{"id":113348,"date":"2026-08-29T12:46:42","date_gmt":"2026-08-29T12:46:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/113348\/"},"modified":"2026-08-29T12:46:42","modified_gmt":"2026-08-29T12:46:42","slug":"reckitt-launches-500m-buyback-as-quarterly-sales-accelerate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/113348\/","title":{"rendered":"Reckitt launches \u00a3500m buyback as quarterly sales accelerate"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Reckitt<\/a> Reckitt launches \u00a3500m buyback as quarterly sales accelerate Proactive uses images sourced from Shutterstock <\/p>\n

Reckitt Benckiser Group PLC (LSE:RKT)<\/a>\u00a0saw its shares climb to a four-month high after launching a new \u00a3500 million share buyback after second-quarter sales accelerated across all regions and product categories. <\/p>\n

The maker of consumer products brands ranging from Dettol to Durex said like-for-like net revenue rose 4.7% in the second quarter, lifting first-half growth to 2.6%. <\/p>\n

Core Reckitt like-for-like growth accelerated to 4.2% in the second quarter from 1.2% in the first. Volumes rose 2.0% and price and product mix contributed a further 2.2%. <\/p>\n

Total group revenue fell 8.1% to \u00a36.41 billion, mainly reflecting the disposal of its Essential Home business. <\/p>\n

Emerging markets remained the strongest region of core growth, expanding 9.4% in the quarter. North America returned to growth with a 2.8% rise, while Europe’s decline narrowed to 1.5%. <\/p>\n

Chief executive Kris Licht called this “broad-based acceleration”, which came alongside a programme to reduce fixed costs and create more capacity for investment. <\/p>\n

Adjusted operating profit for the first half fell 15% to \u00a31.5\u00a0billion, while adjusted diluted earnings per share declined 9.7% to 152.1p. Both decreases were mainly attributed to the Essential Home disposal. <\/p>\n

Reckitt maintained its full-year guidance for 4-5% like-for-like revenue growth at its core business and an adjusted operating margin of 24.9-25.6%. <\/p>\n

The group described higher oil-linked input costs as a “manageable headwind”, adding that the impact was now expected to be lower than previously feared. <\/p>\n

The interim dividend was increased 5% to 88.6p per share. The new buyback will begin shortly and run for up to 12 months. <\/p>\n

Shares rose over 7% in early trading on Wednesday, before easing to a gain of around 5%. <\/p>\n

Analysts at Jefferies said “this is a strong update” as prior disappointing operating margin guidance for a fall of 200 basis points proved pessimistic. <\/p>\n

LFL core growth beat expectations, with volumes up 2% compared to the consensus forecast of 0.8%. <\/p>\n

\u00a0 ** UPDATE: Adds share price and broker comment\u00a0** <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Reckitt launches \u00a3500m buyback as quarterly sales accelerate Proactive uses images sourced from Shutterstock Reckitt Benckiser Group PLC…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":113349,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[21355],"tags":[33341,46483,32268,46482,24818,22029,46481,13258,22191,46484,21399,21376,372],"class_list":["post-113348","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-reckitt-benckiser","tag-500-million","tag-6-41-billion","tag-32268","tag-acceleration","tag-dettol","tag-durex","tag-essential-home","tag-jefferies","tag-kris-licht","tag-quarterly","tag-reckitt","tag-reckitt-benckiser","tag-update"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@UnitedKingdom\/117178871640234592","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113348","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=113348"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113348\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/113349"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=113348"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=113348"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=113348"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}