LONDON, June 24, 2026, 13:08 BST
Reckitt Benckiser Group shares traded up 1.25% at 4,713 pence in London early Wednesday. Shares still sat 2.9% below the £48.55 average the company paid at the end of its recent buyback. Reckitt bought back 11.12 million shares from March 9 through June 15, closing a £1 billion buyback. By 1303 BST, about 443,000 shares changed hands, compared with the usual 2.02 million daily.
During the 67 London sessions in that stretch, the last trades averaged 166,000 shares per day. That’s about 8% of Reckitt’s usual daily volume. It wasn’t most of the trading, but now the steady buyer is gone.
Haleon climbed 3.2% and Unilever added 1.4%. The FTSE 100 barely moved. Traders pointed to demand for consumer-goods stocks, not a shift in how the market sees Reckitt.
Reckitt still trades at a discount to peers on past profit. Its market cap was £29.88 billion and the trailing P/E stood at 9.46. By comparison, Haleon’s market value was almost the same at £30.36 billion, but the stock traded at 18.65 times earnings. That points to almost double the trailing profit at Reckitt for about the same equity value.
The profit forecast closes the gap. Yahoo Finance lists Reckitt’s forward P/E at 14.64. That’s below Haleon at 16.69 and Unilever at 16.58. On these earnings estimates, Reckitt trades about 12% cheaper, versus almost 49% based on trailing numbers.
Reckitt said it will update on any new buyback when it reports half-year results on July 29. The investor presentation for Reckitt is set for 0830 BST the same day. The company hasn’t announced a new programme to follow the buyback that finished last week.
Reckitt’s operating case still doesn’t support a full peer rating. Core like-for-like revenue was up 1.3% in the first quarter, stripping out currency and portfolio shifts. Growth was 3.1% when seasonal OTC medicines were left out. Chief Executive Kris Licht said: “We maintain our LFL net revenue guidance for 2026.” Reckitt
Reckitt’s sale of Essential Home hasn’t solved its margin issues. “The margin benefit from the divestiture of essential home is being offset by stranded costs and FX,” Quilter Cheviot analyst Chris Beckett said in March. Stranded costs are the leftover expenses after a sale, with FX referring to currency swings. Reuters
Legal risk is tough to gauge. An Illinois appeals court tossed a $60 million verdict against Reckitt’s Mead Johnson unit, calling for a new trial. Mead Johnson and Abbott Laboratories still face nearly 1,000 similar suits in state and federal courts.
Reckitt could see costs hit with a lag, CEO Licht said June 16. Input prices might move over the next year, but “there’s actually a bit of a delay on some of that,” he said. Reuters
A missing buyback could be less of an issue if cold-and-flu demand improves and management launches a new program on July 29. Still, there’s risk to margins in the second half if oil costs stay up or demand in Europe and North America stays soft. Another negative formula ruling could widen the discount.
