Deutsche Bank downgrades Diageo to 'hold' after outperformance

(Sharecast News) - Deutsche Bank downgraded drinks maker Diageo on Wednesday to 'hold' from 'buy' following its outperformance. The bank noted that since it upgraded the shares at the end of March, they are up 22%, outperforming the Stoxx 600 food and beverage index by 11%.

Deutsche said its underlying estimates are broadly unchanged and its price target remains 1,700p on an unchanged DCF methodology despite rolling its valuation to FY27 from FY26.

It noted that Diageo is due to report FY26 results and provide a strategy update on 6 August.

"Our expectations for this are unchanged and we continue to expect FY26 to be in-line with consensus with a 'reset' in FY27 to drive competitiveness," it said. "However, there is a broad range of potential outcomes with greater downside than upside risk, in our view.

"We continue to believe consensus expectations for both FY27 and beyond remain materially too optimistic (DB EPS 10% below Bloomberg consensus)."

At 1400 BST, Diageo shares were down 2.3% at 1,634p.