Citi lifts price target on St James's Place, reiterates 'buy'

(Sharecast News) - Citi lifted its price target on St James's Place on Monday to 1,280p from 1,010p and reiterated its 'buy' rating as it updated its model ahead of full-year results on 27 February. "Our FUM estimates increase by 5%, driven by market appreciation and stronger-than-expected Q4 flows," it said.

Citi said this drives a circa 10% increase to its outer-year cash earnings per share estimates.

The bank said its H2 2024 underlying cash EPS of 41.1p is 2% above consensus.

"However, our cash EPS is 8-9% above consensus for FY 2026/27, driven by FUM estimates that are 3-4% above consensus," it said. "We model 3.3% net flows for FY 2025. In addition to our estimate changes, our discounted cash flow now fully includes gestation run-off, while we also increase our assumed outer-year profit after tax margin on mature FUM from 25 basis points to 28bp."

This compares to its estimated 27bp margin in 2027 and 31bp in 2028.

"This drives our target price from £10.10 to £12.80, implying 18% total return from the current share price," Citi said.

At 1525 GMT, the shares were up 2.5% at 1,130p.