Broker tips: Pinewood Technologies, Kingfisher

(Sharecast News) - Analysts at Berenberg raised their target price on Pinewood Technologies from 590p to 700p on Wednesday after the software-as-a-service provider's interim results earlier in the morning. Berenberg said Pinewood had delivered another period of "excellent top-line growth, strong profitability and further strategic progress", with the key element of the group's results being its new medium-term guidance for underlying earnings of £58m-62m in FY28 - implying a 56% FY25-28 compound annual growth rate at the mid-point of its FY25 and FY28 guided ranges.

The German bank stated that while there were temporary impacts to near-term numbers, due to a one-time £1.3m accounting impact, and a one-quarter delay of an implementation with a major customer, it said Pinewood's FY28 guidance represents "a material upwards revision" of medium-term market expectations.

Berenberg, which has a ''buy' rating on the stock, added that Pinewood currently trades on 7.5x FY26 enterprise value-to-sales ratio and 28.1x FY26 enterprise value-to-underlying earnings ratio.

Berenberg also raised its target price for Kingfisher shares from 306p to 331p following the retailer's first-half results, but kept a 'hold' rating on the stock.

DIY retailer Kingfisher upgraded its adjusted pre-tax profit guidance for the year to January 2026 by 6% following a 13% beat to consensus forecasts with its interim results.

"The beat and upgrade were primarily driven by a stronger-than-anticipated gross margin, while the upside surprise in Q2 sales trends was much less significant," Berenberg said.

The broker highlighted that Kingfisher's gross margins - while still low at around 38% - were set to rise further over the coming 18 months, helped in part by a weaker US dollar, supplier negotiations, warehousing reduction, AI-refined pricing/promotions and the growth of a high-margin marketplace sales and retail media business.

Berenberg said that, following three years of negative like-for-like sales trends, the first half of this year saw "some signs of a sales turnaround", with the UK DIY market improving and negative conditions in France easing slightly.