{"id":115486,"date":"2026-08-14T13:06:11","date_gmt":"2026-08-14T13:06:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/115486\/"},"modified":"2026-08-14T13:06:11","modified_gmt":"2026-08-14T13:06:11","slug":"ubs-upgrades-michael-page-to-buy-on-hopes-of-earnings-recovery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/115486\/","title":{"rendered":"UBS upgrades Michael Page to ‘buy’ on hopes of earnings recovery"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"UBS<\/a> UBS upgrades Michael Page to ‘buy’ on hopes of earnings recovery Proactive uses images sourced from Shutterstock <\/p>\n

UBS has upgraded Michael Page, the FTSE 250 recruitment group, to ‘buy’ from ‘neutral’, arguing the shares have been unfairly left behind by a wider sector rally. <\/p>\n

The bank lifted its price target to 235p from 180p, implying upside of around 20% from the 195p at which the stock closed on 13 August. <\/p>\n

Analysts Abi Bell, Rory McKenzie and Nicole Manion said Michael Page was entering the same phase of earnings stabilisation already seen across the staffing industry. <\/p>\n

The stock has climbed roughly 43% from its April lows but remains down about 14% so far this year, against an average 17% gain for peers. <\/p>\n

UBS said this underperformance was undeserved after it examined the group’s cost base and the latest market data. <\/p>\n

Michael Page’s gross profit decline eased to just 0.2% year on year at constant currency in the second quarter, with about half of its markets now growing. <\/p>\n

The bank expects a return to positive gross profit growth from the third quarter, helped by stronger areas such as executive search, US construction and Asia. <\/p>\n

Management is targeting more than \u00a340 million of annual cost savings from this year, which UBS believes will become increasingly visible as trading volumes stabilise. <\/p>\n

The bank raised its earnings per share forecasts by up to 13% across 2026 to 2028, and now considers current market profit expectations achievable for the first time in four years. <\/p>\n

Michael Page trades on 0.8 times enterprise value to gross profit, below its usual through-cycle range of 1.2 to 2.5 times. <\/p>\n

In an upside scenario, driven by a full recovery in productivity, UBS sees the shares reaching 500p, or about 158% above current levels. <\/p>\n

Its downside case, reflecting weaker fees and competition from digital hiring channels, points to 100p. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"UBS upgrades Michael Page to ‘buy’ on hopes of earnings recovery Proactive uses images sourced from Shutterstock UBS…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":115487,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[129],"tags":[1079,56194,56243,54700,223],"class_list":["post-115486","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ubs","tag-earnings-per-share","tag-gross-profit","tag-michael-page","tag-nicole-manion","tag-ubs"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ch\/117094015658409697","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115486","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=115486"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115486\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/115487"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=115486"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=115486"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=115486"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}