Associated British Foods PLC (LSE:ABF)<\/a> to 2,050p from 2,240p (current price: 1,828p), in the wake of this week’s news that the UK conglomerate will spin out Primark.<\/p>\nUBS, meanwhile, kept a ‘Neutral’ rating, arguing that while the planned demerger of Primark is the right strategic move, investors are likely to stay fixated on weak like-for-like sales at the discount fashion chain.<\/p>\n
The Swiss Bank said separating Primark from ABF\u2019s food operations should help unlock longer-term shareholder value by creating two more focused businesses with clearer governance and investment cases.<\/p>\n
But that story sits further out. In the relatively short term, UBS expects the demerger to be completed by the end of 2027, leaving the near-term spotlight firmly on trading softness, especially at Primark.<\/p>\n
That pressure was clear in the first half, it noted, as\u00a0Primark reported like-for-like sales down 2.7%, while its 10.1% margin reflected heavier markdowns in a difficult consumer environment.<\/p>\n
UBS said softer April trading across markets underlined the challenge, even if foreign exchange tailwinds and lower markdown intensity may offer some support later. The broker said stronger like-for-like sales at Primark remain the key ingredient for any re-rating in ABF shares.<\/p>\n
UBS also sharpened its caution on sugar, where it sees no clear recovery in European pricing and no visible inflection into FY27.<\/p>\n
That pushed the biggest downgrades in the note, with the broker now forecasting a \u00a325 million EBIT loss in both FY26 and FY27 for the division.<\/p>\n
Group adjusted EBIT forecasts were cut by about 4% for FY26 and 9% for FY27, while Grocery and Ingredients were left broadly unchanged, aside from some expectation of second-half help from cocoa price trends.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ABF price target clipped as Swiss bank avoids Primark demerger distraction, says weaker sales remain in focus Proactive…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":55243,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[31005,31006,31004,41,1085,17,27757],"class_list":{"0":"post-55242","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-switzerland","8":"tag-associated-british-foods-plc","9":"tag-cocoa-price","10":"tag-primark","11":"tag-swiss","12":"tag-swiss-bank","13":"tag-switzerland","14":"tag-target-price"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ch\/116461586730328778","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55242","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=55242"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55242\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/55243"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55242"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55242"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55242"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"ABF](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/a647ad3716836343c3555ea2b9088f55.jpeg\")
ABF price target clipped as Swiss bank avoids Primark demerger distraction, says weaker sales remain in focus Proactive uses images sourced from Shutterstock <\/p>\n