Centrica shares tumble this week despite signing EV development deal with Lotus
The British energy company saw its shares slide this week despite announcing a joint venture with the Norfolk-based car maker to develop a new model for electric vehicle ownership.
Centrica has seen its shares slide 8% this week, with its newly signed partnership with Norfolk-based car maker Lotus unable to lift investor sentiment amid the Covid-19 crisis.
The partnership will see Centrica and Lotus develop a new model for electric vehicle (EV) ownership, with the pair looking to ‘redefine the customer relationship with cars’.
‘We see a future where the customer, car and home are connected, enabling new services beyond charging the car and new products and experiences replacing the unremarkable standard relationship with energy and the ownership of a car today,’ Centrica Innovations vice-president Carl Bayliss said.
Centrica has increased its activity within the electric vehicle space, with the company partnering with Volkswagen via its British Gas division to install home charging stations and provide aftersales service.
Centrica managed to claw back some of its losses on Friday, closing 2% higher to end the week at 36p per share.
Analysts downgrade Centrica amid Covid-19 headwinds
Analysts are pessimistic about Centrica’s prospects in 2020, with demand for energy among businesses falling sharply amid the Covid-19 crisis.
Jefferies analysts downgraded the ailing energy provider in April to ‘hold’ and cut their price target for the stock from 50p to 29p per share.
‘Our extensive assessment of Centrica's historical working capital and bad debt trends suggest that material headwinds are ahead,’ Jefferies analyst Ahmed Farman said in a note.
‘We also expect no DPS payment for FY20. Centrica may hang onto its Baa2 rating for now, but we see limited support for the rating under a more protracted crisis,’ he added.
Due to the challenging market conditions Centrica opted to cancel its dividend to shareholders in 2020 in a bid to shore up its balance sheet, which from a liquidity standpoint remains healthy.
Last month, Centrica opted to delay its planned sale of its Spirit Energy business to offset the impact of rising bad debts and weak energy demand.
But with the company in need of additional funds amid the pandemic, Jeffereies said that Centrica may consider selling its North American energy supply business.
This information has been prepared by IG, a trading name of IG Limited. In addition to the disclaimer below, the material on this page does not contain a record of our trading prices, or an offer of, or solicitation for, a transaction in any financial instrument. IG accepts no responsibility for any use that may be made of these comments and for any consequences that result. No representation or warranty is given as to the accuracy or completeness of this information. Consequently any person acting on it does so entirely at their own risk. Any research provided does not have regard to the specific investment objectives, financial situation and needs of any specific person who may receive it. It has not been prepared in accordance with legal requirements designed to promote the independence of investment research and as such is considered to be a marketing communication. Although we are not specifically constrained from dealing ahead of our recommendations we do not seek to take advantage of them before they are provided to our clients.
CFDs are a leveraged products. CFD trading may not be suitable for everyone and can result in losses that exceed your initial deposit, so please ensure that you fully understand the risks involved.
Act on stock opportunities today
Go long or short on thousands of international stocks with CFDs.
- Get full exposure for a comparatively small deposit
- Trade on spreads from just 0.1%
- Get greater order book visibility with direct market access
See opportunity on a stock?
Try a risk-free trade in your demo account, and see whether you’re on to something.
- Log in to your demo
- Try a risk-free trade
- See whether your hunch pays off
See opportunity on a stock?
Don’t miss your chance – upgrade to a live account to take advantage.
- Trade a huge range of popular stocks
- Analyse and deal seamlessly on fast, intuitive charts
- See and react to breaking news in-platform
See opportunity on a stock?
Don’t miss your chance. Log in to take advantage while conditions prevail.
Live prices on most popular markets
- Forex
- Shares
- Indices
Prices above are subject to our website terms and agreements. Prices are indicative only. All shares prices are delayed by at least 15 mins.
