generation
Focused on cash generation, Vistry now expects that it will fall into a loss before tax of £30m in H1 2026. Specific cash generation actions resulted in a negative impact of £50m in H1. The company has held its net cash guidance of £100m by year end. For FY 2026, adjusted PBT is guided to be £200m. Importantly, this excludes any impact from the ongoing CEO Review. The CFO of the group, Kevin Lawlor, announced his resignation.
Jet2 plc
FY26 in line; £250m buyback announced
Jet2 has delivered a FY26 operating profit of £439.6m, in line with consensus. Today it has also announced a £250m share buyback programme, reflecting the cash generation of the business. For FY27, while bookings had previously been impacted by the Middle East conflict, the company has said reduced geopolitical uncertainty has led to strong booking momentum in recent weeks, supported by targeted price investment. Load factors (+1.2ppts) and booked-to-date passengers (+7.1%, previously +6.2%) are both ahead. Consensus currently stands at operating profit of c.£250m, which we expect to move to c.£270m on the back of this statement (Davy: £260m).
Associated British Foods
Model update – further reductions
We are lowering our FY27 adjusted operating profit forecasts by c.7%, primarily reflecting further weakness in Sugar; in aggregate, our group FY27 profit forecasts have been reduced by c.23% over the last nine months. While we believe this is reflected in the valuation, we see no clear catalyst for a positive inflection — earnings momentum has yet to stabilise, the Primark forward growth model remains contested and the extended demerger timeline and limited standalone disclosure leave the equity under a strategic overhang. We maintain our ‘Neutral’ rating but lower our price target to £20 (4% upside).
Irish economy
Ireland’s economic growth continues to outperform
In line with our expectations, the Irish economy continues to grow above consensus. We have revised down our forecast for housing supply to 44k next year and progress appears unlikely to be linear — we now expect a small dip to 42k in 2028. However, infrastructure delivery is progressing well and housing trends remain positive for the 2030s. We expect higher budget surpluses over coming years. The strength of the Government’s balance sheet means that contributions to the new sovereign wealth funds can continue even if surpluses decline.
