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Jefferies Upgrades Centrica to Buy

Jefferies upgraded Centrica to buy and raised its target price to 200p, saying the market is overlooking the business's visibility and growth. Tuesday's morning spike faded by the close.

Jefferies upgraded Centrica (LON: CNA), the owner of British Gas, to “buy” from “hold” on Tuesday and raised its target price to 200p from 190p. The energy group’s shares jumped in the morning but gave most of that back.

Centrica closed today at 150.25p, up 0.23% on the previous close of 149.9p. The shares opened at 153.0p and reached 155.2p, up 3.5%, before sliding to finish at the day’s low. The wider gas, water and multiutilities sector closed down 0.93%.

CNA.LSE

Centrica also owns the Grain LNG import terminal, a stake in the Sizewell C nuclear project and the Centrica Energy trading arm.

In our view, the market is overlooking the visibility and growth embedded in the business.

Jefferies, via Sharecast

After the half-year results on the 23rd of July, management guided 2027 trading (Optimisation) EBITDA to about £250m, against a consensus of about £320m. Jefferies says retail and infrastructure make up about 85% of expected 2027 EBITDA (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation), so trading is upside rather than a requirement.

Jefferies expects visible earnings per share, meaning retail and infrastructure only, to grow 17% a year from 7.8p in 2026 to 14.7p in 2030. Its trading forecasts are cautious: 2030 trading EBITDA of £251m, against a management ambition of about £400m. On Jefferies’ numbers the shares trade on 11.3 times 2027 earnings, against about 17 times for peers. The 200p target is about 33% above today’s close, and Jefferies sees a further 23p a share of upside from trading and new infrastructure projects that is not in its base case.

Line chart of Centrica's daily close in pence from late July to 3 November 2026, with the Jefferies upgrade date marked
Centrica (CNA.L) daily close, pence, 27 July–3 November 2026. Jefferies upgraded the shares on 3 November; the day’s close was up 0.2%.

The shares gave back most of the morning gain by the close.

Residential bad debt was above 4% of revenue at the half year, against the 3.8% allowance set by regulator Ofgem. Jefferies expects it to fall below that allowance from 2028.

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