Citi The Point for Europe Thursday, 06 August 2026

The Point for Europe Thursday, 06 August 2026

Top Call | Company | Industry | Strategy & Economics | Key Rating and Target Price Changes

Top Call Symrise AG (SY1G.DE) - CFO roadshow feedback Must Read The CFO’s comments reinforce our view that Symrise’s growth recovery is broadening and that the transformation programme is starting to bear fruit. Global Economic Outlook & Strategy - Renewed Uncertainties—But Management attributes the 2Q acceleration to improved demand and self-help, Continued Resilience not pre-buying, with customer innovation restarting and earlier North American wins converting into sales. The pipeline is at least as strong as a year ago, supporting confidence in FY guidance and the 5-7% medium-term growth target. In 2H, Pet and Care & Wellness should improve, recovery of logistics costs should progress, and raw material inflation remain neutral. We and management both view the strong 1H cash flow as early validation that ONESYM, tighter supplier terms, capex discipline and improved working-capital processes are having an impact. While reinvestment limits near-term margin expansion, these efficiencies should support stronger cash conversion and increase confidence management’s ability to reach the upper end of the 2028 margin range. Ranulf Orr, CFA

London Stock Exchange PLC (LSEG.L) - Further upside from LSEG markets: the outperforming business that nobody talks about Despite investor concern on AI risks, LSEG’s subscription business has performed in line with guidance, with 6.5% OCC revenue growth expected in 2026. Workflows growth of 2.8% has decelerated by 0.3ppt, while Data and feeds growth of 7.5% has accelerated by 0.9ppt. While these businesses are at the centre of investor debate, LSEG’s Markets business has outperformed and is driving consensus upgrades. This is not a low-multiple business: Tradeweb trades on 22x 2027 consensus EPS, while peers of LSEG’s Post trade business trade on 19x. We model 8.1% OCC revenue growth in 2026, exceeding guidance for 7.0-7.5% and pre- results consensus of 7.8%. We estimate a 50bp EBITDA margin tailwind, allowing LSEG to exceed guidance for 51.5% in FY 2026, even if it pulls forward investment, and outperform guidance for 50bp of expansion in 2027. We expect revenue guidance to be upgraded at Q3 results. Buy. Andrew Lowe, CFA | Hannah Leivdal | Nicholas Herman

See Appendix A-1 for Analyst Certification, Important Disclosures and Research Analyst Affiliations.

Schneider Electric (SCHN.PA) - Increasing target price to €370, retain Buy The recent increased revenue guidance and better price/cost dynamics drive our EPS forecasts up by a low-to-mid single digit %. More importantly, we think that the bear-case narrative on Schneider’s ability to achieve positive net price should dissipate. With the AI capex outlook now looking more encouraging following increased capex guidance from hyperscaler customers last week, we continue to see a strong mid-term growth trajectory, with an improving outlook in both Energy Management and Industrial Automation. Our higher forecasts drive our new target price of €370; retain Buy. Martin Wilkie | Avinash Mundhra

CaixaBank SA (CABK.MC) - NII upside from rates remains intact, albeit more back-end loaded than expected We estimate CABK's NII to grow by c.9% CAGR over 2025-28E, supported by the repricing of the ALCO portfolio and deposit hedges into higher rates, strong volume growth, and improving customer spreads. While the recent increase in market rates remains supportive for CABK’s earnings, we expect most of the benefit to emerge in CABK’s NII from 1Q27E onwards (as the deposit hedges roll over at higher rates). As a result, the earnings uplift from higher rates may prove more back-end loaded than some investors had expected initially. We believe the weak share price reaction following 2Q26 results was driven primarily by expectations and positioning rather than deterioration in fundamentals. We see c.2% upside to consensus EPS 2026-28E, on average. We reiterate our Buy rating on CABK, although we prefer BBVA and SAN among the Spanish banks. Borja Ramirez Segura | Anand Demble | Andre Nemec

Assicurazioni Generali SpA (GASI.MI)…