London, May 2, 2026, 19:09 BST
Reckitt Benckiser Group plc put its latest shareholder-voting base at 640,814,501 votes, a regulatory filing showed, giving investors a fresh denominator for UK stake disclosures as the company presses on with its share buyback after a weak first quarter.
The update matters now because Reckitt is trying to show capital discipline while investors weigh slower sales, margin pressure and a still-uncertain consumer backdrop. Buybacks can support earnings per share by reducing the pool of shares that count for economic and voting purposes, though treasury shares are held by the company and do not carry votes.
In a separate own-shares notice, Reckitt said it bought 185,000 ordinary shares on April 30 through Deutsche Bank AG, London Branch, paying a volume-weighted average price of 4,676.56 pence. On that basis, the purchase was worth about £8.65 million; the company said the shares would be held in treasury.
The same notice said Reckitt would hold 33,560,558 shares in treasury after the transaction, with 640,445,194 ordinary shares in issue excluding treasury shares. Its monthly voting-rights filing, also dated May 1, put issued ordinary shares at 674,005,752 and treasury shares at 33,191,251 as of April 30.
The stock last traded at 4,713 pence in London on May 1, up 0.75%, according to Reuters pricing data. The London market was closed on Saturday.
Reckitt, whose brands include Dettol, Durex, Lysol, Finish and Mucinex, reported last week that Core Reckitt like-for-like net revenue grew 1.3% in the first quarter. Like-for-like, or LFL, means revenue growth at constant exchange rates and excluding acquisitions, disposals and discontinued operations.
Chief Executive Kris Licht said Core Reckitt’s quarter was “impacted by very low seasonal incidence,” weak Europe categories and geopolitical disruption. Excluding seasonal over-the-counter medicines, Core Reckitt grew 3.1%, and the company kept its 2026 LFL net revenue outlook for Core Reckitt at 4% to 5%. Reckitt
The numbers were uneven. Emerging Markets grew 7.6% on an LFL basis, while Europe fell 4.2% and North America declined 0.9%, hit in part by a weak cold and flu season and retailer destocking. Mead Johnson Nutrition, which Reckitt classifies as non-core, fell 2.7% on an LFL basis to £531 million.
Reckitt’s shares fell as much as 7% after the Q1 update on April 22, Reuters reported, after core sales missed a company-compiled analyst forecast of 2.9%. Harsharan Mann, consumer sector hub lead at Aviva Investors, called the quarter “broad-based muted growth,” while JPMorgan analyst Celine Pannuti said the results raised questions over whether Reckitt could hit its annual targets. Reuters
Hargreaves Lansdown equity analyst Aarin Chiekrie wrote that Reckitt had a soft start to 2026 because of the weak cold and flu season, but said performance was expected to pick up through the year. He also noted that nearly £0.7 billion of the £1 billion buyback had already been completed after the Q1 update.
The pressure is not Reckitt’s alone. Colgate-Palmolive said on May 1 it expected about $300 million in extra raw material and logistics costs from the Middle East conflict, joining rivals including Unilever and Procter & Gamble in warning of cost pressure that could make everyday products dearer.
But the buyback does not remove the main risk for Reckitt: its full-year guidance assumes a recovery in seasonal demand and no further emerging-market hit from the Middle East conflict beyond the first half. Reckitt said that if commodity prices stay significantly elevated, pressure on household budgets could hurt consumer demand.
