Shares in PZ Cussons (PZC) rallied 11% to a 52-week high of 90p after the consumer goods group upgraded FY26 profit guidance and said its cost savings programme is on track.
| Share price: 90p (+11%) | PE: 11.4 |
| Market cap: £338m | Yield: 4.4% |
CEO Jonathan Myers also outlined a renewed group strategy, highlighting a sharper focus on building portfolios of locally-loved brands across four lead markets spanning developed and emerging economies.
Broad-based growth
The Morning Fresh, Carex and Imperial Leather maker raised its FY26 outlook after delivering double-digit profit growth for the half to November, with strong like-for-like growth persisting into H2-to-date.
Adjusted pre-tax profit leapt 50.5% to £29.8m in H1 on an 8% rise in revenue to £269.3m including ‘broad-based’ like-for-like growth of 9.5%.
This was driven by growth in each of the Manchester-headquartered company’s four lead markets, namely the UK, Australia and New Zealand, Nigeria and Indonesia.
Given this robust performance, PZ Cussons now expects FY26 adjusted operating profit of £53m to £57m, up from November’s guidance of £50m to £55m. The company held the half-time dividend at 1.5p.
Focused and resilient
UK growth was led by Sanctuary Spa, the beauty brand that enjoyed a successful Christmas gifting season and PZ Cussons also reported a return to growth in Australia and New Zealand.
Following a strategic review, PZ Cussons has decided to retain its Africa business spanning Nigeria, Kenya and Ghana. Encouragingly, most of PZ Cussons’ brands gained market share in H1 in Nigeria, where it saw double-digit volume growth.
Myers said the strong H1 performance, with a healthy balance of price and volume increases and growth in each of PZ Cussons’ largest ten brands, has been ‘driven by targeted investment in innovation, brand-building and continued strong commercial execution’.
He added: ‘We have concluded our strategic review, which has resulted in a significantly strengthened balance sheet and a more focused and more resilient business. Against this backdrop, we are setting out plans in our Capital Markets Event to deliver sustainable shareholder value, building winning portfolios of locally-loved brands in four lead markets.
‘With a balance between developed and emerging markets and building on competitive go-to-market capabilities and manufacturing scale, we are targeting double-digit total shareholder return through the cycle.’
There’s a compelling turnaround underway at PZ Cussons. The firm has strengthened its balance sheet, has positive earnings momentum and exciting long-run growth potential in emerging markets.
Investors’ focus now turns to PZ Cussons’ larger consumer goods peer Unilever (ULVR), which tomorrow (12 February) posts a first update since the demerger of its ice cream business.
Analysts will be poring over the outlook for 2026 and how that compares to Unilever’s medium-term underlying sales growth target of 4% to 6%.
Read the press release here: https://www.pzcussons.com/investors/
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