Vodafone share price: Deutsche Bank still bullish on telco

Deutsche Bank remains bullish on Vodafone (LON:VOD), while trimming its target on the telco’s share price. Sharecast quoted the broker as arguing that headwinds for the mobile giant were starting to ease.

Vodafone’s share price has been little changed in London in today’s session, having inched 0.05 percent to 126.96p as of 14:43 BST, fractionally underperforming the broader UK market, with the benchmark FTSE 100 index currently standing 0.11 percent higher at 7,415.35 points. The telco’s shares have given up just under a third of their value over the past year, as compared with about a 3.5-percent fall in the Footsie.

Deutsche Bank still bullish on Vodafone

Deutsche Bank trimmed its target on the Vodafone share price from 250p to 240p today, while reaffirming its ‘buy’ rating on the shares. Sharecast reports that while the bank had conceded that the telco’s shares had performed poorly over the last year,” it was “worth remembering Vodafone’s leverage increase is predominantly self-inflicted by the accretive cash-based acquisition of Liberty Global assets at a time in which interest rates were rising”.

“We anticipate a gradual improvement in the top line with cost-cutting and operational leverage leading to mid-single-digit EBITDA growth from next year,” Deutsche Bank continued. “The associated free cash flow growth and deleveraging, including the contribution from M&A, should see investor confidence resume and Vodafone shares re-rate.”

Other analysts on FTSE 100 telecoms group

Kepler Capital Markets, which is bullish on the blue-chip telco with a ‘buy’ rating, boosted its target on the Vodafone share price from 160p to 175p last week, while Berenberg Bank, which also sees the FTSE 100 company as a ‘buy,’ lowered its valuation on the stock from 190p to 180p. According to MarketBeat, Vodafone currently has a consensus ‘buy’ rating and an average price target of 186.22p.

In other Vodafone news, the company recently announced that its German unit has bought 5G spectrum for €1.88 billion.