UK Stocks

Last Updated: 19 September 2026

Barratt Redrow plc is the United Kingdom's largest housebuilder by volume and by revenue, formed when Barratt Developments PLC completed its acquisition of Redrow plc on 21 August 2024. The enlarged group builds under three consumer brands — Barratt Homes, David Wilson Homes and Redrow — alongside Gladman, the UK's largest land promoter. This report covers the financial year ended 28 June 2026, for which results were published on 16 September 2026, three days before this update. Every figure below is taken from the company's own results announcements, balance sheet, cash flow statement and regulatory filings, or from live market data on the date stated. No analyst ratings or price targets are used anywhere in this report.

1. Company Snapshot

Field	Value
Legal name	Barratt Redrow plc (formerly Barratt Developments PLC)
Ticker / exchange	BTRW, London Stock Exchange Main Market (ISIN GB0000811801)
Sector	Household goods and home construction — residential housebuilding
Head office	Barratt Redrow House, Cartwright Way, Bardon Hill, Coalville, Leicestershire, UK
Fiscal year end	Late June (FY2026 = 52 weeks to 28 June 2026)
Revenue (FY2026)	£6,055.0m, up 6.6% year on year
Profit for the period (FY2026)	£243.2m; statutory profit before tax £363.5m
Adjusted profit before tax (FY2026)	£572.8m before purchase price allocation adjustments
Home completions (FY2026)	17,667 including 566 from joint ventures, up 5.0%
Net cash	£772.8m at 28 June 2026 (FY2025: £772.6m)
Employees	7,928 at 29 June 2025 per the FY2025 Annual Report; the FY2026 Annual Report, which will carry the updated headcount, is due for publication in October 2026
CEO / Leadership	David Thomas, Group Chief Executive to 21 September 2026, on which date Dean Banks succeeds him as Group Chief Executive; Rebecca Napier, Chief Financial Officer since 3 August 2026; Caroline Silver, Chair since 30 June 2023

2. Bull and Bear Case

Bull Case

• Volume growth against a weak market: FY2026 completions of 17,667 rose 5.0% and landed towards the top of management's guidance range, at a time when several listed peers were shrinking. Revenue grew 6.6% to £6,055.0m.
• Merger synergies running ahead of plan: The £100m annual cost synergy target from the Redrow combination is confirmed, with £53m delivered in FY2026 on top of £20m in FY2025, leaving roughly £27m to come. This is a margin lever that does not depend on the housing cycle.
• Balance sheet strength and optionality: Net cash of £772.8m, a single £200.0m term borrowing and a revolving credit facility increased to £900m and extended to July 2031 leave the group unusually well capitalised for a cyclical housebuilder.
• Buying back stock at a discount to tangible assets: With the shares at 311.20p against tangible assets per share of 439.8p, management has committed a £400m FY2027 capital return weighted almost entirely to buybacks, retiring shares below stated book value.
• Scale and multi-brand land efficiency: At £6.06bn of revenue the group is materially larger than any listed UK peer, and multi-branding lets it run two or three outlets on land that previously supported one. Twelve such synergy outlets opened in FY2026, with 18 more planned for FY2027.

Bear Case

• Margins and returns are still compressing: Adjusted gross margin before purchase price allocation fell 210 basis points to 15.3% and return on capital employed slipped to 8.4% from 9.0%, driven by weaker underlying pricing and heavier sales incentives.
• The building safety provision is not shrinking: The combined legacy property provision stood at £1,074.5m at 28 June 2026 against £1,073.8m a year earlier, with £149.2m of fresh charges added in the year and cash outflows guided to roughly £300m in FY2027 and £450m in FY2028.
• Guidance has already been trimmed once: FY2027 completion guidance was cut to 17,500–17,900 homes from 17,700–18,200, explicitly because of planning delays, within weeks of first being set.
• Simultaneous change at the top: A new Chief Financial Officer arrived on 3 August 2026 and a new Group Chief Executive arrives on 21 September 2026, in the middle of a capital allocation overhaul and with an unresolved competition class action outstanding.

3. Revenue Segments

Barratt Redrow does not publish a revenue split by consumer brand. It does disclose revenue by sales category in note 2 of the FY2026 results, and the table below uses those disclosed categories against total FY2026 revenue of £6,055.0m.

Segment / category	% of revenue (FY2026)	What it is
Private residential sales	81.0% (£4,905.8m)	Open-market home sales to private buyers across the Barratt Homes, David Wilson Homes and Redrow brands; 12,272 completions in FY2026.
Affordable residential sales	12.6% (£762.8m)	Homes sold to housing associations and registered providers, largely to discharge planning obligations; 3,774 completions, 22.1% of wholly owned volume.
Private rental sector sales	5.7% (£346.3m)	Bulk sales of completed homes to institutional build-to-rent investors; 1,055 completions in FY2026.
Planning promotion agreements	0.4% (£21.9m)	Fees earned by Gladman, the group's land promotion business, for taking third-party land through the planning system.
Commercial sales	0.3% (£16.0m)	Disposal of commercial and mixed-use elements attached to residential developments.
Sundry revenue	0.0% (£2.2m)	Residual items including land sales and ancillary services.

Alongside these categories the group holds a stake in the MADE Partnership, a master-development joint venture with Homes England and Lloyds Banking Group established in September 2024, targeting more than 18,000 homes across six sites. Its first site, Godley Green Garden Village in Greater Manchester, is expected to start on site in early 2027.

4. Business Model and Moat

How it makes money. Barratt Redrow buys land, secures detailed planning consent, builds houses and apartments, and recognises revenue on legal completion. Gross profit is the spread between selling price and the sum of land cost, build cost and sales overhead. In FY2026 that produced a statutory gross margin of 13.6% and an adjusted operating margin before purchase price allocation of 9.9%. Because land is bought years before the homes on it are sold, reported margin in any given year largely reflects land bought two to four years earlier, which is why the estimated gross margin embedded in the current land bank — 17.3% at 28 June 2026, down from 19.2% — is a better forward indicator than the reported number.

Where the moat sits. The durable advantage in UK housebuilding is control of consented land and the ability to fund it through the cycle. Barratt Redrow held 76,447 owned and unconditional plots plus 12,148 conditionally contracted plots at the FY2026 year end, equivalent to 5.2 years of supply, with a strategic land bank of a further 144,059 plots across 24,825 acres. Gladman adds a promotional pipeline of 113,551 plots. Very few competitors can match that combination, and a net cash balance sheet lets the group buy land when weaker builders cannot.

What the merger actually changed. Multi-branding is the structural benefit that is hardest for peers to copy. Because the group now owns three brands at different price points, a single large site can support a Barratt Homes outlet and a Redrow outlet simultaneously, roughly doubling the sales rate from the same land. Twelve such outlets opened in FY2026, with 18 planned for FY2027 and 15 for FY2028 against a target of at least 45. Divisional offices have been cut from 41 to 32.

Where capital is being returned. Management changed its capital allocation policy on 15 July 2026, moving from a progressive ordinary dividend to a buyback-led model of returning 50% of adjusted net income via share repurchase, with at least a further £100m per year of buyback from FY2028.

5. Financial Health

All figures below are taken from Barratt Redrow's own audited and announced results.

Fiscal Year	Revenue (£m)	YoY %	GAAP EPS	Adjusted EPS	Dividend/share	Long-term debt (YE)
FY2022 (to 30 Jun 2022)	5,267.9	+9.5%	50.6p	83.0p †	36.9p	£200.0m ‡
FY2023 (to 30 Jun 2023)	5,321.4	+1.0%	53.2p	67.3p †	33.7p	£200.0m ‡
FY2024 (to 30 Jun 2024)	4,168.2	-21.7%	11.8p	28.3p †	16.2p	£200.0m ‡
FY2025 (52wk to 29 Jun 2025)	5,578.3	+33.8%	13.6p	32.1p	17.6p	£200.0m
FY2026 (52wk to 28 Jun 2026)	6,055.0	+6.6%	17.1p	28.5p	6.0p	£200.0m

† For FY2025 and FY2026 the adjusted figure is adjusted basic earnings per share before the impact of purchase price allocation adjustments arising on the Redrow acquisition, as reported by the company. For FY2022 to FY2024 it is the adjusted basic earnings per share reported by Barratt Developments PLC at the time, which mainly excluded building safety provision charges. The two bases are not directly comparable across the merger. On the post-merger basis, adjusted basic earnings per share after purchase price allocation was 26.1p in FY2026 and 27.2p in FY2025.

‡ The group's only term borrowing throughout the period is a £200.0m sterling US Private Placement note maturing in August 2027, confirmed as non-current loans and borrowings of £200.0m at both 29 June 2025 and 28 June 2026 in the FY2026 balance sheet. Lease liabilities are carried separately at £31.2m non-current and £16.4m current at the FY2026 year end. The group is net cash: cash and cash equivalents of £970.9m against those borrowings gives reported net cash of £772.8m.

The half-yearly picture below is presented most recent first. Barratt Redrow reports interim results for the 26 weeks to late December and full-year results for the 52 weeks to late June, so second-half figures are derived by subtraction rather than separately reported.

Quarter / Half	Revenue	Adjusted EPS	GAAP EPS
H2 FY2026 (26wk to 28 Jun 2026) †	£3,422.9m	18.5p	9.9p
H1 FY2026 (26wk to 28 Dec 2025)	£2,632.1m	10.0p	7.2p
H2 FY2025 (26wk to 29 Jun 2025) †	£3,297.5m	19.3p	8.0p
H1 FY2025 (26wk to 29 Dec 2024, restated)	£2,280.8m	12.8p	5.6p
FY2026 total (52wk to 28 Jun 2026)	£6,055.0m	28.5p	17.1p

† Second-half figures are derived by deducting the reported first half from the reported full year. They are not separately published by the company. Adjusted earnings per share in this table is stated before purchase price allocation adjustments, consistent with the annual table above.

Cash generation improved sharply in FY2026. Net cash generated from operating activities was £436.4m against £29.3m in FY2025, while capital expenditure remained trivial for a business of this size at £12.2m of property, plant and equipment plus £1.5m of intangibles. Statutory operating profit was £444.3m against £285.5m. Depreciation and amortisation added back in the cash flow statement totalled £36.4m, comprising £7.6m on property, plant and equipment, £17.6m on right-of-use assets and £11.2m of intangible amortisation. Total equity stood at £7,776.5m and inventories, which for a housebuilder are principally land and work in progress, at £7,869.5m, of which land carried £4,641.3m.

6. Valuation Metrics

Share prices, and figures worked out from them, are not shown for London-listed companies on ChartsView.

Raw metrics, September 2026. Not opinions on whether the stock is cheap or expensive.

Metric	Value
Short interest (% of float)	5.08% of shares in issue across five disclosed positions as at 9 July 2026, the last date before the UK disclosure regime changed: Kintbury Capital 2.49%, Two Sigma Investments 1.00%, Capital Fund Management 0.59%, Janus Henderson Investors UK 0.50% and Jupiter Asset Management 0.50%.

7. What Are They Building

Finishing the merger. The £100m annual cost synergy target is confirmed and on track. Cumulative delivery reached £73m by the FY2026 year end, of which £53m landed in FY2026 alone, with the remaining £27m — mostly procurement — expected largely in FY2027 and tailing into the first half of FY2028. Divisional offices have been reduced from 41 to 32.

Multi-brand outlets. The revenue side of the merger case is a target of at least 45 additional sales outlets created by running two brands on land that previously supported one. Twelve opened in FY2026, 18 are planned for FY2027 and 15 for FY2028.

Shortening the land bank. Management is deliberately running the owned and controlled land bank down from 5.2 years to a medium-term target of 4.5 years, split 3.5 years owned and 1.0 year controlled, to release capital and lift return on capital employed. Land approvals in FY2026 fell to 3,029 plots across 27 sites, far below the 10,000 to 12,000 originally guided, and the land creditor ratio sits at 15.3% against a medium-term target of 20% to 25%.

Modern methods of construction. The group operates a timber frame manufacturing facility near Derby, expanded from the original Selkirk site acquired with Oregon Timber Frame. Timber frame was used on 5,558 FY2026 completions, and some form of modern method of construction featured in 35% of completions. A new engineered facade system branded Mauer, with lower embodied carbon than brick, is in trials.

Partnership development. The MADE Partnership with Homes England and Lloyds Banking Group targets more than 18,000 homes across six large sites, with the first, Godley Green Garden Village in Greater Manchester, expected to start on site in early 2027.

FY2027 guidance. Management guides to 17,500 to 17,900 total completions including around 600 from joint ventures, approximately 405 average sales outlets, build cost inflation of 3% to 4%, adjusted administrative expenses of around £360m, and year-end net cash falling to £400m to £500m as land creditor and legacy property cash commitments of roughly £630m to £800m unwind.

8. Competitive Landscape

Barratt Redrow is the largest listed UK housebuilder by both revenue and market capitalisation. Market capitalisations below were checked on 17 and 18 September 2026.

Peer	Key 2025 metric
Persimmon plc (PSN.L)	—
Berkeley Group Holdings plc (BKG.L)	—
Taylor Wimpey plc (TW.L)	—
Bellway plc (BWY.L)	—
Vistry Group plc (VTY.L)	—

The comparison that matters most is scale. Barratt Redrow's FY2026 revenue of £6,055.0m is roughly double that of the next largest listed peer, and its 17,667 completions give it purchasing power on materials and labour that smaller builders cannot match. Against that, the peer group trades on a wide spread of earnings multiples because each company is at a different point in its own margin cycle, and Vistry's depressed rating reflects company-specific problems in its partnerships division rather than a sector-wide read-across.

9. Insider Activity

Insider dealing at Barratt Redrow through 2026 has been consistently one-directional. Every disclosed transaction identified in London Stock Exchange director dealing notifications was a purchase, all by non-executive directors using their own money on the open market, and no disclosed executive or non-executive sale was identified. Group Chief Executive David Thomas, who steps down on 21 September 2026 after more than a decade in the role, made no disclosed open-market purchase or sale during the period reviewed; his successor Dean Banks had not yet joined the board.

Name	Date	Type	Shares	Plan Type
Katie Bickerstaffe	16 Sep 2026	Buy	6,526	Open-market purchase
Geeta Nanda	22 Jul 2026	Buy	1,701	Open-market purchase
Katie Bickerstaffe	15 Apr 2026	Buy	5,687	Open-market purchase
Katie Bickerstaffe	06 Mar 2026	Buy	5,789	Open-market purchase
Katie Bickerstaffe	06 Mar 2026	Buy	10,771	Open-market purchase, corrected by replacement notification dated 25 Aug 2026
Steven Boyes	01 Jul 2026	Vest	Not disclosed	Executive long-term incentive plan award granted July 2023, vesting on schedule; not an open-market transaction

Separately, the company itself has been a persistent buyer of its own stock. The £100m FY2026 programme completed on 8 May 2026 having repurchased 22.9m shares for £83.7m, and the £386m FY2027 programme launched on 15 July 2026 had repurchased 17.5m shares for £53.5m by 6 September 2026.

10. Key Risks

• Mortgage affordability and rate volatility: Management attributed second-half FY2026 softness to renewed inflation and interest rate concerns, and the net private reservation rate slipped to 0.53 per outlet per week in early FY2027 against 0.55 a year earlier. Housebuilder demand is a direct function of mortgage pricing, which the company does not control.
• Planning delays constraining volume: FY2027 completion guidance was cut specifically because of continued planning delays. Although the Planning and Infrastructure Act became law in December 2025 and a revised National Planning Policy Framework was published in August 2026, management states the benefits have yet to be realised on the ground.
• Building safety and legacy property liabilities: The combined provision was £1,074.5m at 28 June 2026, with £149.2m of additions in the year including £46.1m on a single previously provisioned building, and £153.8m of cash utilisation. Guided outflows of roughly £300m in FY2027 and £450m in FY2028 are a quantified drain on the net cash position, and the ultimate scope remains subject to structural survey and regulatory outcomes.
• Unresolved competition litigation: The Competition and Markets Authority closed its information-sharing investigation on 30 October 2025 with binding commitments and a collective £100m industry payment, of which Barratt Redrow's share was £29m. A follow-on collective damages claim was filed at the Competition Appeal Tribunal on 24 June 2026 against seven housebuilders including Barratt Redrow, and its quantum and outcome are unresolved.
• Margin and cost inflation pressure: Adjusted gross margin before purchase price allocation fell 210 basis points to 15.3% on weaker underlying pricing, higher sales incentives and build cost inflation. Build cost inflation is guided at 3% to 4% for FY2027, up from around 2% in FY2026, with explicit exposure to global energy and supply chain volatility.
• Land investment discipline cutting both ways: Land approvals of 3,029 plots in FY2026 were far below the 10,000 to 12,000 originally guided. Deliberate caution protects returns today, but if it persists it will constrain outlet replacement and medium-term volume.
• Reduced financial flexibility in FY2027: Year-end net cash is guided down to £400m to £500m from £772.8m as land creditor and legacy property commitments of roughly £630m in FY2027 and £645m in FY2028 fall due, which narrows the buffer that currently underpins the buyback.
• Leadership transition: A new Chief Financial Officer took office on 3 August 2026 and a new Group Chief Executive takes office on 21 September 2026, both external hires, in the same twelve months and during a fundamental change to capital allocation policy.

11. Recent Developments

• 16 Sep 2026 — FY2026 full-year results published. Revenue of £6,055.0m, up 6.6%, statutory profit before tax of £363.5m, adjusted profit before tax before purchase price allocation of £572.8m, net cash of £772.8m and 17,667 completions. The adjusted figure beat the company-compiled consensus of £559.5m and the shares rose sharply on the day.
• 25 Aug 2026 — Corrected director shareholding notification issued. A replacement regulatory notification corrected the share count on a 6 March 2026 purchase by non-executive director Katie Bickerstaffe.
• 03 Aug 2026 — Rebecca Napier joined as Chief Financial Officer. Previously Chief Financial Officer of Britvic plc and, before that, seventeen years at International Airlines Group including as Chief Financial Officer of British Airways, she succeeded Mike Scott.
• 30 Jul 2026 — Revolving credit facility increased and extended. The facility rose from £700m to £900m with a term to 30 July 2031 and provision for extension to 2033.
• 15 Jul 2026 — Capital allocation policy overhauled. A £400m FY2027 shareholder return was announced, comprising a roughly £386m buyback and a nominal 1.0p dividend, replacing the progressive ordinary dividend.
• 24 Jun 2026 — Competition Appeal Tribunal claim filed. A collective action was brought against seven housebuilders including Barratt Redrow alleging anti-competitive information exchange, following the CMA settlement of October 2025.
• 19 Jun 2026 — Chief Financial Officer appointment announced. The company confirmed Rebecca Napier's appointment ahead of her August start date.
• 15 Apr 2026 — Third-quarter FY2026 trading update. Land approval guidance was revised down to 7,000 to 9,000 plots from the original 10,000 to 12,000.
• 04 Mar 2026 — Chief executive succession announced. Dean Banks, formerly chief executive of Ventia Pty Ltd and before that of Balfour Beatty UK Construction Services, was named to succeed David Thomas from 21 September 2026, with Thomas remaining available to the company until 3 March 2027.
• 11 Feb 2026 — Half-year results for the 26 weeks to 28 December 2025. Revenue of £2,632.1m, 7,444 completions, adjusted profit before tax of £199.9m, basic earnings per share of 7.2p and an interim dividend of 5.0p.
• 30 Oct 2025 — CMA investigation formally closed. The Competition and Markets Authority accepted binding commitments from seven housebuilders including a collective £100m payment to affordable housing programmes, of which Barratt Redrow's share was £29m.
• 06 Oct 2025 — Redrow Staff Pension Scheme buy-out completed. Standard Life assumed the remaining liabilities, leaving the scheme with a small net surplus of £3.2m.

12. Key Dates to Watch

• 08 Oct 2026 — ex-dividend date for the nominal 1.0p FY2026 final dividend
• 28 Oct 2026 — UK Autumn Budget, alongside an Office for Budget Responsibility economic and fiscal forecast; housing taxation, stamp duty and planning measures are recurring swing factors for reservations
• 04 Nov 2026 — Annual General Meeting and trading update, confirmed in the FY2026 results announcement as the next scheduled company announcement
• 05 Nov 2026 — Bank of England Monetary Policy Committee decision, published with a Monetary Policy Report
• 13 Nov 2026 — payment date for the FY2026 final dividend
• 17 Dec 2026 — Bank of England Monetary Policy Committee decision
• Expected Feb 2027 — half-year results for the 26 weeks to late December 2026; the company has not yet published a confirmed date, and the prior-year interim was released on 11 February 2026
• Expected Sep 2027 — FY2027 full-year results, the first full year under the new chief executive

Scheduled Bank of England decisions and UK macroeconomic releases that move housebuilder sentiment are tracked on the ChartsView Economic Calendar, and readers can discuss the sector on the ChartsView Forum.

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Disclaimer: This research is produced by ChartsView for educational and informational purposes only. It does not constitute financial advice or a recommendation to buy or sell any security. All information is sourced from publicly available company filings, press releases, and official data. ChartsView does not use analyst opinions or third-party ratings. Always conduct your own due diligence and consider your personal financial situation before making investment decisions. Past performance is not indicative of future results.

Last Updated: 18 September 2026

Burberry Group plc is Britain's only genuinely global luxury house, built on a single product category — the gabardine trench coat — that it invented in the 1870s and still sells today. The investment question in September 2026 is narrower than it has been for years. Under chief executive Joshua Schulman, the FY2026 results published on 14 May 2026 showed the turnaround is real at the operating level: gross margin recovered 540 basis points to 67.9%, adjusted operating profit went from £26m to £160m, and comparable store sales returned to growth in every quarter after Q1. What has not recovered is the top line, which fell another 2% to £2,420m, or the capital return, which remains zero for a second consecutive year. This report sets out what the filings actually say, with no analyst price targets and no third-party ratings.

1. Company Snapshot

Field	Value
Legal name	Burberry Group plc
Listing	London Stock Exchange, ticker BRBY (BRBY.L), quoted in pence (GBX). ISIN GB0031743007. Unsponsored ADR trades OTC as BURBY
Revenue (FY2026, 52 weeks to 28 March 2026)	£2,420m, down 2% at reported rates and flat at constant exchange rates
Adjusted operating profit (FY2026)	£160m, margin 6.6%, up from £26m and 1.0% in FY2025
Reported operating profit (FY2026)	£115m, margin 4.8%, against a £3m loss in FY2025
Attributable profit (FY2026)	£21m, against a £75m loss in FY2025
CEO / Leadership	Joshua Schulman, Chief Executive Officer since 17 July 2024. CFO Catherine "Kate" Ferry. Chair Gerry Murphy, retiring with effect from the interim results on 12 November 2026; William Jackson, a non-executive director since 1 July 2026, succeeds him. Chief Creative Officer Daniel Lee
Employees	7,613 average full-time equivalent in FY2026, down 13% from 8,701 in FY2025. EMEIA 3,774; Greater China 1,600; Americas 1,194; Asia Pacific 1,045
Store estate	410 directly operated stores at 28 March 2026 (222 retail, 134 concessions, 54 outlets) plus 27 franchise. 413 directly operated plus 27 franchise at 27 June 2026
Dividend	Nil for FY2026 and nil for FY2025. Directors elected not to declare an interim or final dividend. No share buyback programme was undertaken in either year
Fiscal year end	Late March or early April. FY2026 was the 52 weeks to 28 March 2026. FY2022 was a 53-week year
Registered office	Horseferry House, Horseferry Road, London SW1P 2AW. Registered number 03458224

Every figure above is taken from Burberry's own FY2026 preliminary results press release of 14 May 2026, the Annual Report 2025/26 published 28 May 2026, the Q1 FY2027 trading update of 17 July 2026, or London Stock Exchange market data. No aggregator has been used as a primary source for any financial figure.

2. Bull and Bear Case

Bull Case

• The margin recovery is documented, not promised: gross margin went from 62.5% to 67.9% in a single year, and adjusted operating profit multiplied roughly sixfold from £26m to £160m. That came from mix and inventory discipline rather than price inflation, and £80m of the £100m annualised cost savings target was already banked in FY2026.
• Comparable sales have turned and kept turning: group comparable store sales ran minus 1%, plus 2%, plus 3% then plus 5% through the four quarters of FY2026, and plus 5% again in Q1 FY2027. Greater China moved from a 2025 collapse to plus 9% in the June 2026 quarter and the Americas to plus 12%.
• Balance sheet is stronger than the headline suggests: the £852m net debt figure is almost entirely IFRS 16 lease liabilities of £955m. Strip leases out and Burberry holds net cash of roughly £103m, with the £300m sustainability bond repaid in September 2025 and leverage down from 2.3x to 1.6x adjusted EBITDA.
• Category authority is being rebuilt from the strongest position: outerwear outperformed in every region in FY2026 and scarves outperformed all year, both up double digit in the second half. Product architecture is following, with 200 scarf bars in FY2026 and 97 polo galleries live by Father's Day 2026.

Bear Case

• Revenue is still shrinking: FY2026 revenue of £2,420m is 22% below the £3,094m peak of FY2023 and fell again year on year. Two of the four product divisions, Menswear and Childrenswear, declined at constant currency. A margin story without a revenue story eventually runs out of cost to cut.
• Nothing is being returned to shareholders: two consecutive years of zero dividend and zero buyback, against £959m of buybacks across FY2022 to FY2024 and 61.0p per share of dividends in both FY2023 and FY2024. Capital is going to deleveraging and reinvestment, and management has set no date for resumption.
• The valuation already discounts a recovery that has not arrived: at 1,016.50p the shares sit on 172x trailing GAAP earnings and roughly 67x trailing adjusted earnings. Even on the company's own compiled consensus for FY2027 the multiple is about 26x, which is a growth multiple on a business with flat revenue.
• Scale disadvantage against the sector is structural: at £3.64bn Burberry is roughly one fifty-fifth the size of LVMH and one eighth the size of Kering. It lacks a jewellery or hard-luxury engine of the kind carrying Richemont, and cannot spread marketing, retail and sourcing costs over a comparable revenue base.
• Demand backdrop is softening again: Bain and Altagamma put personal luxury goods at €358bn in 2025, down from €364bn in 2024, with a 2026 base case of only plus 2% to plus 4%. LVMH's market capitalisation fell out of Europe's top ten most valuable stocks in September 2026 for the first time since 2017, and Japan turned negative for Burberry in Q1 FY2027 as inbound Chinese tourism declined.

3. Revenue Segments

Burberry reports two operating segments, Retail and Wholesale combined, and Licensing. Within the retail and wholesale segment it discloses four product divisions and four geographic regions. The table below uses the channel split as a share of total group revenue of £2,420m in FY2026.

Segment / category	% of revenue	What it is
Retail	85.0% (£2,056m)	Directly operated stores, concessions, outlets and e-commerce. Down 1% reported and up 1% at constant currency, with comparable store sales up 2% and space down 1%. E-commerce sales grew high teens in FY2026
Wholesale	12.5% (£303m)	Sales to department stores, specialist retailers, franchise partners and travel retail. Down 5% reported and 4% at constant currency for the year, but the second half returned to growth of 3% at constant currency
Licensing	2.5% (£61m)	Royalties from eyewear, fragrance and beauty licensees, and the Japanese licence. Adjusted operating profit of £57m on £61m of revenue, a 93.2% operating margin, so this tiny line delivers more profit than the entire retail and wholesale business

Revenue by product division, as a share of the £2,359m retail and wholesale total:

Product division	FY2026 revenue	% of retail/wholesale	Change at constant currency
Accessories	£837m	35.5%	Up 2%
Womenswear	£728m	30.9%	Up 4%
Menswear	£701m	29.7%	Down 2%
Childrenswear and other	£93m	3.9%	Down 7%

Burberry does not disclose footwear as a separate division, and does not split ready-to-wear out of Womenswear or Menswear. Revenue by region, again as a share of the £2,359m retail and wholesale total:

Region	FY2026 revenue	% of retail/wholesale	Change at constant currency
EMEIA	£821m	34.8%	Down 4%
Greater China	£670m	28.4%	Up 5%
Americas	£505m	21.4%	Up 4%
Asia Pacific	£363m	15.4%	Flat

From 30 March 2025 the former Asia Pacific region was split into Greater China (mainland China, Hong Kong SAR, Macau SAR and Taiwan Area) and Asia Pacific (the rest of Asia including Japan, South Korea, Southeast Asia, Australia and New Zealand). Comparatives have been restated, so regional figures before FY2025 are not directly comparable to older filings.

4. Business Model and Moat

How it makes money. Burberry designs, sources and sells luxury apparel and accessories, and takes the retail margin itself on 85% of revenue through 410 directly operated stores and its own e-commerce. It manufactures its trench coats in Castleford, Yorkshire, and licenses its name to third parties for eyewear, fragrance and beauty, collecting royalty income at a 93.2% operating margin. The economics are therefore those of a vertically integrated specialty retailer with a licensing annuity bolted on, not those of a wholesale brand.

Unit economics. Adjusted net operating expenses of £1,483m consumed 61.3% of sales, leaving a 6.6% adjusted operating margin. The gap between those two numbers is the whole investment case: operating costs are largely fixed store rents, store payroll and marketing, so each incremental pound of comparable sales drops through at a high rate, and each pound lost does the reverse. That is why revenue fell 17% in FY2025 and adjusted operating profit fell 94%.

The moat, such as it is. Burberry's durable asset is category ownership rather than scale. It invented gabardine and the trench coat, holds the check as a registered trademark, and in outerwear and scarves it has genuine pricing authority that survived the brand's repositioning wobble. The 2026 financial year marked the company's 170th anniversary, and the Victoria and Albert Museum is mounting a free display devoted to the trench coat from 21 September 2026. That heritage is not replicable by a competitor with more money.

Where the moat is thin. Outside outerwear and scarves, Burberry competes in leather goods and ready-to-wear against houses with several times its marketing budget, and its attempt to push price architecture upward under the previous management destroyed roughly a fifth of its revenue base. The current strategy explicitly retreats from that: management describes the product and pricing approach as "delivering value for money in a luxury context" across good, better and best price tiers. That is a sounder commercial position but a weaker moat, because it puts Burberry closer to the accessible-luxury field where Tapestry and Capri operate.

Capital allocation. Cash is going to the balance sheet and to reinvestment, not to shareholders. FY2026 capital expenditure was £113m with roughly £120m guided for FY2027, restructuring cost £45m, and the £300m sustainability-linked bond was repaid in full on 22 September 2025. Adjusted group return on invested capital recovered to 5.5% from 1.0%, but remains far below the 24.6% to 28.6% achieved in FY2022 and FY2023.

5. Financial Health

All figures below come from Burberry's own audited five-year financial summary, its FY2026 preliminary results press release and its FY2026 interim results press release. Burberry reports half-years rather than quarters; the Q1 and Q3 trading updates disclose retail revenue only, with no profit or wholesale figures.

Fiscal Year	Revenue (£m)	YoY %	GAAP EPS	Adjusted EPS	Dividend/share	Long-term debt (YE)
FY2022	£2,826m	n/m †	97.7p	94.0p	47.0p	£298m
FY2023	£3,094m	+9.5%	126.3p	122.5p	61.0p	£298m
FY2024	£2,968m	-4.1%	73.9p	73.9p	61.0p	£299m
FY2025	£2,461m	-17.1%	(20.9)p	(14.8)p	Nil	£738m
FY2026	£2,420m	-1.7%	5.9p	15.2p	Nil	£511m

† FY2022 was a 53-week year and Burberry's five-year summary does not carry the FY2021 revenue comparative, so a like-for-like reported growth rate for FY2022 is not stated here rather than estimated. Burberry's own constant-currency total revenue growth key performance indicator for the same five years was plus 23%, plus 5%, flat, minus 15% and flat. EPS figures are diluted. The long-term debt column is year-end borrowings and excludes IFRS 16 lease liabilities, which were £1,058m, £1,123m, £1,188m, £1,081m and £955m across the same five years. The FY2025 spike to £738m reflects £438m of non-current borrowings plus the £300m sustainability-linked bond then sitting in current liabilities; that bond was repaid on 22 September 2025, leaving £511m all non-current at FY2026.

Quarter / Half	Revenue	Adjusted EPS	GAAP EPS
Q1 FY2027 (13 weeks to 27 June 2026)	£455m retail revenue only	Not disclosed in trading updates	Not disclosed in trading updates
H2 FY2026 (26 weeks to 28 March 2026)	£1,388m ‡	14.6p ‡	13.0p ‡
H1 FY2026 (26 weeks to 27 September 2025)	£1,032m	0.6p	(7.1)p
FY2026 total (52 weeks to 28 March 2026)	£2,420m	15.2p	5.9p

‡ The second-half row is derived by subtracting the reported first half from the reported full year, because Burberry publishes half-year and full-year statements but not a standalone second-half statement. H1 FY2026 revenue of £1,032m was down 5% and carried an adjusted operating profit of £19m at a 1.9% margin, against a £41m loss a year earlier. The implied second half therefore produced £141m of the full year's £160m adjusted operating profit on £1,388m of revenue, a 10.2% margin. Q1 FY2027 retail revenue of £455m was up 5% reported and 4% at constant currency, with comparable retail sales up 5%.

Cash flow and balance sheet at 28 March 2026. Cash generated from operating activities was £582m, up from £526m. Capital expenditure was £113m, down from £151m. Depreciation and amortisation was £375m, heavily inflated by IFRS 16 lease depreciation against right-of-use assets of £748m. Burberry's own free cash flow measure, which additionally deducts £230m of lease principal payments, £53m of interest and £45m of tax, was £141m against £65m. Cash and cash equivalents were £671m with £57m of bank overdrafts, giving £614m net of overdrafts. Borrowings were £511m, all non-current, comprising the 5.75% £450m bond maturing June 2030 at a £436m carrying value plus £75m drawn on a revolving credit facility maturing March 2028; a separate £300m revolving facility is undrawn. Total lease liabilities were £955m. Management reports net debt of £852m including leases, down from £1,111m, or 1.6x adjusted EBITDA from 2.3x. Excluding leases the company holds net cash of roughly £103m. Total equity was £946m and inventories £401m, with gross finished-goods inventory down 13%.

6. Valuation Metrics

Share prices, and figures worked out from them, are not shown for London-listed companies on ChartsView.

Raw metrics, September 2026. Not opinions on whether the stock is cheap or expensive.

Metric	Value
Net debt / adjusted EBITDA	1.6x including lease liabilities, down from 2.3x at FY2025
Short interest (% of float)	3.48% of issued share capital in disclosed open short positions per London Stock Exchange data: Kintbury Capital 1.44% (last changed 14 April 2026), Citadel Advisors LLC 0.69% (6 July 2026), D. E. Shaw 0.69% (30 June 2026) and Citadel Advisors Europe 0.66% (7 July 2026). Three of the four have been reducing, and Marshall Wace exited the disclosed list in July 2026. The UK regime only captures positions above 0.5%, so 3.48% is a floor, not the total

7. What Are They Building

Burberry Forward is the transformation programme Joshua Schulman initiated in FY2025, and FY2026 was its first year of visible output. The cost element is nearly finished: £80m of annualised operating expense savings landed in FY2026 against a £100m target by FY2027, and the restructuring charge is guided to fall from £45m to roughly £5m in FY2027. Average full-time-equivalent headcount fell 13% to 7,613. Balance-sheet restructuring provisions fell to £19m from £27m. In other words the reorganisation is essentially complete and FY2027 earnings should no longer carry a material adjusting charge.

The commercial build is where the remaining work sits. Management's stated approach is to assert authority in the categories Burberry demonstrably owns and then extend outward. Outerwear and scarves were both up double digit in the second half of FY2026, and the company is converting that into physical retail architecture: 200 scarf bars were installed in FY2026, and polo galleries and dedicated trench destinations are rolling out in FY2027, with 97 polo galleries live by Father's Day 2026. The store estate stopped shrinking in the June 2026 quarter, moving from 410 directly operated stores at year end to 413.

Digital and customer recruitment are the second workstream. E-commerce grew high teens in FY2026 and mid-teens in Q1 FY2027 on an improved site experience. Gen-Z customers grew double digit in the June quarter, and the "Portraits of an Icon" campaign drove a 19% increase in new rainwear customers. Q1 FY2027 was the first quarter in three years with simultaneous growth across womenswear, menswear, accessories and childrenswear, which is the clearest single indicator that the repositioning has stopped alienating the existing customer base.

Brand investment is being timed around the 170th anniversary. The autumn 2026 campaign, "Heads Back to the City", is built around the London commute and narrated by a real transport announcer. The Victoria and Albert Museum opens a free trench-coat display on 21 September 2026 running to 3 January 2027, and Daniel Lee shows the Spring/Summer 2027 collection on the closing evening of London Fashion Week on the same date. One item to note on the sustainability side: Burberry approved its first Climate Transition Plan during FY2026 but extended its net zero target from FY2039/40 to FY2049/50, a material softening.

8. Competitive Landscape

Reporting periods across the luxury sector are not aligned, so absolute revenue figures are not comparable without normalising. LVMH, Kering, Prada, Moncler and Hugo Boss report calendar half-years; Richemont and Capri report a single quarter to 30 June 2026; Tapestry reports a full year to 27 June 2026; Burberry's FY2026 ended 28 March 2026. Market capitalisations below were re-checked in mid-September 2026.

Peer	Key 2025/2026 metric
LVMH (EPA: MC)	H1 2026 revenue €38.6bn with profit from recurring operations of €8.7bn at a 22.5% margin; Q2 organic revenue up 3% but Fashion & Leather Goods down 1% organic at €18.1bn. Bloomberg reported on 15 September 2026 that LVMH had dropped out of Europe's ten most valuable stocks for the first time since 2017
Richemont (SWX: CFR)	Q1 FY2027, the three months to 30 June 2026, sales of €6.329bn, up 20% at constant rates. Jewellery Maisons up 24% at constant rates, a seventh consecutive double-digit quarter; Specialist Watchmakers up 8%
Kering (EPA: KER)	H1 2026 revenue €7.2bn, up 1% comparable and down 3% reported, with recurring operating income of €921m at a 12.8% margin. This was the first return to comparable growth after twelve consecutive declining quarters
Tapestry (NYSE: TPR)	Fiscal 2026 to 27 June 2026: record revenue of US$8.0bn, up 14%, with direct-to-consumer up 16%, roughly 11.0m new customers of whom about 35% were Gen Z, and US$1.7bn returned to shareholders
Prada (HKG: 1913)	H1 2026 net revenues €3.04bn, up 16% reported but only 5% organic at constant currency, with EBIT of €523m down from €607m. The reported-versus-organic gap is the Versace acquisition from Capri for €1.25bn, completed December 2025
Moncler (BIT: MONC)	H1 2026 revenues €1,289.9m, up 9% at constant currency, with EBIT of €245.4m at a 19.0% margin and net profit of €164.7m. Shares hit a three-year low of €43.46 in mid-September 2026
Hugo Boss (ETR: BOSS)	Being taken over by Frasers Group, which launched a €38.00 per share cash offer on 10 June 2026 for the shares it did not already own, valuing them at €1.978bn; the offer became unconditional after European Commission clearance in late July 2026. H1 2026 EBIT €94m at a 5.2% margin, with group sales down 8% currency-adjusted. Frasers Group is separately a Burberry shareholder
Capri Holdings (NYSE: CPRI)	Q1 fiscal 2027, the quarter to late June 2026: revenue US$769m, down 3.5%, with income from operations of US$17m at a 2.2% margin and adjusted EPS of US$0.67. Gross margin improved 200 basis points to 65.0%

Bain and Altagamma, presenting in Milan on 25 June 2026, put total global luxury spending at €1,443bn in 2025 with a 2026 forecast of flat to plus 2% at constant rates. The personal luxury goods segment that matters to Burberry was €358bn in 2025, down from €364bn in 2024, with a 2026 base case of plus 2% to plus 4% to reach €365bn to €373bn. Under-35 consumers are spending roughly four percentage points faster than older cohorts. Burberry does not appear in Modaes' June 2026 ranking of the ten largest luxury groups by FY2025 revenue, which runs LVMH, Richemont, Chanel, Hermès, Kering, Chow Tai Fook, Ralph Lauren, Tapestry, Prada and Hugo Boss. Company-level market share percentages for 2026 are not published by Bain or Altagamma and are not estimated here.

9. Leadership and Insider Activity

Joshua Schulman has been chief executive since 17 July 2024, on a service agreement dated 14 July 2024 with twelve months' notice. Catherine "Kate" Ferry is chief financial officer and Daniel Lee is chief creative officer. Gerry Murphy, who joined the board in May 2018, will retire as chair with effect from the interim results on 12 November 2026, near the end of his nine-year tenure; William Jackson, founder and former chief executive and chair of Bridgepoint Group and previously chair of Pret a Manger and MotoGP, joined the board as a non-executive director on 1 July 2026 and stood for election at the annual general meeting on 15 July 2026. Orna NiChionna is senior independent director and led the chair succession search. Alexander Lacik, the former Pandora chief executive, joined as an independent non-executive director on 1 September 2026.

Calendar 2026 director dealings are dominated by open-market buying rather than selling. The only disposal was a mandatory sale to fund tax on a vesting award.

Name	Date	Type	Shares	Plan Type
Joshua Schulman, Chief Executive Officer	25 Jun 2026	Open-market purchase	56,936	Own funds, no plan
Catherine Ferry, Chief Financial Officer	25 Jun 2026	Open-market purchase	32,026	Own funds, no plan
Stella King, Non-Executive Director	20 Mar 2026	Open-market purchase	608	Own funds, no plan
Catherine Ferry, Chief Financial Officer	27 Jul 2026	Acquisition on vesting	39,198	Burberry Share Plan 2020, conditional award granted 27 Jul 2023; committee scaled vesting back by 20% and the unvested portion lapsed
Catherine Ferry, Chief Financial Officer	27 Jul 2026	Sale to fund tax and fees	18,479	Mandatory tax sale on vesting; 20,719 shares retained under a two-year holding period
Joshua Schulman, Chief Executive Officer	30 Jul 2026	Grant of conditional awards	488,035 (325,357 PSP + 162,678 RSP)	Burberry Share Plan 2020 under the remuneration policy approved 15 Jul 2026; vests 30 Jul 2029 then a two-year holding period
Catherine Ferry, Chief Financial Officer	30 Jul 2026	Grant of conditional awards	198,263 (106,757 PSP + 91,506 RSP)	Burberry Share Plan 2020; vests 30 Jul 2029 then a two-year holding period

Burberry also operates an all-employee Sharesave scheme in seventeen countries, a Free Share Plan and a UK Share Incentive Plan. There has been no director or PDMR dealing announcement since 30 July 2026. On ownership, BlackRock fell below the 5% notification threshold on 27 August 2026, reporting total exposure of 18,025,307 shares and instruments, of which 16,677,771 were voting rights in shares equal to 4.61%.

10. Key Risks

• Revenue stabilisation risk: FY2026 revenue was flat at constant currency and still 22% below the FY2023 peak. Comparable sales momentum has been positive for five consecutive quarters, but the Q1 FY2027 print was exactly in line rather than ahead.
• Greater China concentration: Greater China is 28.4% of retail and wholesale revenue and the region that swung most violently, from a collapse in FY2025 to plus 9% comparable in Q1 FY2027. Business of Fashion coverage in September 2026 flagged a renewed slowdown in Chinese luxury spending and the risk of "another false dawn". A second China downturn would hit Burberry harder than more diversified peers.
• Operating leverage cuts both ways: with 67.9% gross margin and 61.3% of sales absorbed by largely fixed operating costs, small revenue moves produce large profit moves. FY2025 demonstrated the downside: a 17% revenue decline took adjusted operating profit down 94%. The cost programme has removed £80m of the £100m target, so there is limited further cushion.
• No capital return and no stated timetable: two consecutive years of zero dividend and zero buyback, with the FY2026 annual report confirming no buyback programme was undertaken and capital directed to deleveraging. Income and index funds that require a distribution cannot hold the stock, and management has given no condition or date for resumption.
• Tourism and currency exposure: Japan turned negative in Q1 FY2027 specifically because inbound Chinese tourism declined, and EMEIA fell 3% with the Middle East the only support. Currency moved from a guided headwind to a roughly £20m revenue tailwind between 1 May and 26 June 2026 spot rates, which illustrates how much of the reported result is translation rather than trading. FX was a £6m headwind to FY2026 adjusted operating profit.
• Brand and creative execution: the current strategy deliberately repositions Burberry toward value for money across good, better and best price tiers, which is commercially sensible but narrows the gap to accessible-luxury competitors. Daniel Lee's Spring/Summer 2027 collection had not been shown at the date of this report. A poorly received collection or a second repositioning would reset the recovery.
• Tax and adjusting-item noise: the FY2026 reported effective tax rate was 58.5% and the adjusted rate 42.5%, against FY2027 guidance of 27% to 30%. Reported profit of £21m is small enough that modest movements in restructuring charges or tax outcomes swing GAAP earnings by large percentages, which is why the trailing GAAP multiple of 172x carries little information.

11. Recent Developments

• 1 Sep 2026 — Alexander Lacik joined the board as an independent non-executive director. The former Pandora chief executive also joined the nomination committee. The appointment had been announced on 30 July 2026.
• 1 Sep 2026 — Total voting rights confirmed at 361,010,620. This is the most recent Burberry regulatory announcement of any kind.
• 28 Aug 2026 — BlackRock fell below the 5% notification threshold. The threshold was crossed on 27 August. BlackRock reported 16,677,771 voting rights in shares equal to 4.61%, plus 0.09% via instruments and 0.27% via cash-settled contracts for difference, for total exposure of 18,025,307.
• Aug 2026 — Autumn campaign and Burberry Beauty expansion. The "Heads Back to the City" campaign launched around 4 August, built on the London commute and trench-led. Burberry Beauty opened a standalone fragrance and make-up destination inside Shinsegae South City in Seoul.
• 30 Jul 2026 — Performance and restricted share awards granted to the chief executive and chief financial officer. Awards vest on 30 July 2029.
• 17 Jul 2026 — Q1 FY2027 trading update beat on breadth rather than magnitude. Retail revenue of £455m was up 5% reported and comparable retail sales up 5%. The Americas grew 12% and Greater China 9%, while EMEIA fell 3% and Japan fell 2%. It was the first quarter in three years with growth across womenswear, menswear, accessories and childrenswear simultaneously, and wholesale guidance for the first half was raised from mid-single-digit to high-single-digit growth.
• 14 May 2026 — FY2026 preliminary results and chair succession. Revenue of £2,420m with adjusted operating profit up from £26m to £160m, free cash flow up 120% to £141m, and no dividend for a second year. Alongside the results the company announced that Gerry Murphy would retire as chair from the November 2026 interim results.

12. Key Dates to Watch

• 21 Sep 2026 — Daniel Lee shows the Spring/Summer 2027 collection at 7:00pm on the closing day of London Fashion Week
• 21 Sep 2026 — "The Burberry Trench: Crafting an Icon" opens as a free display at the Victoria and Albert Museum, South Kensington, running to 3 January 2027 and marking the company's 170th anniversary
• 12 Nov 2026 — H1 FY2027 interim results at 07:00 UK time, covering the 26 weeks ending 26 September 2026. Gerry Murphy retires as chair with effect from this date and William Jackson succeeds him
• Expected Jan 2027 — Q3 FY2027 trading update. Burberry has historically reported the third quarter in mid-to-late January but has not yet published the date; only 12 November 2026 currently appears on its financial calendar
• Expected May 2027 — FY2027 preliminary results, historically mid-May. Date not yet published
• TBC — Any resumption of the dividend or a buyback. No dividend has been declared for FY2025 or FY2026, there are no ex-dividend or payment dates in the calendar, and management has set no condition or timetable for restarting distributions

Macro releases that move the luxury sector, principally Chinese retail sales and European consumer confidence, are tracked on our Economic Calendar. Discussion of this report and other UK large-caps is open on the ChartsView Forum.

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Disclaimer: This research is produced by ChartsView for educational and informational purposes only. It does not constitute financial advice or a recommendation to buy or sell any security. All information is sourced from publicly available company filings, press releases, and official data. ChartsView does not use analyst opinions or third-party ratings. Always conduct your own due diligence and consider your personal financial situation before making investment decisions. Past performance is not indicative of future results.

Last Updated: 18 September 2026

Openreach, the regulated national access network, generated 31.5% of group revenue in FY2026 but 51.3% of group adjusted EBITDA, and was the only division growing both. Everything else — Consumer, Business and the international arm now being folded into a joint venture with Verizon — is managing decline, defending market share and cutting cost. The FY2026 results published on 21 May 2026 met or beat every guidance metric, but reported revenue still fell 3% to £19,654m and net debt edged up to £19,966m. The investment question is whether the capital expenditure cliff after the full-fibre build completes converts into the roughly £3.0bn of normalised free cash flow management has promised by the end of the decade, from £1,508m in FY2026. This report sets out what the filings say, with no analyst price targets and no third-party ratings.

1. Company Snapshot

Field	Value
Legal name	BT Group plc. Registered office 1 Braham Street, London E1 8EE. Registered in England and Wales number 4190816
Listing	London Stock Exchange, ticker BT.A (BT-A.L), quoted in pence (GBX). Unsponsored ADR trades OTC as BTGOF; the NYSE listing was cancelled in 2019
Revenue (FY2026, year to 31 March 2026)	£19,654m reported, down 3%. Adjusted revenue £19,646m, down 4%. Adjusted UK service revenue £15,445m, down 1%
Adjusted EBITDA (FY2026)	£8,230m, flat year on year and up roughly 1% on a like-for-like basis excluding divestments. Within the £8.2bn to £8.3bn guided range
Reported operating profit (FY2026)	£2,897m, up 16%. Profit before tax £1,436m, up 8%. Profit after tax £1,077m, up 2%
CEO / Leadership	Allison Kirkby, Chief Executive since February 2024. CFO Patricia Cobian, previously CFO of Virgin Media O2, who joined the board as an executive director on 20 July 2026 succeeding Simon Lowth. Chairman Adam Crozier, in post since December 2021, who also became Experian's chairman in July 2026 while retaining the BT role. Openreach CEO Katie Milligan since 1 April 2026
Employees	79,390 at 31 March 2026, down from 87,772 in FY2025 and 94,135 in FY2024. Full-time equivalent 77,152. UK 61,131 and non-UK 18,259. BT's wider total labour resource measure, which includes third-party non-employees, fell 7% to below 108,000 in FY2026 and to 94,000 excluding International by Q1 FY2027
Dividend	8.32p for FY2026, up 2%, comprising a 2.45p interim paid 11 February 2026 and a 5.87p final paid 9 September 2026. New policy from FY2027: grow the dividend by a low-to-mid single-digit percentage a year until metrics consistent with a BBB+ credit rating are reached
Net debt	£19,966m at 31 March 2026, up 1%. Net financial debt excluding lease liabilities £15.8bn. The IAS 19 gross pension deficit of £4.2bn sits outside this figure
Fiscal year end	31 March. FY2026 was the year to 31 March 2026

Every figure above comes from BT's own FY2026 results release of 21 May 2026, its Annual Report 2026, its Responsible Business Addendum 2026, its Q1 FY2027 trading update of 23 July 2026, its own published analyst consensus of 28 August 2026, BT regulatory announcements, or London Stock Exchange market data. No aggregator has been used as a primary source for any BT financial figure.

2. Bull and Bear Case

Bull Case

• The capital expenditure cliff is real and dated: FY2026 capital expenditure excluding spectrum was £5,114m against FY2027 guidance of roughly £4.3bn and a mid-term commitment to cut more than £1bn from the FY2026 level. Openreach reaches its 25 million premises full-fibre target by the end of December 2026. Normalised free cash flow is guided from £1,508m in FY2026 to roughly £2.0bn in FY2027 and roughly £3.0bn by the end of the decade.
• Openreach is a growing regulated monopoly-adjacent asset: adjusted revenue up 1% to £6,190m and adjusted EBITDA up 5% to £4,225m in FY2026, with broadband average revenue per user up 4% to £16.7 and up 7% to £17.7 by Q1 FY2027. The full-fibre footprint reached 23.4m premises with 9.4m connected and a 40% take-up rate, the highest of any major UK fibre provider.
• Cost transformation has been raised, not missed: £580m of gross annualised savings in FY2026 at a £336m cost to achieve, and £1.5bn cumulative over two years. The overall programme was increased from £3.0bn to £3.7bn and extended a year to FY2030. Total labour resource fell 7% and Openreach repair volumes 18% in FY2026, then 21% in Q1 FY2027.
• The Verizon joint venture removes a loss-making drag: the 50:50 international enterprise joint venture announced 29 June 2026 combines roughly US$4bn of annual revenue across 3,000 customers in more than 180 countries, with Verizon paying BT a US$625m equalisation payment. International contributed £2,114m of adjusted revenue in FY2026 but only £145m of EBITDA and minus £117m of normalised free cash flow.

Bear Case

• Revenue has not grown in five years: reported revenue was £20,850m in FY2022 and £19,654m in FY2026. BT's own published consensus has FY2030 revenue of £17,336m against FY2027's £17,374m on a continuing basis, which is five more years of flat-to-down. Cost cuts and capital expenditure reduction, not growth, are doing all the work in the cash flow story.
• Consensus does not believe the £3bn target: BT's own compiled analyst consensus of 28 August 2026 has normalised free cash flow at £2,606m in FY2030 against management's roughly £3.0bn. That gap of roughly £400m is the single most important disagreement in the story, and it is published by the company itself.
• Total obligations are far larger than net debt suggests: reported net debt of £19,966m already includes £4,184m of lease liabilities but excludes the IAS 19 gross pension deficit of £4.2bn, which rose from £4.1bn. On an all-in basis the obligation is closer to £24bn against a £20.52bn market capitalisation. FY2026 pension deficit payments alone were £790m, and the 2026 triennial valuation has not been published.
• Openreach is losing broadband lines and regulation is live: FY2026 line losses were 825,000 with roughly 800,000 guided for FY2027 and 794,000 in consensus. The Telecoms Access Review 2026 to 2031 retained geographically differentiated regulation and extended the nominal price cap to speeds up to 80Mbps from 40Mbps, and Ofcom is separately reviewing four new Openreach wholesale pricing offers proposed for 1 October 2026.
• Consumer is nearly half of revenue and barely growing: Consumer adjusted revenue fell 2% to £9,494m in FY2026 with EBITDA down 2%, broadband average revenue per user down 1% to £41.7 and mobile down 1% to £19.3. Q1 FY2027 added just 1,000 broadband and 13,000 postpaid mobile customers. Against VodafoneThree and Virgin Media O2, pricing power is limited.

3. Revenue Segments

BT reorganised its reporting twice in short order. A new International customer-facing unit was carved out of Business during FY2026 and FY2025 comparatives were restated; the old Global segment no longer exists. From Q1 FY2027 International is classified as a discontinued operation ahead of the Verizon joint venture, and the continuing segments are Consumer, Business, Openreach and Other. The percentages below are of group adjusted revenue of £19,646m for FY2026, and sum to more than 100% because divisional revenue includes intra-group sales that are then eliminated.

Segment / division	% of revenue	What it is
Consumer	48.3% (£9,494m)	EE, BT and Plusnet retail broadband, mobile, TV and landline to UK households. Revenue down 2%, adjusted EBITDA down 2% to £2,602m, so 48.3% of revenue produces 31.6% of EBITDA. Normalised free cash flow of £1,273m, up 24%, was the group's largest divisional contribution
Openreach	31.5% (£6,190m)	The regulated national access network, selling wholesale fibre and copper lines to all UK retail providers including BT's own Consumer and Business units. Revenue up 1%, adjusted EBITDA up 5% to £4,225m, adjusted operating profit up 5% to £2,095m. This is 31.5% of revenue but 51.3% of group EBITDA and the only division growing both lines
Business	26.8% (£5,257m)	UK corporate, public sector and small-business connectivity, networking and IT services. Revenue down 2% and adjusted EBITDA down 5% to £1,266m, with adjusted operating profit down 19% to £496m. The weakest division on profit trend
International	10.8% (£2,114m)	Multinational customers headquartered outside the UK. Revenue down 15% after five non-core disposals during FY2026, adjusted EBITDA down 29% to £145m and normalised free cash flow of minus £117m. Reported as a discontinued operation from Q1 FY2027 pending the Verizon joint venture
Other and intra-group elimination	-17.3% (£13m less £3,422m)	Central items of £13m revenue, plus the £3,422m elimination of sales between divisions, principally Openreach billing BT Consumer and BT Business for access lines. Other carried minus £970m of normalised free cash flow, reflecting group interest, tax and pension payments

Adjusted UK service revenue, BT's preferred growth measure because it strips out low-margin equipment sales, was £15,445m in FY2026, down 1%: Consumer £7,853m flat, Business £4,803m down 1%, Openreach £6,190m up 1%, Other £12m, less £3,413m of intra-group items. Segment depreciation and amortisation was Openreach £2,130m, Consumer £1,673m, Business £770m, International £208m and Other £94m, totalling £4,875m before specific items.

4. Business Model and Moat

How it makes money. BT sells connectivity twice. Openreach charges every UK retail internet provider a regulated monthly rental for the line into each premises, including BT's own retail arms, generating £6,190m of revenue at a 68% EBITDA margin. Consumer and Business then buy those lines, add mobile spectrum, television content, routers and service, and resell the bundle to end customers at a much lower margin. Roughly £3.4bn of group revenue is BT billing itself and is eliminated on consolidation.

Unit economics. Group adjusted EBITDA margin was 41.9% in FY2026, but the divisional spread is extreme: Openreach at 68.3%, Consumer at 27.4% and Business at 24.1%. Openreach's economics improve as customers migrate from copper to full fibre because average revenue per user rises, at £16.7 for FY2026 and £17.7 by Q1 FY2027, while repair costs fall, with volumes down 18% in FY2026 and 21% in Q1 FY2027. That is the core operating thesis: fibre is a higher-price, lower-cost product than copper once it is built.

The moat. Openreach's network reaches essentially every UK premises and its full-fibre footprint passed 23.4m premises by June 2026, more than two thirds of the country, including 6.3m rural premises that competitors have limited incentive to serve. Replicating that would cost tens of billions and take a decade. Openreach also holds a 40% take-up rate on its fibre footprint, the highest among major UK providers, which matters because fibre economics are driven by penetration per premises passed rather than premises built.

Where the moat is capped. The same regulation that protects Openreach's position also limits what it can earn from it. Ofcom's Telecoms Access Review 2026 to 2031 retains geographically differentiated wholesale controls, splitting the country into Area 2, covering 86% of premises with lighter-touch regulation, and Area 3, covering 14% with stronger controls, and extends the nominal price cap on charges to retail providers to download speeds up to 80Mbps. Openreach must also continue offering physical infrastructure access to every competing network operator under a strict anti-discrimination obligation, which is how altnets have built at all. BT does not get to price like a monopoly.

Capital allocation. FY2026 capital expenditure of £5,127m exceeded adjusted EBITDA less interest and tax, which is why normalised free cash flow was only £1,508m on £7,030m of operating cash inflow. Dividends cost £807m, interest £1,028m, lease payments £731m and pension deficit contributions £790m. The entire equity story rests on capital expenditure falling by more than £1bn once the build completes while EBITDA holds, and on the new dividend policy of low-to-mid single-digit growth until a BBB+ rating is reached, after which residual cash is available for enhanced distributions.

5. Financial Health

All figures below come from BT's own results releases for FY2023 through FY2026, its Annual Report 2026 and its half-year release for FY2026. Each figure is taken from the release in which it was first reported. BT reports full quarterly revenue and EBITDA but discloses earnings per share only at the half year and full year.

Fiscal Year	Revenue (£m)	YoY %	GAAP EPS	Adjusted EPS	Dividend/share	Long-term debt (YE)
FY2022	£20,850m	n/m †	12.9p	20.3p	7.70p	£16,185m
FY2023	£20,681m	-0.8%	19.4p	22.0p	7.70p	£18,521m
FY2024	£20,797m	+0.6%	8.7p	18.5p	8.00p	£18,526m
FY2025	£20,358m	-2.1%	10.8p	18.8p	8.16p	£18,762m
FY2026	£19,654m	-3.5%	11.0p	18.3p	8.32p	£18,536m

† The FY2021 revenue comparative is not carried in the FY2023 release from which the FY2022 column is taken, so a reported FY2022 growth rate is not stated here rather than estimated. Earnings per share figures are basic; diluted GAAP EPS was 10.8p in FY2026 and 10.6p in FY2025. The long-term debt column is loans and other borrowings, current plus non-current, and excludes lease liabilities, which were £4,571m at FY2025 and £4,184m at FY2026. The FY2026 composition shifted sharply, with current borrowings falling from £2,092m to £420m and non-current rising from £16,670m to £18,116m as BT raised £1,843m of bonds and bank loans and repaid £2,347m. FY2025 comparatives in the FY2026 release were re-presented for the formation of the International unit; revenue, earnings per share and dividend are unaffected, but adjusted UK service revenue for FY2025 moved from £15,582m as originally published to £15,568m.

Quarter / Half	Revenue	Adjusted EPS	GAAP EPS
Q1 FY2027 (3 months to 30 June 2026)	£4,300m continuing basis ‡	Not disclosed in quarterly updates	Not disclosed in quarterly updates
Q4 FY2026 (3 months to 31 March 2026)	£4,864m adjusted	Not disclosed in quarterly updates	Not disclosed in quarterly updates
Q3 FY2026 (3 months to 31 December 2025)	£4,976m adjusted §	Not disclosed in quarterly updates	Not disclosed in quarterly updates
Q2 FY2026 (3 months to 30 September 2025)	£4,927m adjusted	Not disclosed in quarterly updates	Not disclosed in quarterly updates
Q1 FY2026 (3 months to 30 June 2025)	£4,879m adjusted §	Not disclosed in quarterly updates	Not disclosed in quarterly updates
FY2026 total (year to 31 March 2026)	£19,646m adjusted	18.3p	11.0p

‡ Q1 FY2027 is reported on a continuing-operations basis with International classified as discontinued, so it is not directly comparable with the FY2026 quarters above, which include International. On that continuing basis Q1 FY2027 revenue was flat year on year, adjusted UK service revenue fell 1% to £3.8bn, and adjusted EBITDA fell 1% to £2.0bn. Discontinued International contributed £451m of adjusted revenue and £29m of EBITDA in the quarter. Continuing profit before tax was £505m, down 4%, and total profit before tax including discontinued operations was £462m. § Q1 and Q3 FY2026 revenue figures are derived by subtracting the reported second quarter from the reported first half, and the reported fourth quarter from the derived second half, because BT publishes first-half, second-quarter, fourth-quarter and full-year figures but not standalone Q1 and Q3 revenue lines in the same format.

Half-year detail for FY2026. The first half to 30 September 2025 produced reported revenue of £9,810m, adjusted revenue of £9,806m, adjusted EBITDA of £4,126m, reported basic earnings per share of 6.70p and adjusted basic earnings per share of 9.30p, with normalised free cash flow of only £408m against £715m a year earlier. That implies a second half with roughly £9,840m of adjusted revenue, £4,104m of adjusted EBITDA, 4.3p of reported earnings per share and 9.0p of adjusted earnings per share, and the great majority of the full-year £1,508m of normalised free cash flow. BT's cash generation is heavily weighted to the fourth quarter, which matters when judging interim results.

Cash flow and balance sheet at 31 March 2026. Net cash inflow from operating activities was £7,030m, up 1%, with cash generated from operations of £7,088m and income taxes paid of just £58m. Cash purchases of property, plant, equipment and intangibles were £5,169m, presented net of £90m of government grant inflows; capital expenditure on BT's own measure was £5,127m including £13m of spectrum. Depreciation and amortisation including impairment charges was £4,913m on the cash flow statement, of which £4,875m sat in operating costs before specific items, comprising intangibles £1,274m, property, plant and equipment £2,969m and right-of-use assets £610m. Loans and other borrowings were £18,536m, split £420m current and £18,116m non-current, with lease liabilities of £4,184m, split £779m current and £3,405m non-current. Cash and cash equivalents were £359m with current asset investments of £1,482m, giving £1,841m of liquid resources, plus a £2.1bn undrawn committed facility maturing no earlier than January 2031. Reported net debt was £19,966m, a figure that includes lease liabilities and excludes the pension deficit. Retirement benefit obligations on the balance sheet were £4,379m against a £170m surplus asset elsewhere. Total equity was £12,564m, property, plant and equipment £24,650m, goodwill £7,305m and right-of-use assets £3,032m. Specific items cost £716m after tax, including £336m of restructuring and a £218m share of Sports joint venture impairment losses.

6. Valuation Metrics

Share prices, and figures worked out from them, are not shown for London-listed companies on ChartsView.

Raw metrics, September 2026. Not opinions on whether the stock is cheap or expensive.

Metric	Value
Net debt / adjusted EBITDA	2.43x on reported net debt of £19,966m and adjusted EBITDA of £8,230m. Excluding lease liabilities, net financial debt of £15.8bn gives 1.92x. Including the £4.2bn gross pension deficit the ratio rises to roughly 2.94x
Short interest (% of float)	2.28% of issued share capital across four individually disclosed open positions per London Stock Exchange data: Canada Pension Plan Investment Board 0.65% (last changed 22 May 2026), D. E. Shaw 0.60% (2 March 2026), Kintbury Capital 0.53% (10 June 2026) and Marshall Wace 0.50% (2 July 2026). This is a legacy snapshot, because from 13 July 2026 the FCA stopped publishing individual net short positions by holder and now publishes only anonymised aggregate net short positions above a 0.2% threshold. For a current figure consult the FCA's aggregated publication rather than this total

7. What Are They Building

The literal answer is a fibre network. Openreach passed a record 4.8m premises with full fibre in FY2026, described as the fastest build in Europe, reaching a footprint of 23m premises at 31 March 2026 including 6.3m in rural areas, then 23.4m by 30 June 2026 after adding 514,000 in the quarter. The committed target is 25 million premises by the end of December 2026, reported as on track in both the FY2026 results and the Q1 FY2027 update, with an ambition of up to 30 million by 2030. Take-up is keeping pace: FY2026 delivered a record 2.2m net fibre connections to reach 8.8m connected at a take-up rate above 38%, and Q1 FY2027 added a further record 574,000 to reach 9.4m at 40%.

The second thing being built is a materially smaller company. BT raised its cost transformation target from £3.0bn to £3.7bn and extended it a year to FY2030, at a cost to achieve of £1.4bn rather than £1.0bn. FY2026 delivered £580m of gross annualised savings for £336m spent, taking the two-year cumulative total to £1.5bn. The physical proof points are network energy use down 6%, total labour resource down 7% to below 108,000 with direct labour down 10%, and Openreach repair volumes down 18%. Q1 FY2027 extended each of those to 8%, 8% and 21% respectively. Allison Kirkby has publicly indicated that artificial intelligence could push headcount below the 75,000 to 90,000 range previously guided for the end of the decade.

Specific artificial intelligence deployments disclosed in the Annual Report 2026 include an improved generative-AI virtual assistant for EE customers, automated interaction summarisation, real-time prompts for service agents, nearly 5,000 colleagues using AI coding tools across roughly 6.5 million lines of code a year, and work with Amazon Web Services toward a self-healing autonomous mobile network operations centre. Openreach separately reported in September 2026 that AI tools were preventing roughly 3,000 full-fibre cancellations a month.

On the mobile side, 5G+ population coverage went from 43% to 73% during FY2026 and to 77% by June 2026, the 5G customer base grew 10% to 14.5m, and EE retained independent best-network status across the Umlaut, Opensignal and RootMetrics surveys. EE launched Fast Lane on 5G+ on 20 August 2026, a UK first that prioritises traffic for subscribers during congestion. Fixed-mobile convergence rose from 24.6% to 26.6% in FY2026 and 26.8% by June 2026, and the retail full-fibre base grew 31% to 4.5m, reaching 4.8m by June 2026 with Consumer fibre at 54% of its broadband base. FY2027 is, in Kirkby's words, the final year of the public switched telephone network, with the analogue landline migration due to complete.

8. Competitive Landscape

BT's most direct UK competitors are not separately listed, which limits peer comparison to the continental European incumbents. Market capitalisations below were checked in September 2026; reporting periods are not aligned, so absolute revenue figures are not comparable without normalising.

Peer	Key 2025/2026 metric
Vodafone Group (LSE: VOD)	FY2026 to 31 March 2026: total revenue €40.5bn up 8.0%, service revenue €33.5bn up 8.8%, adjusted EBITDAaL €11.4bn up 3.8%, at the upper end of guidance. The growth is largely the consolidation of Three UK rather than organic. Reported earnings per share was negative at minus 1.435p
Deutsche Telekom (ETR: DTE)	FY2025 net revenue €119.1bn, up 4.2% organic. Roughly eight times BT's market capitalisation and the clearest illustration of the scale gap between BT and the largest European incumbents
Orange (EPA: ORA)	FY2025 revenue €40.396bn, up 0.9%, with all 2025 targets fully achieved
Telefónica (BME: TEF)	FY2025 revenue €35.1bn, up 1.5% in constant terms. Telefónica is also BT's UK competitor indirectly, as 50% owner of the Virgin Media O2 joint venture
Millicom International Cellular (NASDAQ: TIGO)	Emerging-market fixed and mobile operator, included for scale comparison rather than direct competition
Virgin Media O2	FY2025 total revenue £10,113.1m, down 5.3%, with guided revenue excluding handsets and nexfibre construction up 0.2% to £7,706.5m. Q2 2026 revenue £2,398.9m. The combined Virgin Media and nexfibre footprint reached 18,811,600 homes serviceable at Q2 2026, of which 9.0m full fibre. 2026 guidance is for 3% to 5% declines in proforma service revenue and EBITDA
VodafoneThree	The merged entity is the principal challenger to EE in UK mobile and drives Vodafone Group's reported 8.0% revenue growth. Also named in press reports as a primary retail partner for a proposed CityFibre and Netomnia combination, which remains speculation rather than a confirmed transaction
Sky UK and CityFibre	Sky is one of Openreach's largest wholesale customers and simultaneously a retail competitor to BT Consumer. CityFibre is the largest independent alternative network and the main structural threat to Openreach's footprint advantage, having built using the physical infrastructure access that Ofcom obliges Openreach to provide

Two ownership facts are worth separating from competition. Bharti Enterprises holds roughly 24.5% of BT, acquired from Altice in 2024 and 2025, with Deutsche Telekom on roughly 12% and Carlos Slim on roughly 3.2%. Press reports in May 2026 suggested Bharti was seeking UK government support to raise its stake toward 29.9% without making a full offer, but a Bharti spokesman said the group was pleased with its current holding of roughly 24.95% and currently had no plans to increase it. No offer for BT Group has been made.

9. Leadership and Insider Activity

Allison Kirkby has been chief executive since February 2024 and is quoted as such in both the FY2026 and Q1 FY2027 releases. Patricia Cobian, previously chief financial officer of Virgin Media O2, joined the BT Group plc board as an executive director and executive committee member on 20 July 2026, succeeding Simon Lowth after a managed handover. Adam Crozier has been chairman since December 2021 and no BT succession has been announced, though he separately became Experian's chairman after that company's annual general meeting on 22 July 2026 while retaining the BT role. Katie Milligan became chief executive of Openreach on 1 April 2026, succeeding Clive Selley, who became chief executive of BT International. Martijn Blanken joined BT on 1 September 2026 as chief executive designate of the Verizon joint venture.

Name	Date	Type	Shares	Plan Type
Allison Kirkby, Chief Executive	9 Sep 2026	Purchase	8,280	Dividend reinvestment
Sabine Chalmers, Group General Counsel	9 Sep 2026	Purchase	Disclosed in the same RNS, individual total not separately reported	Dividend reinvestment
Greg McCall, Chief Security and Networks Officer	9 Sep 2026	Purchase	Disclosed in the same RNS, individual total not separately reported	Dividend reinvestment
Simon Lowth, then Chief Financial Officer	24 Jun 2026	Sale	461,555	Sale following share plan vesting; resulting holding 1,810,407
Simon Lowth, then Chief Financial Officer	24 Jun 2026	Transfer from share plan on vesting	639,864	Share plan vesting; resulting holding 1,810,407
Simon Lowth, then Chief Financial Officer	15 Jun 2026	Sale	256,022	Sale following share plan vesting; resulting holding 1,632,098
Simon Lowth, then Chief Financial Officer	15 Jun 2026	Transfer from share plan on vesting	275,384	Share plan vesting; resulting holding 1,632,098

The pattern is clear and worth stating plainly. The June 2026 transactions are a classic vest-and-sell-to-cover sequence by a chief financial officer ahead of retirement, totalling roughly £1.41m of sales. The September 2026 activity is routine dividend reinvestment by sitting persons discharging managerial responsibility, not conviction buying. No BT director made a discretionary open-market purchase with cash in calendar 2026. That is a neutral-to-negative insider signal, in contrast to the balance-sheet and cash flow trajectory management is describing.

10. Key Risks

• Free cash flow target risk: the entire equity case rests on normalised free cash flow rising from £1,508m in FY2026 to roughly £3.0bn by the end of the decade. BT's own published consensus of 28 August 2026 has £2,606m in FY2030, a shortfall of roughly £400m against management's target. If consensus is right rather than management, the stock is materially more expensive than the headline multiples imply.
• Pension risk: the IAS 19 gross deficit rose to £4.2bn at 31 March 2026 from £4.1bn, driven by mortality and inflation assumption changes and weaker asset returns. It sits outside reported net debt. Deficit contributions are £600m a year to 31 March 2030 plus a final £490m and £180m a year under the 2020 asset-backed arrangement. The 2026 triennial valuation had not been published at the date of this report, and conditional triggers add £150m a year if the deficit is £1bn behind plan, rising to £300m a year at £2bn behind.
• Regulatory risk on Openreach pricing: the Telecoms Access Review 2026 to 2031 extended the nominal price cap on charges to retail providers to speeds up to 80Mbps from 40Mbps, and Ofcom is reviewing four new Openreach wholesale offers notified on 1 June 2026 and proposed to take effect 1 October 2026. Ofcom is also consulting separately on whether to rely on Openreach contracts rather than impose charge controls for wholesale local access pricing. Adverse outcomes would compress the division producing 51.3% of group EBITDA.
• Altnet and cable competition: Openreach lost 825,000 broadband lines in FY2026 with roughly 800,000 guided for FY2027. Virgin Media O2 and nexfibre have 18.8m homes serviceable including 9.0m full fibre, and CityFibre continues to build using the physical infrastructure access Ofcom obliges Openreach to provide. A CityFibre and Netomnia combination, discussed in press reports but not confirmed, would create a roughly 12m-premises third network.
• Execution risk on the Verizon joint venture: completion is expected in the second half of 2027 and is subject to regulatory clearance across the more than 180 countries the combined business serves. International is already classified as discontinued and all continuing metrics restated, so a failure to complete would require the restatement to be unwound and would leave BT owning a business that generated only £145m of EBITDA and minus £117m of free cash flow on £2,114m of revenue.
• Consumer pricing and churn risk: Consumer is 48.3% of revenue but produced only 31.6% of EBITDA, with broadband average revenue per user down 1% and mobile down 1% in FY2026. Q1 FY2027 net additions were 1,000 in broadband and 13,000 in postpaid mobile. Against a merged VodafoneThree and a discounting Virgin Media O2, inflation-linked price rises are the main lever, and they are politically and regulatorily exposed.
• PSTN switch-off and migration risk: FY2027 is the final year of the public switched telephone network, and BT was still publicly urging customers not to ignore the switch as late as 16 September 2026. A poorly executed migration of remaining analogue landline customers, many of them elderly or dependent on telecare, carries reputational, regulatory and cost consequences.
• Cash flow quality risk: BT explicitly flags its use of bills of exchange for handsets, handset receivables programmes and copper forward sales, including a £99m prepayment received in FY2026, to manage cash timing. Income taxes paid were only £58m against £1,436m of profit before tax. Both warrant scrutiny when assessing the durability of the reported operating cash inflow of £7,030m.

11. Recent Developments

• 16 Sep 2026 — BT urged customers not to ignore the digital landline switch. The company issued a public reminder as the public switched telephone network retirement enters its final year, with FY2027 described by the chief executive as the last year of the PSTN. Separately on the same date BT announced that its Drone SIM is powering police drone capability for rail incident response.
• 11 Sep 2026 — Dividend reinvestment purchases by the chief executive and two senior executives.
• 9 Sep 2026 — The FY2026 final dividend of 5.87p per share was paid. The shares went ex-dividend on 6 August 2026 with a record date of 7 August, completing a full-year dividend of 8.32p, up 2% on FY2025.
• 1 Sep 2026 — Martijn Blanken joined BT as chief executive designate of the Verizon joint venture. The appointment fills the leadership of the combined international enterprise business ahead of completion, expected in the second half of 2027.
• 28 Aug 2026 — BT published its latest analyst consensus alongside a total voting rights announcement. The consensus put FY2027 continuing revenue at £17,374m, adjusted EBITDA at £8,137m, normalised free cash flow at exactly the guided £2,000m, and FY2030 free cash flow at £2,606m against management's roughly £3.0bn. The voting rights RNS confirmed 9,968,127,681 shares in issue and 9,967,639,866 voting rights.
• 20 Aug 2026 — EE launched Fast Lane on 5G+, a UK first. The feature prioritises network traffic for subscribers when the network is busiest, extending EE's premium positioning after retaining independent best-network status in FY2026.
• 23 Jul 2026 — Q1 FY2027 results reconfirmed all guidance on a restated continuing basis. Revenue was flat at £4.3bn, adjusted EBITDA down 1% at £2.0bn, with record quarterly Openreach fibre net adds of 574,000 and a take-up rate of 40%. The chief executive reconfirmed roughly £2.0bn of cash flow for FY2027 and roughly £3.0bn by the end of the decade.
• 29 Jun 2026 — BT and Verizon agreed a 50:50 international enterprise joint venture. The combination brings together roughly 3,000 customers in more than 180 countries with roughly US$4bn of combined annual revenue, with Verizon paying BT a US$625m equalisation payment. From Q1 FY2027 the International unit is reported as a discontinued operation and all continuing-basis metrics have been restated.
• 21 May 2026 — FY2026 results met or beat every guidance metric and introduced a new dividend policy. Adjusted revenue of £19,646m, adjusted EBITDA of £8,230m, capital expenditure excluding spectrum of £5,114m and normalised free cash flow of £1,508m all landed within or above guidance. The cost transformation target was raised to £3.7bn and extended to FY2030, and the dividend policy moved to low-to-mid single-digit annual growth until BBB+ credit metrics are reached.

12. Key Dates to Watch

• 1 Oct 2026 — Proposed effective date for the four new Openreach wholesale pricing offers notified to Ofcom on 1 June 2026, covering two incremental full-fibre customer offers, an Ethernet net-demand offer and a six-month extension to the Equinox 550Mb incentive. Ofcom's call for inputs closed 19 June 2026
• 5 Nov 2026 — H1 FY2027 results, covering the half year to 30 September 2026. The FY2027 interim dividend is expected to be declared with these results
• Expected Nov 2026 — The consumer price index print that determines the Equinox full-fibre discount adjustments Openreach notified to internet service providers in June 2026, which take effect 1 July 2027
• Expected Dec 2026 — Openreach's committed 25 million premises full-fibre milestone, reported as on track at both FY2026 results and Q1 FY2027 from a footprint of 23.4 million at 30 June 2026
• Expected Feb 2027 — Q3 FY2027 trading statement and payment of the FY2027 interim dividend. BT reported Q3 FY2026 on 5 February 2026 and paid the FY2026 interim on 11 February 2026, but neither FY2027 date has been published
• Expected May 2027 — FY2027 preliminary results. BT reported FY2026 on 21 May 2026; the FY2027 date is not yet on its financial calendar
• Expected Jul 2027 — Annual general meeting. The 2026 meeting was held on 9 July 2026 and the 2027 date has not been scheduled
• TBC — Publication of the BT Pension Scheme triennial funding valuation as at 30 June 2026, which had not been published at the date of this report and determines whether the conditional contribution triggers of £150m or £300m a year are activated
• TBC — Completion of the BT and Verizon international joint venture, expected in the second half of 2027 subject to regulatory clearances

UK inflation and Bank of England rate decisions matter directly to BT, through both its inflation-linked price rises and the discount rate applied to its pension liabilities; both are tracked on our Economic Calendar. Discussion of this report and other UK blue-chip names is open on the ChartsView Forum.

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Disclaimer: This research is produced by ChartsView for educational and informational purposes only. It does not constitute financial advice or a recommendation to buy or sell any security. All information is sourced from publicly available company filings, press releases, and official data. ChartsView does not use analyst opinions or third-party ratings. Always conduct your own due diligence and consider your personal financial situation before making investment decisions. Past performance is not indicative of future results.

Last Updated: 17 September 2026

BP has lost a chief executive and two chairmen in nine months. Murray Auchincloss stepped down with immediate effect on 18 December 2025. Albert Manifold took the chair on 1 October 2025 and was removed on 26 May 2026 over what the board called "serious concerns raised to the Board related to important governance standards, oversight and conduct". Meg O'Neill, previously chief executive of Woodside Energy, became chief executive on 1 April 2026. Ian Tyler, interim chair from May, was confirmed as permanent chair on 2 September 2026. In February 2026 the board suspended share buybacks outright and formally retired the guidance to distribute 30% to 40% of operating cash flow to shareholders.

Against that, BP has just reported one of the strongest quarters in its recent history: underlying replacement cost profit of $5.7bn in the second quarter of 2026, more than double the $2.4bn of a year earlier. The difficulty is separating the two stories. Brent averaged $103.85 a barrel in the quarter against BP's own $70 planning assumption, and its refining indicator margin averaged $29.6 a barrel against a $10.8 assumption. On BP's published sensitivities those two gaps alone are worth roughly $20bn of annualised pre-tax profit. This report lays out the figures — statutory and non-statutory, side by side and clearly labelled — from BP's own filings with the London Stock Exchange and the United States Securities and Exchange Commission. No analyst opinions, no price targets, no ratings.

1. Company Snapshot

Field	Value
Listings	London Stock Exchange Main Market, ticker BP. (ISIN GB0007980591, SEDOL 798059). New York Stock Exchange American Depositary Shares, ticker BP (ISIN US0556221044), at a ratio of one ADS to six ordinary shares, with JPMorgan Chase Bank as depositary
Index membership	The ADR line is not an S&P 500 constituent
Sector	Integrated oil and gas
Headquarters	1 St James's Square, London SW1Y 4PD, England
Incorporated	1909 in England and Wales; renamed BP p.l.c. in 2001
Employees	93,700 at 31 December 2025, down from 100,500 a year earlier. By segment: gas and low carbon energy 5,600; oil production and operations 9,300; customers and products 66,900; other businesses and corporate 11,800
CEO / Leadership	Meg O'Neill, Chief Executive Officer since 1 April 2026, previously chief executive of Woodside Energy. Deputy Chief Executive Officer: Carol Howle, who served as interim chief executive from 18 December 2025. Chief Financial Officer: Kate Thomson. Chair: Ian Tyler, interim from 26 May 2026 and confirmed permanent on 2 September 2026
Reporting currency	United States dollars, despite the primary London listing
Revenue (FY2025, statutory)	$192,549m of total revenues and other income, of which $189,335m was sales and other operating revenues. Down 1.1% on FY2024
Profit attributable to shareholders (FY2025, statutory)	$55m, against $381m in FY2024 — effectively wiped out by $6,037m of net impairments and losses on sale of businesses and fixed assets
Underlying replacement cost profit (FY2025, non-statutory)	$7,485m, against $8,915m in FY2024. This is BP's own adjusted earnings measure
Upstream production (FY2025)	2,312 thousand barrels of oil equivalent per day
Dividend per ordinary share (FY2025)	32.960 cents announced for the year (8.00c, 8.32c, 8.32c, 8.32c). The second quarter 2026 dividend was raised 4% to 8.660 cents, an annualised 34.64 cents
Buyback status	Suspended outright since 10 February 2026. Buyback spend in the first half of 2026 was $114m, against $2,511m in the first half of 2025
SEC registrant number	Central Index Key 0000313807. BP is a foreign private issuer and files an annual report on Form 20-F with quarterly results on Form 6-K

2. The Bull and Bear Case

Bull Case

• The cash engine is intact and very large: BP generated $24,493m of operating cash flow in FY2025 and $13,718m in the first half of 2026 alone, including $10,858m in the second quarter. Capital expenditure is guided at $13.5bn to $14.0bn for 2026, leaving meaningful surplus at current prices.
• The divestment programme is actually delivering: against a $20bn target by 2027, BP had announced or completed more than $11bn in the first year.
• Cost reduction has been raised twice and is running ahead: the structural cost target went from $4bn to $5bn at the February 2025 capital markets update, to $5.5bn to $6.5bn on the Castrol decision, to roughly $6.5bn to $7.5bn by 2027 on the Gelsenkirchen sale — around 30% of the 2023 cost base. Some $2.8bn had been delivered by the end of 2025.
• The dividend is the stated first priority and is still growing: BP expects to grow the dividend per ordinary share by at least 4% a year, and did so at the second quarter of 2026, raising it to 8.660 cents. With the buyback suspended, the balance sheet absorbs the rest, which reduces the risk of the distribution itself being cut.
• The valuation discount to peers is wide and measurable: at roughly $118bn BP is sixth of the seven Western majors, about 17% of ExxonMobil's size and 43% of Shell's. On its own underlying measure the trailing multiple is around nine times, well below where the larger integrated peers trade.
• New leadership has an explicit and narrow mandate: O'Neill's five stated priorities — strengthen the balance sheet, simplify the portfolio "based on value, not sentiment nor history", invest with greater discipline, drive operational excellence, hardwire accountability — are a direct repudiation of the strategy that produced the write-offs, and she arrives without ownership of those decisions.

Bear Case

• The second quarter of 2026 was a price event, not a run-rate: Brent averaged $103.85 a barrel against BP's $70 planning assumption and the refining indicator margin averaged $29.6 against $10.8. On BP's own published sensitivities — $340m of pre-tax replacement cost profit per dollar of Brent and $450m per dollar of refining margin — those gaps are worth roughly $20bn annualised. Strip them out and the picture changes entirely.
• Net debt has not moved despite selling the furniture: $22,182m at 31 December 2025 and $22,251m at 30 June 2026, essentially unchanged after more than $11bn of announced or completed disposals. The target is $14bn to $18bn by the end of 2027, which requires $5bn to $8bn of reduction in roughly eighteen months.
• Governance instability is now the headline risk, not a footnote: a chief executive out with immediate effect, a chairman removed for conduct after eight months, a senior independent director leaving at the 2027 annual general meeting, and two board-proposed special resolutions defeated at the April 2026 meeting — one on climate disclosure by 52.53% against. Roughly 18% voted against the chairman's own election five weeks before he was removed.
• The buyback is gone, not reduced: the pace went from $1.75bn a quarter to $750m in April 2025 to zero in February 2026, and the 30% to 40% distribution framework was formally retired. It had not been reinstated at the second quarter 2026 results. For a shareholder base that bought BP for the return of capital, that is a change of contract.
• BP has written off billions against its own strategy: FY2025 net impairments and losses on sale were $6,037m, including $5.4bn of asset impairments plus roughly $1.1bn through equity-accounted earnings, with $3.5bn booked in the fourth quarter alone and "primarily related to our transition businesses in the gas and low carbon energy segment". Archaea Energy, bought for roughly $4.1bn in 2022, is now up for sale. O'Neill's own verdict: "we have written off too much value."
• The real leverage is larger than headline net debt suggests: total finance debt was $58,337m at 30 June 2026 against cash of $37,168m, but $13,015m of perpetual hybrid securities sit inside equity as non-controlling interests and are invisible in net debt, and a further $7,255m of Gulf of America settlement liabilities sat on the balance sheet at the end of 2025, with roughly $1.6bn of pre-tax payments guided for 2026 alone.
• Execution risk is concentrated in one deal: Castrol, the largest single piece of the divestment programme, had still not completed as at 17 September 2026, with Australian and Indian competition clearances outstanding. BP cut 2026 divestment guidance from $9bn to $10bn down to $8bn to $9bn at the second quarter. The North Sea and Archaea processes have no announced buyer, price or timetable.

3. Revenue Segments

BP announced a reorganisation into Upstream and Downstream on 9 June 2026, effective operationally from 1 July 2026. External IFRS reporting segments remain the previous four until 31 December 2026, with the new two-segment structure used for external reporting from 1 January 2027. FY2025 and every 2026 quarter therefore use the segments below. Percentages are calculated on third-party sales and other operating revenues, from the segmental note of the Annual Report and Form 20-F 2025.

Segment	% of revenue	What it is
Customers and products	78.6% ($148,740m third-party; $148,783m including inter-segment)	Convenience and mobility retail including TravelCenters of America, Aral, ampm, Thorntons and bp pulse; Castrol lubricants; Air bp aviation fuels; business-to-business; midstream; bioenergy; plus all refining and oil trading. Replacement cost profit before interest and tax of $4,100m, or $5,272m on an underlying basis
Gas and low carbon energy	20.3% ($38,501m third-party; $40,333m including inter-segment)	Gas production, LNG, gas marketing and trading, biogas through Archaea, solar through Lightsource bp, offshore wind through the JERA Nex bp joint venture, plus hydrogen and carbon capture. Replacement cost profit before interest and tax of $1,330m, or $5,367m underlying. This is the segment that absorbed most of the FY2025 impairments
Oil production and operations	0.9% ($1,651m third-party; $24,527m including inter-segment)	Oil exploration and production — the Gulf of America, bpx energy in the Permian and Eagle Ford, Azerbaijan, Angola through Azule, Iraq, the North Sea and the Aker BP stake. Almost all output is sold internally to other segments, which is why third-party revenue is tiny. The largest profit contributor at $8,558m of replacement cost profit before interest and tax, $9,414m underlying
Other businesses and corporate	0.2% ($443m third-party; $2,232m including inter-segment)	Technology, bp ventures, shipping, corporate functions and residual Gulf of America oil spill costs. A replacement cost loss before interest and tax of $40m, and an underlying loss of $648m

The percentages above are the single most misleading numbers in BP's accounts and are worth stating plainly. On a third-party basis customers and products looks like roughly 79% of revenue while contributing only about 27% of underlying replacement cost profit before interest and tax; oil production and operations looks like under 1% of revenue while contributing roughly 48% of the profit. That is the classic integrated-oil optical distortion, caused by upstream selling its output internally. Measured on revenue including inter-segment sales the split is customers and products 68.9%, gas and low carbon energy 18.7%, oil production and operations 11.4% and other businesses 1.0%. Group replacement cost profit before interest and tax was $13,993m in FY2025, or $19,450m underlying, reconciling to the statutory $55m attributable profit after $4,896m of finance costs, $6,785m of tax, $1,240m of non-controlling interests and $1,351m of inventory holding losses net of a $334m tax credit.

4. Business Model and Moat

How it makes money. Three engines. Upstream sells equity production of oil and gas at realisations linked to Brent, Henry Hub and regional markers — in the second quarter of 2026 BP realised $94.09 a barrel for liquids in gas and low carbon energy and $84.10 in oil production and operations, on unit production costs of $6.62 a barrel of oil equivalent. Downstream refines crude at five remaining refineries following the Gelsenkirchen disposal, and sells fuels, convenience goods, lubricants and aviation fuel. Supply, trading and shipping runs a large physical and paper book across oil and gas, which BP describes as a structural advantage; O'Neill called the new Upstream and Downstream model "supported by our world-class trading business. This integrated model is a competitive advantage."

Where the advantage is real and where it is asserted. The measurable advantages are scale and operational reliability: bp-operated upstream plant reliability was 96.1% in FY2025, up from 95.2%, and refining availability 96.3%, up from 94.3%. The refining indicator margin averaged $12.8 a barrel in FY2025 against $10.7 in FY2024. The trading advantage, by contrast, is asserted rather than demonstrated, because BP publishes no trading profit and loss line at all — only qualitative commentary such as "the oil trading contribution for the second quarter and first half was significantly higher compared with the same periods in 2025". Anyone underwriting the trading business is taking management's word for its size and consistency.

The reserve position is the binding constraint. Net proved reserves at 31 December 2025 were 3,447 million barrels of liquids and 15,916 billion cubic feet of natural gas, a combined 6,191 million barrels of oil equivalent, down from 6,248 million a year earlier and 6,759 million in 2023. The organic proved reserves replacement ratio improved sharply to 90% in FY2025 from 50% in FY2024, with a target of 100% by the end of 2027. Against FY2025 production of 2,312 thousand barrels of oil equivalent per day, that implies a reserve life of roughly 7.3 years — short by supermajor standards, and the reason the production growth target to 2030 depends on the major project pipeline rather than the existing base.

What BP has stopped telling you. Three retail and transition metrics that mattered to the previous strategy have quietly disappeared. BP retired the strategic convenience sites key performance indicator at the start of 2025 and did not track it during the year, so there is no current figure. It no longer publishes a group retail site count, disclosing only that it exited roughly 5% of company-owned sites in 2025 and targets roughly 10% by 2027. It no longer discloses a group total for electric vehicle charge points, and says it is concentrating that investment on four core markets: Germany, the United Kingdom, China and the United States. Return on average capital employed, which BP does still publish, was 13.9% in FY2025 against 14.2% in FY2024, 18.1% in FY2023 and 30.5% in FY2022, with a target of more than 16% in 2027.

5. Financial Health

Revenue, basic earnings per share and long-term debt below are statutory figures as reported under IFRS. Underlying replacement cost profit per ordinary share is BP's own non-statutory adjusted earnings measure, which excludes inventory holding gains and losses and adjusting items including impairments. The two must not be mixed. All figures were cross-checked against BP's XBRL company facts filed with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission under Central Index Key 0000313807. Long-term debt is the non-current portion of finance debt.

Fiscal Year	Revenue ($m)	YoY %	GAAP EPS	Adjusted EPS	Dividend/share	Long-term debt (YE)
FY2021	164,195	+50.5%	37.57c	63.65c	21.63c	$55,619m
FY2022	248,891	+51.6%	(13.10)c	145.63c	24.082c	$43,746m
FY2023	213,032	−14.4%	87.78c	79.69c	28.420c	$48,670m
FY2024	194,629	−8.6%	2.38c	54.40c	31.270c	$55,073m
FY2025	192,549	−1.1%	0.35c	48.02c	32.960c	$54,602m

Revenue above is total revenues and other income, the statutory income statement top line. Sales and other operating revenues, the narrower measure, were $157,739m, $241,392m, $210,130m, $189,185m and $189,335m across the same five years. The current portion of finance debt was $5,557m, $3,198m, $3,284m, $4,474m and $3,356m, giving total finance debt of $61,176m, $46,944m, $51,954m, $59,547m and $57,958m. The single most important line in the table is the divergence between the two earnings columns: statutory basic earnings per share collapsed from 87.78 cents in FY2023 to 2.38 cents in FY2024 to 0.35 cents in FY2025, while BP's own underlying measure fell only from 79.69 cents to 54.40 cents to 48.02 cents. The entire gap is impairments and adjusting items. Statutory multiples calculated on the FY2025 figure alone are meaningless.

Quarter / Half	Revenue	Adjusted EPS	GAAP EPS
Q2 2026 (published 4 Aug 2026)	$70,114m	36.92c	24.77c
Q1 2026 (published 28 Apr 2026)	$53,371m	20.67c	24.83c
Q4 2025 (published 10 Feb 2026)	$47,742m	10.00c	(22.21)c
Q3 2025 (published 4 Nov 2025)	$49,250m	14.24c	7.48c
Q2 2025 (published 5 Aug 2025)	$47,677m	15.03c	10.41c
Q1 2025 (published 29 Apr 2025)	$47,880m	8.75c	4.35c
FY2025 total	$192,549m	48.02c	0.35c

Underlying replacement cost profit by quarter was $5,732m, $3,198m, $1,541m, $2,210m, $2,353m and $1,381m respectively; attributable profit was $3,911m, $3,842m, a loss of $3,422m, $1,161m, $1,629m and $687m. The fourth quarter of 2025 loss is where the $3.5bn of impairments landed. For the first half of 2026 as a whole, revenue was $123,485m, underlying replacement cost profit $8,930m and attributable profit $7,753m.

Cash flow and balance sheet, FY2025. Net cash provided by operating activities was $24,493m, down from $27,297m. Expenditure on property, plant and equipment, intangible and other assets was $13,221m; BP's wider total cash capital expenditure measure was $14,533m and its organic capital expenditure $13.6bn. Depreciation, depletion and amortisation charged to the income statement was $17,822m, rising to $18,165m in the cash flow statement once exploration expenditure written off is included. Statutory profit before interest and taxation was $12,642m; replacement cost profit before interest and tax was $13,993m and the underlying figure $19,450m. BP discloses adjusted EBITDA of $37,615m for FY2025, against $38,012m in FY2024. Dividends paid to shareholders were $5,059m and net share repurchases $4,486m across 836 million shares.

On the balance sheet at 31 December 2025, cash and cash equivalents were $36,556m, of which $4,725m was restricted, against total finance debt of $57,958m, split $41,264m fixed rate and $16,694m floating. BP's own net debt measure was $22,182m, giving gearing of 23.1%, or 32.5% including leases and $35,686m of net debt including leases. BP's own broadest measure — net debt plus hybrids plus leases plus Gulf of America liabilities — was $57.8bn at the end of 2025, falling to $53.6bn at 30 June 2026. Total equity was $74,000m, of which BP shareholders' equity $53,052m and non-controlling interests $20,948m. Total assets were $278,526m.

At 30 June 2026 finance debt was $5,888m current and $52,449m non-current, a total of $58,337m, against cash of $37,168m and net debt of $22,251m. Hybrids had fallen to $13,015m after BP Capital Markets redeemed €2.5bn in the second quarter, with a further $1.0bn repayment planned in the third quarter and a stated intention to cut corporate hybrid financing by roughly $4.3bn to around $9bn by the end of 2027. Total equity was $76,420m. First half 2026 operating cash flow was $13,718m on capital expenditure of $6,376m.

6. Valuation Metrics

Share prices, and figures worked out from them, are not shown for London-listed companies on ChartsView.

Raw metrics, September 2026. Not opinions on whether the stock is cheap or expensive.

Metric	Value
Short interest (% of float)	0.25% of float, or 6.56 million ADS, per the most recent settlement date reported by two retail data providers, down from 9.33 million the prior month. An alternative source gives 0.42% of public float, or 11,007,637 ADS worth $454.68m, at a 15 July 2026 record date. Either figure is negligible for a company of this size — there is no meaningful short position in BP

7. What Are They Building

The framework and what has changed inside it. BP's February 2025 capital markets update cut low-carbon spending and raised oil and gas investment. That framework survives but has been tightened twice since: the buyback was suspended in February 2026, and O'Neill added an execution overlay in August 2026. Four medium-term targets, all to the end of 2027, remain in place. Adjusted free cash flow growth of more than 20% compound annually from 2024, which grew roughly 55% in 2025 on BP's own price assumptions and is ahead of plan. Net debt of $14bn to $18bn, against $22.3bn at 30 June 2026. Structural cost reduction of roughly $6.5bn to $7.5bn, raised twice from the original $4bn to $5bn, with $2.8bn delivered by the end of 2025. Group return on average capital employed of more than 16%, against 13.9% reported in 2025. The target price basis, updated on 4 August 2026, is $70 Brent, $4 per million British thermal units Henry Hub and a $10.8 refining indicator margin, all in 2024 real terms.

The upstream plan. Production of 2.3 to 2.5 million barrels of oil equivalent per day in 2030, with capacity to increase to 2035, against 2,312 thousand in FY2025 and guidance of 2,180 to 2,270 thousand for 2026. Ten new major projects to start by the end of 2027, eight of which were online as at July 2026 following the Atlantis major facility expansion, plus a further eight to ten by the end of 2030. Upstream capital expenditure of roughly $10.5bn a year to 2027, of which roughly $10bn on oil and gas at a 70:30 oil to gas split. A reserves replacement ratio of 100% by the end of 2027, against 90% achieved in FY2025.

The transition plan, materially shrunk. Transition business capital expenditure of $1.5bn to $2bn a year to 2027, with low carbon energy alone below $800m a year. Actual transition investment in 2025 was $2.3bn including $0.8bn inorganic. Set against that, BP has sold United States onshore wind, deconsolidated offshore wind into the JERA Nex bp joint venture, put Archaea Energy up for sale, moved renewables into the Technology function and is closing bp Ventures. The direction is unambiguous.

The divestment programme. A $20bn target by 2027, with more than $11bn announced or completed in the first year and 2026 guidance of $8bn to $9bn, cut from $9bn to $10bn at the second quarter. Completed: United States onshore wind to LS Power in December 2025; the Netherlands mobility and convenience network and bp pulse to Catom in December 2025; Permian and Eagle Ford midstream non-controlling interests to Sixth Street for $1.5bn in the fourth quarter of 2025; the Gelsenkirchen refinery, Bottrop tank farm and DHC Solvent Chemie to Klesch in July 2026, cutting BP to five refineries; and 10% of Pan American Energy Group in June 2026, taking BP from 50% to 40%. In process with no buyer or price announced: the United Kingdom North Sea business, five production hubs and roughly 1,100 employees, marketed from 31 July 2026; and Archaea Energy, marketed from 4 August 2026.

Capital returns. The dividend is the stated first priority, expected to grow at least 4% per ordinary share per year subject to quarterly board discretion, and was raised 4% to 8.660 cents at the second quarter of 2026. Buybacks are suspended and the 30% to 40% of operating cash flow distribution guidance has been formally retired, with excess cash allocated to the balance sheet. The stated credit ambition is to improve credit metrics within an A grade range; current ratings are A plus stable from Fitch, A1 stable from Moody's and A minus positive from Standard and Poor's.

What O'Neill has and has not committed to. No new numeric financial targets were set at the second quarter of 2026. Instead she set out five qualitative priorities — strengthening the balance sheet, simplifying the portfolio "based on value, not sentiment nor history", investing with greater discipline, driving operational excellence and hardwiring high performance and accountability — under the slogan "focus, perform, grow". The one structural commitment is the Upstream and Downstream reorganisation, announced 9 June 2026 and operational from 1 July, with Gordon Birrell as executive vice president Upstream and Richard Harding interim executive vice president Downstream, and external reporting segments changing from 1 January 2027. Capital expenditure guidance for 2026 was raised to $13.5bn to $14.0bn, explicitly "reflecting decision to delay asset farm downs and capture better value".

8. Competitive Landscape

Market capitalisations below were captured on 16 and 17 September 2026 from two independent sources that agree within 1.7% on every name, and are all measured on the United States listing, which for Shell, TotalEnergies, Eni and BP means the depositary receipt line. All are stated in United States dollars. The key 2025 metric for each is taken from that company's own results release or securities filing.

Peer	Key 2025 metric
Exxon Mobil (NYSE: XOM)	FY2025 GAAP net income attributable to ExxonMobil of $28,844m, down from $33,680m, on net production of 4.7 million barrels of oil equivalent per day — its highest in more than forty years. Roughly 5.7 times BP's market capitalisation
Chevron (NYSE: CVX)	FY2025 adjusted earnings of $13,521m, down from $18,256m, with adjusted diluted earnings per share of $7.29, GAAP earnings of $12,299m and cash flow from operations of $33.9bn
Shell plc (NYSE: SHEL)	FY2025 adjusted earnings of $18,529m, down 22% from $23,716m, with income attributable to shareholders of $17,838m, up 11%. Shell earned roughly 2.5 times BP's underlying profit at roughly 2.3 times the market capitalisation — the closest and most relevant comparison
TotalEnergies (NYSE: TTE)	FY2025 adjusted net income of $15,587m, down 15% from $18,264m, with net income attributable to the group of $13,127m
ConocoPhillips (NYSE: COP)	FY2025 adjusted earnings of $7.7bn, or $6.16 per share, down from $9.2bn and $7.79, with GAAP earnings of $8.0bn on production of 2,375 thousand barrels of oil equivalent per day. A pure upstream producer with similar volumes to BP at roughly 1.4 times BP's market capitalisation
BP plc (NYSE: BP)	FY2025 underlying replacement cost profit of $7,485m on a non-statutory basis, against statutory profit attributable to shareholders of just $55m, on production of 2,312 thousand barrels of oil equivalent per day
Eni S.p.A. (NYSE: E)	FY2025 adjusted net profit of €4,989m, down 5% from €5,257m, with net profit attributable of €2,608m on production of 1.73 million barrels of oil equivalent per day. Reported in euros, not dollars

The ranking at 17 September 2026 is ExxonMobil, then Chevron, Shell, TotalEnergies, ConocoPhillips, BP and Eni. BP is sixth of seven, roughly 17% of ExxonMobil's size and 43% of Shell's. A necessary comparability warning: adjusted earnings for Shell and Chevron, adjusted net income for TotalEnergies, adjusted net profit for Eni, adjusted earnings for ConocoPhillips and BP's underlying replacement cost profit are each non-statutory measures defined differently by each company. ExxonMobil's $28.8bn is a GAAP figure. The statutory line is given alongside each so a like-for-like reading is possible.

9. Insider and Institutional Activity

Chief Executive Officer Meg O'Neill, appointed 1 April 2026, has made no dealings in BP shares other than two nil-cost awards granted to her on 29 April 2026. No open-market purchase by the new chief executive has been notified. That is the first of two clean findings in this section. The second is broader and more striking: there were no open-market purchases by any BP director or person discharging managerial responsibility in calendar 2026. Every acquisition on record was an award, a vesting, a dividend reinvestment or a routine monthly employee share plan purchase. Meanwhile five material open-market sales were notified in the first half of the year. BP is a foreign private issuer and is exempt from Section 16 of the United States Securities Exchange Act, so there are no Form 4 filings; dealings are notified under the Market Abuse Regulation via regulatory announcement and republished in BP's monthly Form 6-K filings, which is the source used below.

Name	Date	Type	Shares	Plan Type
Carol Howle (Deputy CEO)	18 May 2026	Sell	350,000 ordinary	Open market, London Stock Exchange
Douglas Dryburgh (person closely associated with Kerry Dryburgh, EVP people and culture)	19 Mar 2026	Sell	228,847 ordinary	Open market, London Stock Exchange
Michael Sosso (EVP legal)	23 Mar 2026	Sell	14,308.526 ADS	Open market, New York Stock Exchange
William Lin (EVP gas and low carbon energy)	17 Mar 2026	Sell	100,000 ordinary	Open market, London Stock Exchange
William Lin (EVP gas and low carbon energy)	17 Mar 2026	Sell	10,000 ADS, equal to 60,000 ordinary	Open market, New York Stock Exchange
Meg O'Neill (CEO)	29 Apr 2026	Award	1,901,277 ordinary	Restricted Share Award under a bespoke buy-out plan replacing remuneration forfeited on leaving Woodside; vesting over up to five years
Meg O'Neill (CEO)	29 Apr 2026	Award	809,232 ordinary	Performance Share Award under the same buy-out plan, subject to relative total shareholder return
Meg O'Neill (CEO)	29 Apr 2026	Award	1,415,701 ordinary	Executive Directors Incentive Plan performance shares 2026 to 2028, at 500% of salary pro-rated from 1 April
Carol Howle (Deputy CEO)	29 Apr 2026	Award	1,455,598 ordinary	Executive Directors Incentive Plan performance shares 2026 to 2028
Kate Thomson (CFO)	29 Apr 2026	Award	776,640 ordinary	Executive Directors Incentive Plan performance shares at 450% of salary
Kate Thomson (CFO)	06 Aug 2026	Option exercise	105,939 ordinary	Reinvent bp share plan
Gordon Birrell (EVP Upstream)	25 Jun 2026	Grant of options	2,650	BP ShareSave United Kingdom Plan, all-employee scheme
Kate Thomson (CFO)	10 Sep 2026	Buy	3	BP ShareMatch United Kingdom Plan, routine monthly all-employee purchase

Further nil-cost Share Value Plan and Restricted Share Plan grants were made on 27 May 2026 to Carol Howle, Gordon Birrell, Kerry Dryburgh, Emeka Emembolu, William Lin and Michael Sosso, and vestings occurred on 18 February 2026 at a £4.62 release price. Dividend reinvestments took place on 1 April 2026 at £5.98324 and 1 July 2026 at £4.58242. Neither Albert Manifold nor Ian Tyler appears in any 2026 notification, and no non-executive director dealing was recorded in the year; Murray Auchincloss made no 2026 dealings.

On the institutional side, the last hard data point on Elliott Management is a 5.006% interest disclosed in April 2025, built through equity swaps and therefore carrying no voting rights, alongside a push for roughly $20bn of annual free cash flow by 2027 — about 40% above BP's own plan — and capital expenditure cut to around $12bn. No 2026 filing, stake change or public statement was found, so BP's current activist position should be treated as unverified rather than assumed either way.

10. Key Risks

• Commodity price sensitivity, quantified by BP itself: a one dollar per barrel move in Brent changes pre-tax replacement cost operating profit by $340m, and a ten cent move in Henry Hub by $40m, weighted roughly 80:20 between oil production and operations and gas and low carbon energy. The second quarter of 2026 was earned on Brent at $103.85 against a $70 planning price — a gap worth roughly $11.6bn annualised on BP's own arithmetic. The quarter is not a run-rate.
• Refining margin sensitivity, also quantified: a one dollar per barrel move in BP's refining indicator margin is worth $450m, revised down from $550m on 4 August 2026 after the Gelsenkirchen sale. The margin averaged $29.6 a barrel in the second quarter against a $10.8 planning assumption, an $18.8 gap worth roughly $8.5bn annualised. Refining is the single largest swing factor in the current numbers, and BP has just reduced its own exposure to it.
• Leverage that is larger than it looks: total finance debt of $58,337m at 30 June 2026 and net debt of $22,251m, essentially unchanged from $22,182m at the year end despite more than $11bn of disposals. Gearing 23.1%, or 32.5% including leases. On BP's own broadest measure — net debt plus hybrids plus leases plus Gulf of America liabilities — the figure was $53.6bn. Hybrid securities of $13,015m sit inside equity as non-controlling interests and are invisible in headline net debt. Reaching the $14bn to $18bn target requires $5bn to $8bn of reduction in eighteen months.
• Divestment execution concentrated in one transaction: Castrol, worth roughly $6bn net and the largest single piece of the $20bn programme, had not completed as at 17 September 2026 with Australian and Indian clearances outstanding. BP cut 2026 divestment guidance from $9bn to $10bn down to $8bn to $9bn. The North Sea and Archaea processes have no announced buyer, price or timetable, and Bay du Nord's consideration was not disclosed by either party. A Castrol slip past the year end pushes the net debt target materially off track.
• Gulf of America settlement payments: $7,255m of payables at 31 December 2025, split $1,520m current and $5,735m non-current, with roughly $1.6bn of pre-tax payments guided for 2026 of which $0.4bn was paid in the first quarter and $1.1bn in the second. This is a hard, dated cash drain that sits outside headline net debt and outside most peer comparisons.
• Governance instability, now the standout risk: in nine months BP lost a chief executive, appointed a chairman and then removed him for conduct, and appointed a third. At the April 2026 annual general meeting shareholders defeated two board-proposed special resolutions, including one to remove certain climate disclosures by 52.53% against, and roughly 18% voted against the chairman's election five weeks before the board removed him. The senior independent director will not stand for re-election in 2027. A board this unsettled is a poor guarantor of a multi-year deleveraging plan.
• Transition and stranded-asset risk, already crystallising in the accounts: FY2025 asset impairments of $5.4bn pre-tax plus roughly $1.1bn through equity-accounted earnings, with $3.5bn in the fourth quarter alone and "primarily related to our transition businesses in the gas and low carbon energy segment". A further $1,689m of net impairments and losses on sale followed in the first half of 2026. Archaea Energy, bought for roughly $4.1bn in 2022, is now for sale. O'Neill's own assessment at the second quarter was that "we have written off too much value".
• Takeover and strategic uncertainty: Shell issued a formal statement under Rule 2.8 of the United Kingdom City Code on 26 June 2025 confirming it had no intention of making an offer for BP, which barred it from bidding for six months. That restriction has long since lapsed and no further statement, approach or credible report was found in 2026. The factual position is that there is nothing live — but BP is now the second smallest of the Western majors with a depressed statutory earnings base, which is a structurally exposed place to stand.
• Residual Russia exposure: BP announced its decision to exit its Rosneft shareholding in February 2022, yet the FY2025 Form 20-F still lists accounting for the investments in Rosneft and Aker BP among the areas requiring the most significant judgement and estimation in preparing the financial statements. A residual accounting exposure persists; no current carrying value could be verified from the filings, so no figure is quoted here.

BP's board reduced its own list of principal risks from twenty to sixteen in 2025, reorganising rather than reducing exposure. Named risks include commodity prices and market environment, accessing and producing hydrocarbon resources, climate change and the transition to a lower carbon economy, geopolitical exposure, liquidity and capital access, partner and third-party risk, digital and cyber security, security, process safety and environmental risks, and ethical misconduct and non-compliance. For the macroeconomic and inventory releases that drive the oil price assumptions underneath every figure in this report, see the ChartsView Economic Calendar.

11. Recent Developments

• 01 Oct 2025 — Albert Manifold becomes chair as Helge Lund steps down. The former CRH chief executive joined the board on 1 September 2025 as a non-executive director and chair-elect, having been announced on 21 July 2025, and took the chair on 1 October.
• 04 Nov 2025 — Third quarter 2025 results. Underlying replacement cost profit of $2,210m and attributable profit of $1,161m on basic earnings per share of 7.48 cents, with operating cash flow of $7,786m and net debt of $26,054m. BP said it intended to execute a further $0.75bn of buybacks before the fourth quarter results.
• 09 Dec 2025 — United States onshore wind sale completes. LS Power completed the acquisition of bp Wind Energy, comprising ten operating assets across Indiana, Kansas, South Dakota, Colorado, Pennsylvania, Hawaii and Idaho, having agreed the deal in July 2025.
• 18 Dec 2025 — Chief executive steps down with immediate effect. Murray Auchincloss left as chief executive and director immediately; Carol Howle became interim chief executive; and Meg O'Neill, then chief executive of Woodside Energy, was appointed to start on 1 April 2026. Auchincloss remained in an advisory role to December 2026.
• 24 Dec 2025 — Castrol agreed to Stonepeak at a $10.1bn enterprise value. BP agreed to sell 65% of Castrol for roughly $6bn net, retaining 35% in a joint venture, with CPP Investments investing up to $1.05bn for an indirect stake and BP holding optionality to sell its residual stake after a two-year lock-up. BP's largest single divestment.
• 10 Feb 2026 — FY2025 results and the buyback suspension. FY2025 underlying replacement cost profit of $7,485m, with a fourth quarter attributable loss of $3,422m on $3.5bn of impairments, operating cash flow of $24,493m, net debt of $22,182m and return on average capital employed of 13.9%. The board suspended share buybacks, allocated excess cash to the balance sheet and formally retired the guidance to distribute 30% to 40% of operating cash flow.
• 19 Mar 2026 — Gelsenkirchen refinery agreed to Klesch Group. The sale covered the refinery, the Bottrop tank farm, DHC Solvent Chemie, logistics joint venture interests and related marketing, affecting roughly 1,800 employees and around 12 million tonnes of crude a year. It lifted BP's structural cost reduction target by roughly $1bn to $6.5bn to $7.5bn by 2027.
• 23 Apr 2026 — Shareholder revolt at the annual general meeting. Shareholders defeated two board-proposed special resolutions: one to remove certain climate-related disclosures, which drew 47.47% in favour against 52.53% opposed and required 75%, and one enabling virtual-only meetings. Roughly 18% voted against the election of chair Albert Manifold.
• 28 Apr 2026 — First quarter 2026 results, the first signed by Meg O'Neill. Underlying replacement cost profit of $3,198m against $1,381m a year earlier, attributable profit of $3,842m and basic earnings per share of 24.83 cents, but operating cash flow of only $2,860m after a roughly $6bn working capital build, and net debt up to $25,309m. BP announced a plan to cut corporate hybrid bond financing by roughly $4.3bn to around $9bn by the end of 2027.
• 26 May 2026 — The chairman is removed. The board "unanimously decided that Albert Manifold should no longer serve as Chair and Director with immediate effect", following "serious concerns raised to the Board related to important governance standards, oversight and conduct". Senior independent director Dame Amanda Blanc said the board "has been surprised and disappointed to learn of governance oversight and conduct issues it deems unacceptable". Ian Tyler was appointed interim chair the same day.
• 09 Jun 2026 — Reorganisation into Upstream and Downstream. Effective 1 July 2026, with Gordon Birrell as executive vice president Upstream and Richard Harding interim executive vice president Downstream, and renewables moved into the Technology function. External IFRS reporting segments remain unchanged until 31 December 2026.
• 31 Jul 2026 — The United Kingdom North Sea business is put up for sale. BP launched a process covering five production hubs — Andrew and ETAP in the central North Sea, and Glen Lyon, Clair and Clair Ridge west of Shetland — affecting roughly 1,100 employees. No BP price figure was published.
• 04 Aug 2026 — Second quarter 2026 results and a strategic reset. Underlying replacement cost profit of $5,732m, attributable profit of $3,911m, basic earnings per share of 24.77 cents and operating cash flow of $10,858m, on Brent averaging $103.85 a barrel and a refining indicator margin of $29.6. The dividend was raised 4% to 8.660 cents and net debt plus hybrids plus leases plus Gulf of America liabilities was cut more than 11% quarter on quarter to $53.6bn. Archaea Energy was put up for sale. O'Neill set out five priorities under the slogan "focus, perform, grow".
• 02 Sep 2026 — Ian Tyler confirmed as permanent chair. Effective immediately, following an internal and external search. Tyler joined the board as a non-executive director in April 2025, chairs Grafton Group and is senior independent director of Anglo American, and previously chaired Cairn Energy, Vistry Group, Affinity Water and AWE and was chief executive of Balfour Beatty from 2005 to 2013. The same announcement confirmed that Dame Amanda Blanc will not stand for re-election at the 2027 annual general meeting.

Discussion of BP, the oil majors and the wider UK energy complex is ongoing in the ChartsView Forum.

12. Key Dates and Catalysts

• 18 Sep 2026 — Payment date for the second quarter 2026 dividend, at 8.660 cents per ordinary share, 51.96 cents per ADS and 6.4059 pence per ordinary share, the sterling rate having been set on 8 September 2026
• 30 Oct 2026 — Third quarter 2026 results and dividend announcement, confirmed on BP's own published financial calendar. Several third-party earnings trackers carry 3 or 5 November instead; BP's own calendar is the authority
• 12 Nov 2026 — Indicative ex-dividend date for the third quarter 2026 dividend on the ordinary shares. The dividend itself is not declared until 30 October
• 13 Nov 2026 — Indicative ex-dividend date for the ADS line and record date for the third quarter 2026 dividend
• 18 Dec 2026 — Indicative payment date for the third quarter 2026 dividend
• Expected Dec 2026 — Completion of the Castrol sale to Stonepeak, subject to Australian and Indian competition clearances. The largest single item in the divestment programme and the main determinant of whether the net debt trajectory holds
• 01 Jan 2027 — The new Upstream and Downstream external reporting segments take effect, replacing the current four-segment structure. This is the last set of accounts on the old basis
• Expected Feb 2027 — Fourth quarter and full year 2026 results. Not announced; BP's published calendar runs only to December 2026, and the FY2025 results were released on 10 February 2026
• Expected Apr 2027 — Annual general meeting. Not announced, though BP's filings of 31 July and 2 September 2026 both reference a 2027 meeting. The 2026 meeting was held on 23 April 2026
• TBC — Capital markets day or investor strategy update. None is announced. O'Neill delivered her strategic reset verbally within the second quarter results on 4 August 2026 and BP has made no commitment to a future investor day

Already passed in 2026: FY2025 results and the buyback suspension on 10 February, the Form 20-F filing on 6 March, the chief executive transition on 1 April, the annual general meeting on 23 April, first quarter results on 28 April, the chairman's removal on 26 May, the reorganisation announcement on 9 June, second quarter results on 4 August and the permanent chair appointment on 2 September. The two dates that matter most between now and the year end are 30 October, which will show whether the second quarter's price windfall persisted into a third quarter, and the Castrol completion, which is the difference between a credible deleveraging plan and a missed target.

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Disclaimer: This research is produced by ChartsView for educational and informational purposes only. It does not constitute financial advice or a recommendation to buy or sell any security. All information is sourced from publicly available company filings, press releases, and official data. ChartsView does not use analyst opinions or third-party ratings. Always conduct your own due diligence and consider your personal financial situation before making investment decisions. Past performance is not indicative of future results.

Last Updated: 17 September 2026

Bunzl is one of the least glamorous UK blue chips and, for two decades, one of the most reliable. It distributes the things a business consumes but does not sell — food packaging, cleaning chemicals, safety boots, gloves, disposable gowns — across 33 countries, and it has grown almost entirely by buying small family-owned distributors and plugging them into its warehouse network. That formula produced 33 consecutive years of dividend growth and a compound adjusted earnings per share growth rate of roughly 9% since 2004.

This report covers what happened next. Bunzl met its revised 2025 guidance, restored service levels in North America, returned to positive underlying growth for five consecutive quarters, upgraded its 2026 margin guidance on 1 September 2026 and launched a £500m buyback. What follows is the raw material — segments, five years of statutory and adjusted figures, cash flows, balance sheet, valuation metrics, insider dealings and dated catalysts — all taken from Bunzl's own filings and announcements. No analyst opinions, no price targets, no ratings.

1. Company Snapshot

Field	Value
Listing	London Stock Exchange Main Market, ticker BNZL (BNZL.L). ISIN GB00B0744B38. An unsponsored ADR line also trades over the counter in the US.
Index membership	STOXX Europe 600
Sector	Industrials — specialist international distribution and services. Bunzl self-describes as "the largest value-added distributor in the world in our market sectors"
Headquarters	York House, 45 Seymour Street, London W1H 7JT, United Kingdom
Founded	Origins 1854 (Moritz Bunzl, Bratislava). Bunzl plc incorporated 1940; London listed 1957
Countries of operation	33 countries, more than 150 operating companies
Employees	26,672 (average number of employees during FY2025, per the Annual Report 2025)
CEO / Leadership	Frank van Zanten, Chief Executive Officer since April 2016 (joined the Board 1 February 2016). Chief Financial Officer: Richard Howes. Van Zanten was named as Chief Executive Officer in Bunzl's half-year results release of 1 September 2026 and in a company filing dated 7 September 2026
Revenue (FY2025, statutory)	£11,845.4m, up 0.6% as reported and 3.0% at constant exchange rates (FY2024: £11,776.4m)
Profit for the year (FY2025, statutory)	£459.8m, of which £459.2m attributable to equity holders. Statutory operating profit £735.3m
Adjusted profit for the year (FY2025)	£582.5m, down 8.0%. Adjusted operating profit £910.3m at a 7.7% margin
Dividend per share (FY2025)	74.1p total (20.2p interim plus 53.9p final), up 0.3% — a 33rd consecutive year of annual dividend growth
Leverage	Adjusted net debt to EBITDA of 2.0 times at 31 December 2025, falling to 1.8 times at 30 June 2026, against a stated target range of 2.0 to 2.5 times

2. The Bull and Bear Case

Bull Case

• A compounding machine with a 20-year track record: Bunzl has completed more than 230 bolt-on acquisitions since 2004, committing £6.2bn of capital, and has converted that into an adjusted earnings per share compound annual growth rate of roughly 9% while also returning £3.1bn to shareholders.
• The self-help programme is visibly working: the group operating margin rose from 7.0% to 7.3% in the first half of 2026, adjusted operating profit grew 8.0% at constant currency, and Bunzl says service levels and product availability in North America Distribution have been restored. On 1 September 2026 it upgraded full-year margin guidance from "slightly down" to "broadly flat".
• Balance sheet capacity has been rebuilt: leverage of 1.8 times at the half year sits below the bottom of the 2.0 to 2.5 times target range, which is the stated reason for the new £500m buyback. Committed bank facilities of £1,250m were entirely undrawn at 30 June 2026.
• Customer stickiness is measurable and increasing: own-brand products reached roughly 30% of group revenue in FY2025 (28% in FY2024) and 78% of orders were processed digitally in the first half of 2026, up from 73% two years earlier. Both metrics raise switching costs and support gross margin, which held at 28.8% in FY2025.
• Returns on capital remain high for a distributor: return on average operating capital was 37.0% in FY2025 and 38.0% in the first half of 2026; return on invested capital, which carries the full weight of two decades of acquisition goodwill, was 13.0% and 13.3% respectively.

Bear Case

• Organic growth is thin and the engine is acquisitions: underlying revenue growth was just 0.4% in FY2025, and the 3.0% constant-currency figure was driven by deals. A distributor growing its own volumes at well under one per cent is a business dependent on capital deployment rather than demand.
• Management itself says the margin tailwind is temporary: Bunzl attributes the first-half 2026 margin expansion to "the net impact of inflation, much of which is expected to be temporary in nature". The same inflation-deflation whipsaw that hurt French and UK cleaning and hygiene in 2025 can reverse the current benefit.
• The acquisition pipeline has stalled: committed acquisition spend fell to £132m in FY2025 and to under £20m in the first eight months of 2026, against an average of roughly £300m a year over 2020 to 2025. Bunzl expects a more active second half, but two soft years in a row directly caps the growth algorithm.
• North America is a single point of failure: it is 53% of revenue and 47% of divisional adjusted operating profit, and its margin fell from 7.9% to 7.0% in FY2025 on a self-inflicted operating-model change that caused what Bunzl called a "loss of speed and agility servicing local customers". The recovery is one year old.
• Reported cash flow is currently flattered by tariff refunds: first-half 2026 free cash flow was £327.8m as reported but £256.8m excluding United States IEEPA tariff refunds that Bunzl says "are expected to be returned to customers". The company now has to guide and report on an ex-refund basis, and the clean underlying number grew only 5.6%.
• The buyback consumes the deleveraging headroom: the £500m programme will absorb most of the gap between 1.8 times leverage and the 2.0 to 2.5 times target, leaving less capacity for the large acquisition year management is guiding towards.

3. Revenue Segments

Bunzl reports on four geographic business areas. The figures below are FY2025, from the annual results announcement of 2 March 2026 and the segmental note of the Annual Report 2025.

Segment	% of revenue	What it is
North America	53% (£6,276.7m)	The largest business area. Bunzl North America Distribution primarily serves grocery and foodservice redistribution customers, alongside separate safety, retail supplies, food processor and convenience store businesses plus Canada and Mexico. FY2025 adjusted operating profit £440.5m at a 7.0% margin, down from 7.9%
Continental Europe	21% (£2,442.0m)	Benelux, France, Spain, the Nordics, Central and Eastern Europe and Turkey. Cleaning and hygiene, foodservice, safety and packaging, including several online and e-commerce businesses. FY2025 adjusted operating profit £204.7m at an 8.4% margin
UK and Ireland	16% (£1,883.6m)	Foodservice including Nisbets, acquired in May 2024, plus cleaning and hygiene, care, safety, grocery and non-food retail. The only area to grow adjusted operating profit in FY2025, to £153.1m at an 8.1% margin
Rest of the World	10% (£1,243.1m)	Asia Pacific, where Australian and New Zealand healthcare is the key driver, and Latin America (Brazil, Chile, Peru, Argentina, Colombia). The highest-margin area at 11.7%, contributing £145.3m of adjusted operating profit
Corporate	Not applicable	Central costs of £33.3m in FY2025 (FY2024: £31.6m), charged below the business areas

Bunzl also discloses an end-market view of the same revenue. For FY2025 the split was foodservice 31%, grocery and other 28%, safety 15%, cleaning and hygiene 11%, retail 8% and healthcare 7%. Group adjusted operating profit was £910.3m at a 7.7% margin; the statutory operating profit of £735.3m equates to a 6.2% statutory margin.

4. Business Model and Moat

How it makes money. Bunzl buys non-food consumables from thousands of suppliers, holds the stock, consolidates customer orders and delivers them complete and on time. It charges a distribution margin for doing so: FY2025 gross margin was 28.8%, on cost of goods sold of £8,427.7m, against employee costs of £1,238.0m and other operating expenses of £1,011.4m. The operating cost to sales ratio was 22.0% in the first half of 2026. The value proposition is that a customer can outsource an entire category — everything it consumes but does not sell — to one supplier and stop managing hundreds of small vendor relationships.

Where the moat comes from. Three things, in Bunzl's telling. First, procurement scale: own-brand products are roughly 30% of group revenue and Bunzl describes them as "underpenetrated" in North America Distribution, which is both an admission and a margin lever. Second, warehouse and delivery density, which is being actively consolidated — 36 warehouse consolidations and relocations in FY2025 (against 19 in FY2024) and a further 15 in the first half of 2026, including a large France consolidation now fully operational. Third, technical and sales expertise, with roughly 30% of colleagues in specialist sales roles, plus a sustainability advisory capability that Bunzl says it presented to more than 300 large existing customers in 2025.

The acquisition engine. This is the part of the model that actually generates growth. Bunzl completed eight acquisitions in FY2025 across seven countries, committing £131.8m for businesses with roughly £92m of annualised revenue and £16m of annualised adjusted operating profit, entering Chilean healthcare and establishing a footprint in Slovakia. Bunzl does not publish the multiples it pays, saying only that deals are done "at attractive multiples" ahead of hurdle rates. In 2026 to date it has completed two: Scientifix Group in Australia (life sciences distribution, roughly £9m revenue, April) and Ghessu Bath in Spain (hospitality bathroom accessories, roughly £6m revenue, July).

What the model does not disclose. Bunzl publishes no customer concentration figure, no contract length, no retention rate and no named large customer. The FY2025 report refers to losing a higher-margin programme with "an existing grocery customer" without naming or sizing it. Investors relying on the switching-cost argument are relying on management assertion plus the own-brand and digital penetration metrics as proxies, not on disclosed contract economics.

5. Financial Health

Revenue and basic earnings per share below are statutory figures as reported under IFRS. Adjusted earnings per share is Bunzl's own alternative performance measure, defined as profit before amortisation excluding software, acquisition related items and certain other items. The long-term debt column is non-current interest-bearing loans and borrowings from the statutory balance sheet; non-current lease liabilities are additional and are given separately below the table.

Fiscal Year	Revenue (£m)	YoY %	GAAP EPS	Adjusted EPS	Dividend/share	Long-term debt (YE)
FY2021	10,285.1	+1.7%	132.7p	162.5p	57.0p	£1,433.7m
FY2022	12,039.5	+17.1%	141.7p	184.3p	62.7p	£1,574.0m
FY2023	11,797.1	−2.0%	157.1p	191.1p	68.3p	£1,417.1m
FY2024	11,776.4	−0.2%	149.6p	194.3p	73.9p	£1,361.7m
FY2025	11,845.4	+0.6%	141.5p	179.3p	74.1p	£1,736.5m

Non-current lease liabilities, which sit alongside the borrowings above, were £359.6m (FY2021), £424.0m (FY2022), £512.4m (FY2023), £573.7m (FY2024) and £555.5m (FY2025). Adding them, total non-current debt including leases was £2,292.0m at the end of FY2025, up from £1,935.4m a year earlier. The FY2025 increase in borrowings is largely a refinancing effect: current borrowings fell from £619.2m to £203.8m and bank overdrafts from £987.9m to £212.6m over the same period as gross cash-pooling balances were reduced.

Bunzl reports on a half-yearly basis rather than quarterly, publishing trading statements without earnings figures in the first and third quarters. The table below therefore shows half-year periods. H2 rows are derived by subtracting the published first half from the published full year, because Bunzl does not issue standalone second-half statements.

Quarter / Half	Revenue	Adjusted EPS	GAAP EPS
H1 2026 (six months to 30 June 2026)	£5,933.1m	87.7p	65.7p
H2 2025 (derived)	£6,085.8m	101.5p	85.9p
H1 2025	£5,759.6m	77.8p	55.6p
H2 2024 (derived)	£6,064.9m	103.5p	90.4p
H1 2024	£5,711.5m	90.8p	59.2p
FY2025 total	£11,845.4m	179.3p	141.5p

Cash flow and balance sheet, FY2025. Cash generated from operations before acquisition related items was £1,136.1m. After acquisition related items of £43.4m and income tax paid of £179.7m, net cash inflow from operating activities was £913.0m. Purchases of property, plant and equipment and software absorbed £71.5m, giving net capital expenditure of £68.8m after disposals. Bunzl's own operating cash flow measure was £834.6m and its free cash flow measure £578.5m, down 8.7%, on cash conversion of 95%. Depreciation and amortisation totalled £404.7m: depreciation of property, plant and equipment £42.4m, depreciation of right-of-use assets £197.8m, software amortisation £13.0m and amortisation excluding software £151.5m.

On the balance sheet at 31 December 2025, cash and cash equivalents were £540.1m against total borrowings, overdrafts and lease liabilities of £2,895.4m. Bunzl's own headline measures were net debt excluding lease liabilities of £1,663.9m, adjusted net debt of £1,942.8m and adjusted net debt including lease liabilities of £2,685.3m, equating to 2.0 times and 2.2 times EBITDA respectively. Covenant net debt to EBITDA was 1.8 times against a covenant limit of 3.5 times. Total equity was £2,792.8m and intangible assets £3,618.1m — intangibles exceed equity, which is the arithmetic signature of a two-decade acquisition roll-up. At 30 June 2026 adjusted net debt including leases had fallen to £2,423.6m and leverage to 1.8 times. Approximately £184m of United States private placements mature in the 18 months to 31 December 2027.

6. Valuation Metrics

Share prices, and figures worked out from them, are not shown for London-listed companies on ChartsView.

Raw metrics, September 2026. Not opinions on whether the stock is cheap or expensive.

Metric

Value

Short interest (% of float)

0.88% of issued share capital — a single disclosed position held by AQR Capital Management, last changed 29 June 2026, down from 0.98% in June and 1.29% in May 2026. The United Kingdom disclosure threshold is 0.5% of issued share capital, so aggregate short interest may be modestly higher than the disclosed total. Earlier 2026 disclosed positions from Marshall Wace and Ilex Capital Partners have both closed out

7. What Are They Building

The strategy, as stated. Bunzl calls it a "long-term compounding growth strategy" resting on three pillars: organic growth, operational efficiency and acquisitions. Capital allocation priorities are stated in order: invest in the business, pay a progressive dividend, self-fund value-accretive acquisitions, then distribute excess cash. The leverage target is adjusted net debt to EBITDA of 2.0 to 2.5 times on average through the medium term, and the cash conversion target is 90%.

The £500m buyback. Announced on 1 September 2026 and to be completed over the following twelve months, this is Bunzl's justification for holding 1.8 times leverage below its own target range. The first tranche covers up to 32,421,142 shares for a maximum of £250m, to complete no later than 22 December 2026, executed through an irrevocable non-discretionary agreement with J.P. Morgan Securities. Repurchased shares are cancelled rather than held in treasury. The programme is more than double the £200m 2025 buyback, which was paused in April 2025 after roughly £115m and resumed and completed in the second half of the year.

Operational efficiency. Warehouse consolidation is the main lever: 36 consolidations and relocations in FY2025 and 15 in the first half of 2026, nine consolidations and six relocations, including a large France consolidation now fully operational with reported benefits to service levels, working capital and capacity. Bunzl is rolling out warehouse management systems and an online marketplace solution, and says artificial intelligence is now "embedded into everyday sales, operations and support processes" for product recommendation, sales opportunity identification, warehouse optimisation and what it terms agentic workflows.

New commercial initiatives. Bunzl has signed an exclusive long-term global partnership with adidas to enter the safety footwear market. The vehicle is GLO Brands B.V., a Bunzl business unit, and the range is branded adidas Pro Work, with the first collection debuting in the second quarter of 2026 and going on sale from August 2026 through selected European retailers and distributors at €100 to €150. Bunzl cites it as evidence of its safety expertise and distribution reach.

The acquisition pipeline, in management's own framing. Committed spend year to date is below £20m against a 2020 to 2025 average of roughly £300m a year. Bunzl attributes the slowdown to macroeconomic uncertainty affecting deal timing, describes the pipeline as active with momentum building, expects a more active second half, and expects total 2026 acquisition spend to exceed 2025. It maintains that roughly £300m a year "remains a relevant reference point for the medium-term".

Guidance for FY2026, as upgraded on 1 September 2026. Revenue growth at constant exchange rates excluding United States tariff refunds, driven by modest underlying growth plus some inflation and a small acquisition benefit. Group operating margin now expected to be broadly flat year on year against the 7.6% reported for 2025 on a comparable basis, upgraded from "slightly down". Modest adjusted operating profit growth at constant exchange rates. Net adjusted finance expense of £125m to £130m and a full-year effective tax rate of approximately 26.0%.

Sustainability. FY2025 saw 93% of spend in high-risk regions sourced from assessed and compliant suppliers, ahead of the 90% target set in 2021, on 1,430 supplier assessments. Absolute emissions are down 18% since 2019 and carbon efficiency is up 28%. Some 87% of group revenue is attributable to non-packaging products or packaging made from materials suited to a circular economy, which also quantifies the residual single-use plastics exposure at roughly 13%.

No new numeric medium-term financial targets were set at the 2026 half year beyond the guidance above, the leverage range, the 90% cash conversion target, the progressive dividend and the acquisition spend reference point. Bunzl's last dedicated capital markets day was in 2021.

8. Competitive Landscape

Bunzl has no direct like-for-like listed peer: it competes with regional distributors in each category and country rather than with a single global rival. The comparator set below is therefore made up of industrial and foodservice distributors with broadly similar business models. Market capitalisations were captured on different dates between 4 and 16 September 2026 because no single source carried all of them on one date, and each date is stated. Figures are shown in the currency of the primary listing.

Peer	Key 2025 metric
W.W. Grainger (NYSE: GWW)	—
Fastenal (NASDAQ: FAST)	—
Ferguson Enterprises (NYSE and LSE: FERG)	Calendar 2025 net sales of $31.3bn, up 5.0% with organic growth of 4.5% and acquisitions adding 1.0%; gross margin of 31.0%, up 70 basis points. A plumbing and HVAC distributor, and the closest comparator for growth mix
Sysco (NYSE: SYY)	—
Diploma plc (LSE: DPLM)	Trailing annual sales of £1.65bn on a net margin of 9.42% and return on equity of 18.55% — one seventh of Bunzl's revenue at a higher market capitalisation. The clearest evidence that the London market will pay up for a specialist distributor when organic growth and margin are higher, and the most direct challenge to Bunzl's rating
Brenntag SE (XETRA: BNR)	FY2025 sales of €15.2bn, down 3.7%, with operating gross profit of €3.8bn, down 1.9%, and operating EBITDA of €1.29bn, down 8.6% — a chemicals distributor in outright decline, and a reminder of how the model performs when end-market volumes fall
RS Group plc (LSE: RS1)	Annual sales of £2.88bn for the fiscal year to March 2026 on a net margin of 5.62% and return on equity of 11.55% — the other large London-listed distributor, and currently rated well below both Bunzl and Diploma

Note on comparability: fiscal years differ (Sysco to June, RS Group to March, Diploma to September) so the trailing sales figures are not all calendar 2025. The Ferguson and Brenntag figures are company-reported results for the 2025 calendar or fiscal year. Bunzl's own FY2025 revenue was £11,845.4m at a 7.7% adjusted operating margin and 6.2% statutory operating margin.

9. Insider and Institutional Activity

Chief Executive Officer Frank van Zanten and Chief Financial Officer Richard Howes both transacted in Bunzl shares during 2026, but almost every transaction below is a share-plan mechanic rather than a discretionary view on valuation. The pattern is worth stating plainly: 2026 insider activity is dominated by routine all-employee Sharesave grants and share-plan vests with associated cost-covering sales. The only clear discretionary open-market purchase identified was by a non-executive director. There were no large discretionary open-market disposals by directors in 2026 on the evidence found. Bunzl is a United Kingdom issuer, so dealings are notified under the Market Abuse Regulation via regulatory announcement rather than on SEC Form 4.

Name	Date	Type	Shares	Plan Type
Frank van Zanten (CEO)	07 Sep 2026	Option exercise	368	International Sharesave Plan, option granted 2023
Frank van Zanten (CEO)	07 Sep 2026	Sell	368	Immediate sale of the Sharesave shares on the London Stock Exchange; holding 250,404
Stephan Nanninga (Non-Executive Director)	09 Jul 2026	Buy	10,000	Open-market purchase of ordinary shares — the only clear discretionary buy of 2026
Frank van Zanten (CEO)	09 Jul 2026	Vest, net of cost-covering sale	24,610 net increase	Share award exercise with part sale to cover associated costs
Frank van Zanten (CEO)	08 May 2026	Buy and same-day sell	15,000 each way	Paired transaction consistent with an option exercise and settlement, not a net open-market purchase
Richard Howes (CFO)	06 May 2026	Nil-cost transfer	31,055	Share-plan vest and transfer; resulting holding 180,256
Richard Howes (CFO)	01 Apr 2026	Grant of options	1,041	Bunzl plc Sharesave Scheme
Frank van Zanten (CEO)	01 Apr 2026	Grant of options	1,022	Bunzl plc International Sharesave Plan
Suzanne Jefferies (Group General Counsel)	01 Apr 2026	Grant of options	1,747	Bunzl plc Sharesave Scheme
Andrew Mooney (Director of Corporate Development)	01 Apr 2026	Grant of options	1,041	Bunzl plc Sharesave Scheme
Dale Stokes (Managing Director, UK and Ireland)	01 Apr 2026	Grant of options	1,041	Bunzl plc Sharesave Scheme

The 1 April 2026 Sharesave grants to the four persons discharging managerial responsibility totalled 4,870 options at £17.48, transacted outside a trading venue. The most significant ownership change in 2026 is not an insider transaction at all but the buyback: shares repurchased are cancelled, so every tranche mechanically increases every remaining holder's proportionate stake. Board changes in the period were at non-executive level only, with Julia Wilson succeeding Lloyd Pitchford as Audit Committee Chair after the April 2025 annual general meeting.

10. Key Risks

• North America concentration and execution: at 53% of revenue and 47% of divisional adjusted operating profit, North America is the business that matters, and in FY2025 its adjusted operating profit fell 11.5% at constant currency with margin dropping from 7.9% to 7.0%. The cause was internal — a move from a branch-based model with more than 40 general managers to a separated sales and operations structure, which Bunzl says caused a "loss of speed and agility servicing local customers, largely foodservice redistributors" and cost share of wallet. Service levels are reported restored, but the recovery is barely a year old and the failure was self-inflicted.
• Tariff distortion of reported revenue and cash flow: FY2025 North American trading was compounded by tariff-related supply chain disruption, and in the first half of 2026 Bunzl received United States IEEPA tariff refunds which it says "are expected to be returned to customers". Those refunds inflated reported free cash flow to £327.8m against £256.8m excluding them, forcing the company to guide and report on an ex-refund basis. Any change in tariff policy, or a dispute over pass-through, hits both earnings and cash.
• The inflation and deflation whipsaw: FY2025 was damaged by product cost deflation, particularly in French and United Kingdom cleaning and hygiene as post-pandemic prices normalised. The first half of 2026 margin recovery to 7.3% was driven by "the net impact of inflation, much of which is expected to be temporary in nature" — Bunzl's own words. When that benefit unwinds the margin tailwind becomes a headwind.
• Acquisition dependence combined with a stalled pipeline: underlying revenue growth was 0.4% in FY2025, so constant-currency growth of 3.0% came from deals. Committed acquisition spend fell to £132m in FY2025 and under £20m in the first eight months of 2026, against a roughly £300m annual average over 2020 to 2025. Bunzl's own principal risks list both "the inability of the Group to make further acquisitions" and "the risk of an unsuccessful acquisition" — the strategy is exposed at both ends.
• Change-programme execution risk: Bunzl explicitly names "risk relating to major change programme execution" as a principal risk, and FY2025 is the proof case. Live programmes include the Nisbets integration acquired in May 2024, with synergies only annualising in 2026 and earlier flagged slower than anticipated progress on warehouse automation, a large France consolidation, and 36 warehouse moves in 2025 plus 15 more in the first half of 2026.
• Currency translation: roughly 84% of revenue is generated outside the United Kingdom and Ireland, so sterling reported results swing with the dollar and euro. FY2025 revenue grew 3.0% at constant currency but only 0.6% as reported, a drag of roughly 2.4 percentage points; adjusted operating profit fell 4.3% at constant currency but 6.7% as reported. Other comprehensive expense included £31.8m of translation losses and the translation reserve stood at negative £356.6m. Bunzl publishes no single-currency earnings sensitivity.
• Geographic weak spots beyond North America: France suffered deflation plus operating cost inflation on what Bunzl calls a "relatively high cost to serve operating model"; Brazil could not fully pass through currency-driven cost increases into a weak industrial market; Mexican foodservice and grocery and the United States food processor and convenience store businesses saw demand pressure; and Rest of the World healthcare margins were hit in the first half of 2026 by reduced public sector spending in New Zealand.
• Cost inflation and refinancing: the first half of 2026 saw elevated fuel and freight costs from higher commodity prices, pushing the operating cost to sales ratio to 22.0% from 21.8%, while the United Kingdom and Ireland was earlier affected by higher employer National Insurance rates hitting customer sectors. Roughly £184m of United States private placements mature in the 18 months to 31 December 2027, and the £500m buyback will consume the leverage headroom that currently sits below the target range.
• Cyber, sustainability regulation and climate disruption: all three are named principal risks. On plastics regulation, 87% of revenue is already non-packaging or alternative-material packaging, which places the directly exposed residual at roughly 13% — material but bounded.

For context on the macroeconomic releases that drive Bunzl's inflation, freight and consumer demand exposure, see the ChartsView Economic Calendar.

11. Recent Developments

• 08 Oct 2025 — Two more bolt-ons, and an investor seminar on acquisitions. Bunzl completed Caterline Catering Equipment in Ireland and Northern Ireland, with revenue of roughly £5m, and Anta y Jesús, a regional cleaning and hygiene distributor in north-west Spain, also roughly £5m. These were the sixth and seventh deals of 2025. A virtual investor seminar on acquisitions was hosted the same day by Group Corporate Development Director Andrew Mooney.
• 21 Oct 2025 — Third quarter trading statement. Group revenue grew 0.6% at constant exchange rates with underlying revenue up 0.4%, described as in line with expectations against challenging end markets. Net acquisitions added 1.4% and fewer trading days cost 1.1%. Full-year guidance was left unchanged.
• 17 Dec 2025 — Pre-close statement. Bunzl reaffirmed its 2025 adjusted operating profit guidance ahead of entering its closed period and said group revenue for the year was expected to grow 2% to 3% at constant exchange rates.
• 02 Mar 2026 — FY2025 annual results. Revenue £11,845.4m, up 0.6% as reported and 3.0% at constant currency. Adjusted operating profit £910.3m, down 6.7% as reported, with margin falling from 8.3% to 7.7%. Adjusted earnings per share 179.3p, down 7.7%; statutory basic earnings per share 141.5p. Free cash flow £578.5m on 95% cash conversion. Total dividend 74.1p, a 33rd consecutive annual increase. Eight acquisitions for £132m committed. The £200m buyback was confirmed completed and leverage stood at 2.0 times.
• 22 Apr 2026 — First quarter trading statement and annual general meeting. Group revenue up 1.5% at constant exchange rates with underlying revenue up 2.0%, supported by both volume growth and tariff-related price increases. Acquisitions net of disposals added 0.6% and fewer trading days cost 1.1%. Management called it a resilient performance against significant macroeconomic and geopolitical uncertainty, and reiterated full-year guidance.
• 23 Jun 2026 — Pre-close statement upgrades revenue guidance. First half revenue was expected to grow around 4% at constant exchange rates with underlying growth of around 3%, supported by second quarter product cost inflation driven by geopolitical events and encouraging volume growth led by North America, including good growth in the Distribution business. Margin guidance was unchanged at that point.
• 09 Jul 2026 — Director dealings. Chief Executive Officer Frank van Zanten's holding rose by 24,610 shares following an award exercise with a part sale to cover costs, and non-executive director Stephan Nanninga purchased 10,000 ordinary shares on the London Stock Exchange.
• 01 Sep 2026 — Half-year results, upgraded guidance and a £500m buyback. Revenue £5,933.1m, up 3.0% as reported with underlying growth of 3.2%, a fifth consecutive quarter of positive underlying growth. Adjusted operating profit £440.6m, up 8.9%, with margin rising from 7.0% to 7.3%. Adjusted earnings per share 87.7p, up 12.7%; statutory basic earnings per share 65.7p, up 18.2%. Interim dividend 20.8p, up 3.0%. Leverage 1.8 times. Full-year margin guidance was upgraded to broadly flat year on year and a new £500m buyback was announced. North America Distribution was described as having service levels and product availability restored.
• 07 Sep 2026 — Buyback execution begins. The first tranche covers up to 32,421,142 shares for a maximum £250m, to complete no later than 22 December 2026, through J.P. Morgan Securities.
• 11 Sep 2026 — adidas Pro Work safety footwear reaches market. Bunzl's GLO Brands B.V. unit and adidas launched the adidas Pro Work range under an exclusive long-term global partnership, with the first collection on sale from August 2026 through selected European retailers and distributors at €100 to €150.

For background, the April 2025 profit warning is the event this entire recovery narrative is measured against. On 16 April 2025 Bunzl cut its 2025 guidance because of operational challenges in its largest North American business, moving expected operating margin to moderately below 8.0% with a first half margin around 7.0%, and paused its £200m buyback having completed roughly £115m. The buyback was resumed in the second half and completed in full during 2025; Bunzl then met the revised guidance, delivered a much smaller second half margin decline, returned to positive underlying growth, and by September 2026 had upgraded 2026 guidance and launched a buyback two and a half times larger. Discussion of these results and the wider UK blue-chip industrials is ongoing in the ChartsView Forum.

12. Key Dates and Catalysts

• 20 Oct 2026 — Third quarter 2026 trading statement, confirmed on Bunzl's own financial calendar. A revenue and trading update only; Bunzl does not publish earnings figures at the first and third quarters
• 12 Nov 2026 — Ex-dividend date for the 20.8p 2026 interim dividend
• 13 Nov 2026 — Record date for the 2026 interim dividend, close of business
• 22 Dec 2026 — Latest completion date for the first £250m tranche of the £500m buyback programme
• Expected Dec 2026 — Pre-close trading statement, not yet on the published calendar. The 2025 equivalent was 17 December 2025 and the 2024 equivalent 17 December 2024
• 05 Jan 2027 — Payment date for the 20.8p 2026 interim dividend
• Expected Mar 2027 — FY2026 annual results, not yet announced. The recent pattern is 2 March 2026 for FY2025, 3 March 2025 for FY2024 and 26 February 2024 for FY2023
• Expected Apr 2027 — Annual general meeting with a first quarter 2027 trading statement, not yet announced. The 2026 meeting was held 22 April 2026 and the 2025 meeting 23 April 2025
• Expected May 2027 — Ex-dividend date for the FY2026 final dividend, not yet announced. The FY2025 final of 53.9p went ex-dividend on 21 May 2026
• Expected Jul 2027 — Payment date for the FY2026 final dividend, not yet announced. The FY2025 final was paid 2 July 2026
• Expected Sep 2027 — Half-year 2027 results, not yet announced. The 2026 half year was reported 1 September 2026 and the 2025 half year on 26 August 2025
• TBC — Capital markets day. None is currently announced; Bunzl's last dedicated capital markets day was in 2021, and the most recent investor event was the virtual acquisitions seminar of 8 October 2025

Already passed in 2026: FY2025 results on 2 March, the annual general meeting and first quarter statement on 22 April, the FY2025 final dividend ex-dividend date on 21 May and payment on 2 July, the pre-close statement on 23 June, and the half-year results and buyback announcement on 1 September. The two dates that matter most between now and the year end are the 20 October trading statement, which is the first read on whether the temporary inflation benefit is persisting, and the 22 December buyback tranche deadline, which sets the pace for the remaining £250m.

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Disclaimer: This research is produced by ChartsView for educational and informational purposes only. It does not constitute financial advice or a recommendation to buy or sell any security. All information is sourced from publicly available company filings, press releases, and official data. ChartsView does not use analyst opinions or third-party ratings. Always conduct your own due diligence and consider your personal financial situation before making investment decisions. Past performance is not indicative of future results.

Last Updated: 16 September 2026

The British Land Company PLC is a large UK-listed real estate investment trust with a £10.1bn portfolio concentrated in two places: London campuses and out-of-town retail parks. Since 2021 it has deliberately narrowed, selling mature offices and buying retail parks until those two categories reached roughly 90% of the book. The company completed the acquisition of Life Science REIT in April 2026 and, on 14 September 2026, Joanne McNamara took over as chief executive from Simon Carter. This report sets out the disclosed numbers. It contains no analyst ratings and no price targets.

1. Company Snapshot

Field	Value
Ticker / exchange	BLND — London Stock Exchange
Structure	UK Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT); dividends split between Property Income Distributions and non-PID
Headquarters	London, United Kingdom
Founded	1856
Fiscal year end	31 March
CEO / Leadership	Joanne McNamara, Chief Executive Officer (joined 14 September 2026, succeeding Simon Carter); David Walker, Chief Financial Officer; William Rucker, Chair
Employees	599 (average monthly Group headcount in FY2026 including staff at properties whose costs are recharged to tenants; 311 employed directly by the Company)
Revenue (FY2026, year to 31 March 2026)	£523m on an IFRS basis, up 15.2% year on year. Gross rental income on a proportionally consolidated basis, including the Group's share of joint ventures, was £551m.
Underlying Profit (FY2026)	£294m, up 5% year on year
IFRS profit after tax (FY2026)	£454m (FY2025: £338m)
Underlying earnings per share (FY2026)	28.9p (FY2025: 28.5p); IFRS basic EPS 45.4p
Dividend per share (FY2026)	23.12p, up 1% (final dividend 10.80p, paid 24 July 2026)
Portfolio value	£10,062m at 31 March 2026, proportionally consolidated, up 2.3%; £15.8bn including assets managed for joint-venture partners
EPRA net tangible assets per share	590p at 31 March 2026 (FY2025: 567p)
Loan to value	39.2% proportionally consolidated; 32.1% at Group level

Figures are from British Land's full-year results for the year ended 31 March 2026 (published 20 May 2026) and its Annual Report and Accounts 2026.

2. Bull Case and Bear Case

Bull Case

• The operating numbers are accelerating: FY2026 delivered 6% like-for-like net rental growth (Campuses +12%), 4.9% estimated rental value growth, record leasing of 3.8m sq ft at 7.2% ahead of ERV, and 1.1m sq ft under offer at 12.9% ahead of ERV. Occupancy is 96.9%. Rental growth of that order is what drives earnings in a REIT.
• Management has raised the earnings floor: FY2027 underlying EPS guidance was lifted to at least 30.5p from at least 30.2p following the Life Science REIT acquisition, with like-for-like net rental growth expected at the top of the 3–5% range and 3–6% annual EPS growth targeted thereafter.
• Debt is long, cheap and not due: no refinancing requirement until early 2029, £1.6bn of undrawn facilities and cash, a 5.1-year weighted average drawn maturity, a 3.9% weighted average interest rate and a Fitch senior unsecured rating of A, affirmed in February 2026. The company discloses it could absorb a 34% fall in asset values before breaching covenants.
• A funded, largely pre-let development pipeline: 1.645m sq ft committed at a 7.9% gross yield on cost, 45% let or under offer, with £328m still to spend against £64m of ERV. 1 Appold Street is fully pre-let or under option to Herbert Smith Freehills Kramer to 2029, and Broadgate Tower is 59% let or under offer.

Bear Case

• Leverage has been rising, not falling: proportionally consolidated loan to value moved up to 39.2% from 38.1% and adjusted net debt rose to £3,962m from £3,637m. Management itself describes LTV and net debt to EBITDA at 7.7x as being at the upper end of its internal range.
• Financing costs are eating the rental growth: net financing costs rose to £133m from £103m and the weighted average interest rate moved to 3.9% from 3.6%. British Land's own EPS bridge assumes a 10–20 basis point annual finance cost drag worth roughly minus 2% a year to earnings, which is why 5% like-for-like rental growth converts to only about 4% core EPS growth.
• Growth has leaned on issuing shares: weighted average shares in issue rose to 1,002m from 965m after the October 2024 £301m placing, and a further 24.5m shares were issued in April 2026 for Life Science REIT. Underlying profit rose 5% in FY2026 but underlying EPS rose only 1%.
• Office demand carries a structural question: British Land's own risk register rates Campuses market risk as Medium and names AI-driven structural change as a longer-term risk to occupier demand. Campuses are 58.2% of the portfolio and occupancy there is 94.7%, against 99.0% in retail and logistics.
• A brand-new chief executive at a turning point: Joanne McNamara started on 14 September 2026, succeeding Simon Carter after five years in the role and eighteen at the company. Strategy continuity through a leadership change at a point of elevated leverage and an unresolved UK fiscal outlook is not guaranteed.

3. Revenue Segments

Segment / category	% of revenue	What it is
Campuses	58.2% of portfolio value (£5,852m)	Large multi-building London estates — Broadgate, Regent's Place, Paddington Central, Canada Water and Euston Tower — split City £2,968m, West End £2,173m and Canada Water and other £711m.
Retail Parks	31.7% of portfolio value (£3,193m)	Out-of-town retail parks, the single largest category after Campuses and grown from 15% of the Group in 2021. British Land is the largest owner and operator of UK retail parks. Acquisitions in FY2026 were made at a 7.2% topped-up net initial yield.
Shopping Centres and Other Retail	6.8% of portfolio value (£684m)	Legacy shopping centres (£481m) and other retail assets (£203m), a shrinking residual following the FY2025 disposal of the Meadowhall joint-venture interest.
London Urban Logistics	3.3% of portfolio value (£333m)	Last-mile urban logistics sites inside London, the smallest and newest category, targeted at mid-teens internal rates of return with three schemes in the medium-term development pipeline.

British Land reports its portfolio in two segments — Campuses, and Retail and London Urban Logistics — and the table breaks the second of those into its disclosed components. Percentages are of portfolio value at 31 March 2026 on a proportionally consolidated basis, since the company discloses its business mix by valuation rather than by revenue line. On an income basis, Retail and London Urban Logistics together produced 2% like-for-like net rental growth against 12% for Campuses.

4. Business Model and Moat

How it makes money. British Land collects rent. Gross rental income of £551m on a proportionally consolidated basis converted to £476m of net rental income after £75m of property operating costs, then to £294m of Underlying Profit after £26m of fees and other income, £75m of administrative expenses and £133m of net financing costs. As a REIT it pays no corporation tax on qualifying property income provided it distributes at least 90% of it, which is why the FY2026 dividend of 23.12p was split 9.34p Property Income Distribution and 1.46p non-PID at the final stage. Underlying Profit, not IFRS profit, is the number the dividend is set against — IFRS profit of £454m swings with property valuations and is not distributable earnings.

Where the returns come from. Management sets out five levers, with indicative annual EPS contributions: like-for-like rental growth at the mid-point of 3–5% guidance is worth about +5%; fee income growth of 10% a year about +1%; administrative cost control offsets inflation; finance cost drag is about minus 2%.

The moat is concentration, not scale. British Land is not the largest UK REIT — Segro is roughly three times its market capitalisation. What it has is a dominant position in two specific sub-markets. It is the largest owner and operator of UK retail parks, a format that offers low-cost, flexible, click-and-collect-friendly space that online retail did not kill, and it owns whole London campuses rather than individual buildings, which gives it control over placemaking, amenity and phased redevelopment that a single-asset owner cannot replicate. The 3.8m sq ft of FY2026 leasing at 7.2% ahead of ERV is the evidence that this pricing power is real.

How development is de-risked. Speculative development exposure is disclosed at 5.0% of portfolio gross asset value against an internal limit of 12.5%, with total development exposure at 3.3%. Schemes are pre-let where possible, built under fixed-price construction contracts and frequently shared with joint-venture partners such as Norges Bank Investment Management at West One, which caps the downside on any one project.

5. Financial Health

The annual table uses IFRS Group revenue as reported in British Land's consolidated income statement. Underlying earnings per share is British Land's own adjusted measure, calculated from Underlying Profit after underlying tax; it is the figure the dividend policy is set against.

Fiscal Year	Revenue (£m)	YoY %	GAAP EPS	Adjusted EPS	Dividend/share	Long-term debt (YE)
FY2022 (to 31 Mar 2022)	412	-12.0%	103.8p	27.0p	21.92p	£2,562m
FY2023 (to 31 Mar 2023)	418	+1.5%	-112.0p	28.3p	22.64p	£2,250m
FY2024 (to 31 Mar 2024)	575	+37.6%	-0.1p	28.5p	22.80p	£2,225m
FY2025 (to 31 Mar 2025)	454	-21.0%	35.1p	28.5p	22.80p	£2,740m
FY2026 (to 31 Mar 2026)	523	+15.2%	45.4p	28.9p	23.12p	£3,006m

Long-term debt is the principal amount of Group gross debt at each year end, as disclosed in the respective results announcements. On a proportionally consolidated basis, including the Group's share of joint-venture borrowings, principal gross debt was £4,157m at 31 March 2026 against £3,738m a year earlier. The FY2024 revenue spike and the FY2025 fall reflect £174m of capital and other revenue recognised in FY2024, largely trading-property activity, which did not repeat.

British Land reports in half-years rather than quarters. The table shows the most recent period first; second-half figures are derived by deducting the reported first half from the audited full year.

Quarter / Half	Revenue	Adjusted EPS	GAAP EPS
H2 FY2026 (Oct 2025 – Mar 2026, derived)	£263m	13.5p	23.5p
H1 FY2026 (six months to 30 Sep 2025)	£260m	15.4p	21.9p
H2 FY2025 (Oct 2024 – Mar 2025, derived)	£238m	13.2p	23.4p
H1 FY2025 (six months to 30 Sep 2024)	£216m	15.3p	11.7p
FY2026 total (year to 31 Mar 2026)	£523m	28.9p	45.4p

Balance sheet and cash flow, FY2026. At 31 March 2026 the Group held £176m of cash and cash equivalents against £521m of short-term borrowings and overdrafts and £2,475m of debentures and loans — total IFRS borrowings of £2,996m. Investment and development properties were carried at £6,398m on the Group balance sheet with a further £2,611m of investments in joint ventures; total assets were £9,360m and IFRS net assets £5,932m. Net cash inflow from operating activities was £309m (FY2025: £270m), against £124m of development and other capital expenditure and £83m of investment property purchases. Property, plant and equipment is just £14m and investment property is held at fair value under IAS 40 rather than depreciated, so there is no material depreciation and amortisation charge. Financing activities were roughly neutral at a £12m inflow, with £229m of dividends paid offset by net borrowing drawdowns.

6. Valuation Metrics

Share prices, and figures worked out from them, are not shown for London-listed companies on ChartsView.

Raw metrics, September 2026. Not opinions on whether the stock is cheap or expensive.

Metric	Value
Short interest (% of float)	3.84% as at 10 September 2026, per the FCA aggregate net short position published via Shortregister. Since July 2026 the FCA publishes only an anonymised aggregate rather than individually named positions.

7. What Are They Building

The committed pipeline. At 31 March 2026 British Land had 1.645m sq ft committed, carried at £489m with £328m of cost to complete, generating £64m of ERV at a 7.9% gross yield on cost, and already 45% let or under offer. The named schemes are 2 Finsbury Avenue, completing in the second quarter of 2027 and around 50% let or under option; Broadgate Tower, completing in the first quarter of 2027 and 59% let or under offer; 1 Appold Street, completing in the first quarter of 2029 and fully pre-let or under option to Herbert Smith Freehills Kramer; and West One, a joint venture with Norges completing in the first quarter of 2029.

The longer pipeline. Beyond the committed schemes sit a 0.126m sq ft near-term pipeline — principally affordable housing at Canada Water, with a £17m commitment — and a 6.269m sq ft medium-term pipeline including the 568,000 sq ft consented Euston Tower, three London Urban Logistics schemes and future Canada Water phases. Total pipeline is 8.04m sq ft with £3,981m of cost to complete. Return hurdles are internal rates of return of 12–14% for campuses and mid-teens for London Urban Logistics, with gross yield on cost targets above 7%.

Life sciences, bought rather than built. The Life Science REIT acquisition completed on 20 April 2026, funded with 24.5m new British Land shares plus £49m of cash. It brings five assets in the Oxford–Cambridge–London golden triangle, expected to generate £18m of net rental income in FY2027 rising to a stabilised £25m. The company describes it as immediately accretive, worth about 0.3p to FY2027 underlying EPS, and neutral to net tangible assets.

Capital recycling. FY2026 saw £106m of disposals at 4% above March 2025 book value on a 2.9% net initial yield, against £94m of acquisitions — three retail parks, two retail units in Bath and a joint-venture partner's 50% stake in Eden Walk — at a 7.2% topped-up net initial yield. A further £176m of disposals had been exchanged or placed under offer after the year end. The intent is to fund the development programme by selling mature, lower-yielding London offices into higher-yielding retail park acquisitions.

Decarbonisation. On 21 July 2026 British Land announced a new set of decarbonisation targets.

8. Competitive Landscape

Peer	Key 2025 metric
Segro (SGRO.L)	The UK's largest listed REIT, three times British Land's size, and focused on industrial and logistics rather than offices and retail.
Landsec (LAND.L)	The closest direct comparator in size, mix and fiscal year.
Derwent London (DLN.L)	A pure central London office developer with no retail exposure.
Great Portland Estates (GPE.L)	The most lightly geared of the London office landlords.

British Land sits between Landsec, its nearest structural comparator, and the smaller pure-play London office landlords. Its FY2026 ERV growth of 4.9% was below Landsec's 6.4%, but its 6% like-for-like net rental growth and 12% Campuses figure were ahead of the sector, and its 39.2% loan to value is marginally above Landsec's 38.7% and materially above Great Portland's 28.6%. The material sector development is at Segro, where press reports in 2026 have described the board as prepared to recommend a takeover proposal from Prologis Inc including a London listing commitment — a live situation readers should verify directly against Segro's own regulatory announcements before drawing conclusions. Market capitalisations above were taken live on 16 September 2026.

9. Insider Activity

British Land's chief executive is Joanne McNamara, who joined on 14 September 2026 from Oxford Properties, where she was executive vice-president for Europe; she is the first woman to lead the company in its 170-year history and succeeded Simon Carter, who had been chief executive for five years and with the company for eighteen. David Walker remains chief financial officer and William Rucker has chaired the board since the 2024 annual general meeting. Disclosed 2026 dealings are routine Share Incentive Plan transactions rather than discretionary open-market purchases; the largest single filing is set out below.

Name	Date	Type	Shares	Plan Type
Kelly Cleveland (Executive Committee member)	24 Jul 2026	Buy	581	Share Incentive Plan dividend reinvestment
David Lockyer (Executive Committee member)	24 Jul 2026	Buy	597	Share Incentive Plan dividend reinvestment
Emma Cariaga (Executive Committee member)	24 Jul 2026	Buy	463	Share Incentive Plan dividend reinvestment
Brona McKeown (Executive Committee member)	24 Jul 2026	Buy	337	Share Incentive Plan dividend reinvestment
Simon Carter (then Chief Executive Officer)	24 Jul 2026	Buy	314	Share Incentive Plan dividend reinvestment
David Walker (Chief Financial Officer)	24 Jul 2026	Buy	282	Share Incentive Plan dividend reinvestment
Michael Wiseman (Executive Committee member)	24 Jul 2026	Buy	240	Share Incentive Plan dividend reinvestment

Further Share Incentive Plan partnership and matching share purchases by executive directors and persons discharging managerial responsibilities were notified on 15 June 2026 and 14 August 2026. No discretionary open-market director purchases or disposals were identified in the 2026 filings reviewed. Because these are automatic plan transactions funded from salary and dividends, they carry little signalling value either way.

10. Key Risks

• Interest rates and refinancing: the weighted average interest rate rose to 3.9% from 3.6% and net financing costs to £133m from £103m in a single year. There is no refinancing requirement until early 2029 and £1.6bn of undrawn facilities and cash, but the company's own EPS model builds in a 10–20 basis point annual cost drag. A sustained rise in gilt yields would compress both earnings and valuations.
• Leverage at the top of the internal range: proportionally consolidated loan to value of 39.2% and net debt to EBITDA of 7.7x at Group level are both described by management as at the upper end of their range. Covenant headroom is disclosed as sufficient to absorb a 34% fall in values, but the buffer between comfortable and constrained is thinner than at Great Portland or Derwent.
• Office demand and structural change: Campuses are 58.2% of the portfolio and occupancy there is 94.7%, against 99.0% in retail and logistics. British Land's own risk register rates Campuses market risk as Medium and explicitly names AI-driven structural change as a longer-term risk to occupier demand for office space.
• Macroeconomic and political risk: the company rates both macroeconomic risk and political, legal and regulatory risk as Medium to High with a stable trend, citing UK macro uncertainty, geopolitical tension, trade tariffs and potential government intervention in lease structures. The autumn 2026 UK Budget falls after the FY2026 reporting date and is not addressed in the company's own materials.
• Development and letting risk: £328m remains to be spent on committed schemes that are 45% let or under offer, and a further £3,981m sits behind the medium-term pipeline. Speculative exposure is capped at 5.0% of gross asset value against a 12.5% internal limit, but a letting market that stalls between now and the 2027 and 2029 completions would leave that space empty on completion.
• Dilution from equity-funded growth: the October 2024 £301m placing and the April 2026 issue of 24.5m shares for Life Science REIT lifted the share count materially. Underlying profit grew 5% in FY2026 while underlying EPS grew 1%; continued acquisition funded by equity at a discount to net tangible assets transfers value from existing shareholders.

11. Recent Developments

• 14 Sep 2026 — Joanne McNamara starts as chief executive. Announced in June 2026 and with her start date brought forward, McNamara joined from Oxford Properties, where she was executive vice-president for Europe managing a portfolio of around £8bn. She succeeds Simon Carter and is the first woman to lead British Land.
• 21 Jul 2026 — New decarbonisation targets announced. British Land set out a revised set of carbon reduction commitments across its portfolio.
• 14 Jul 2026 — AGM and first-quarter trading update. Covering the three months to 30 June 2026, the update reiterated FY2027 underlying EPS guidance of at least 30.5p and said like-for-like net rental growth was expected at the top of the 3–5% guided range. All AGM resolutions passed.
• 11 Jun 2026 — Wingstop UKI takes seven units across the retail park portfolio. A multi-site letting to the fast-food operator, illustrating the food-and-beverage demand British Land cites as a driver of retail park rental growth.
• 20 May 2026 — FY2026 results. FY2027 underlying EPS guidance was set at at least 30.5p.
• 20 Apr 2026 — Life Science REIT acquisition completes. Funded with 24.5m new shares plus £49m cash, bringing five golden-triangle life science assets expected to produce £18m of FY2027 net rental income rising to a stabilised £25m.

12. Key Dates to Watch

• 18 Nov 2026 — half-year results for the six months to 30 September 2026, per British Land's published financial calendar. The first full set of numbers under Joanne McNamara and the first read on whether FY2027 is tracking the at-least-30.5p underlying EPS guidance.
• 31 Mar 2027 — financial year end for FY2027, the year for which management has guided at least 30.5p of underlying EPS and like-for-like net rental growth at the top of the 3–5% range.
• Expected May 2027 — FY2027 full-year results announcement. British Land has reported its full year in mid-to-late May in recent years; a date has not yet been published.
• Expected Jul 2027 — 2027 annual general meeting and first-quarter trading update, following the 14 July 2026 pattern. No date has been confirmed.
• Expected Q2 2027 — completion of 2 Finsbury Avenue, around 50% let or under option at the FY2026 year end.
• Expected Q1 2027 — completion of Broadgate Tower, 59% let or under offer at the FY2026 year end.
• Expected Q1 2029 — completion of 1 Appold Street, fully pre-let or under option to Herbert Smith Freehills Kramer, and of West One in joint venture with Norges.
• TBC — interim dividend declaration and ex-dividend date for H1 FY2027. The FY2026 final dividend of 10.80p went ex on 18 June 2026 and was paid on 24 July 2026.

The UK autumn Budget and Bank of England rate decisions are the macro events with the most direct bearing on REIT valuations; both are tracked on the ChartsView Economic Calendar, and members discuss UK property and REITs in the ChartsView Forum.

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Disclaimer: This research is produced by ChartsView for educational and informational purposes only. It does not constitute financial advice or a recommendation to buy or sell any security. All information is sourced from publicly available company filings, press releases, and official data. ChartsView does not use analyst opinions or third-party ratings. Always conduct your own due diligence and consider your personal financial situation before making investment decisions. Past performance is not indicative of future results.

Last Updated: 16 September 2026

The Berkeley Group Holdings plc is a UK-listed residential developer focused almost entirely on London, Birmingham and the South-East of England. It is the most financially conservative of the large UK housebuilders — it carries net cash rather than net debt, buys land on long cycles and builds large, complex, multi-year brownfield regeneration schemes rather than volume estates. The year to 30 April 2026 was a step down: revenue fell 4.2% to £2,383.3m, pre-tax profit fell 14.7% to £451.4m and forward sales dropped to £1,006m from £1,403m. Management responded by rephasing its Berkeley 2035 plan on 1 April 2026 — halting outright land buying, cutting planned production by around 25% over four years, and prioritising cash generation and buybacks over volume. This report sets out what the filings actually say. It contains no analyst ratings and no price targets.

1. Company Snapshot

Field	Value
Ticker / exchange	BKG — London Stock Exchange
Headquarters	Cobham, Surrey, United Kingdom
Founded	1976
Fiscal year end	30 April
CEO / Leadership	Richard Stearn, Chief Executive (appointed 5 September 2025); Rob Perrins, Executive Chair; Neil Eady, Chief Financial Officer
Employees	2,487 (average monthly number employed by the Group in FY2026; FY2025: 2,532)
Revenue (FY2026, year to 30 April 2026)	£2,383.3m, down 4.2% year on year
Profit before tax (FY2026)	£451.4m, down 14.7% year on year
Profit after tax (FY2026)	£318.3m
Basic earnings per share (FY2026)	331.6p (FY2025: 371.8p)
Net cash at 30 April 2026	£363.3m (gross cash £1,023.3m less borrowings £660.0m)
Net asset value per share	3,917p at 30 April 2026 (FY2025: 3,595p)
Homes completed (FY2026)	4,076 owned plus 127 in joint ventures; average selling price £546,000
Land holdings	52,763 plots across 59 developments, with a future gross margin of £6,442m, plus a pipeline of about 11,000 plots

Figures are from Berkeley's results announcement for the year ended 30 April 2026 (published 24 June 2026) and its Annual Report 2026 (published 11 August 2026).

2. Bull Case and Bear Case

Bull Case

• Net cash in a capital-intensive industry: Berkeley ended FY2026 with £363.3m of net cash, £1.02bn of gross cash on hand throughout the year, and post-year-end extended its bank facility to £1.0bn running to 2031. Very few developers can fund eight-year London build programmes without leverage.
• The land is already bought: 52,763 owned plots plus an 11,000-plot pipeline carry £6,442m of future gross margin. Management has stopped buying new land outright, so future output is delivered from a bank acquired at pre-2022 prices rather than at today's cost.
• A contracted, multi-year return programme: Berkeley has committed to £2.0bn of shareholder returns over ten years from December 2024, with £640m due by September 2030. £171m of that tranche had been completed by the 11 September 2026 AGM — ahead of the required run-rate.
• London supply is structurally short: Berkeley reports London new-build starts running at roughly 10% of the MHCLG annual target, and states that taking an apartment building in London from consent to completion now takes about eight years against five a decade ago. Barriers to entry are rising for everyone, which favours the incumbent with the consented land.

Bear Case

• Earnings are contracting, not compounding: FY2026 revenue fell 4.2%, gross margin fell from 26.6% to 25.1%, operating margin fell from 20.1% to 18.7%, pre-tax profit fell 14.7% and basic EPS fell 10.8%. Return on capital employed dropped from 16.5% to 13.8%.
• The order book has thinned: cash due on forward sales fell to £1,006m from £1,403m a year earlier, and management said at the 11 September 2026 AGM that the value of reservations was running roughly 15% lower year on year with buyers cautious ahead of the autumn Budget.
• Management is shrinking the business on purpose: the AGM update confirmed production will be re-phased down by around 25% over four years. Guidance is now a cumulative £1.4bn of pre-tax profit across FY2027–FY2030 — an average of £350m a year against £451.4m delivered in FY2026.
• Tax and regulation are compounding against the model: the 4% Residential Property Developer Tax on top of 25% corporation tax produced a 29.5% effective tax rate in FY2026, and the Building Safety Levy is still to come. Berkeley's own results statement describes the additional taxation as counter-productive.
• Unresolved legacy and litigation exposure: £226.3m of provisions sit on the balance sheet for post-completion obligations including fire safety, with 39 buildings still having works outstanding. Separately, Berkeley is one of seven housebuilders named in a £4.5bn opt-out class action before the Competition Appeal Tribunal.

3. Revenue Segments

Segment / category	% of revenue	What it is
Residential	95.1% (£2,265.2m)	Sales of private and affordable homes on Berkeley's own developments, predominantly London, Birmingham and the South-East. 4,076 homes completed in FY2026 at an average selling price of £546,000.
Commercial	4.6% (£110.4m)	Offices, retail, workspace and community floorspace built as part of mixed-use regeneration schemes and either sold or let. Up sharply from £14.8m in FY2025 on the timing of individual commercial disposals.
Land sales	0.3% (£7.7m)	Disposals of land and part-developed sites to third parties. Lumpy by nature; £39.5m in FY2025.

Berkeley reports as a single operating segment, so the split above is the revenue-category disclosure given in the FY2026 results announcement rather than a segmental profit analysis. Separately, the Berkeley Living build-to-rent platform is carried as investment property at £297.2m at 30 April 2026 (FY2025: £145.7m) and does not yet contribute materially to revenue; its rental income will build from FY2027 onwards.

4. Business Model and Moat

How it makes money. Berkeley buys complex brownfield land — former gasworks, industrial yards, town-centre sites — secures planning consent, builds out over five to ten years and sells homes. Profit is made on the spread between the price paid for land years earlier and the value of the finished, consented, built product. Because the cycle is long, the margin recognised in any one year reflects land bought and priced in a very different market. FY2026's 25.1% gross margin is the working-out of land acquired largely before 2022.

Why the balance sheet is the moat. Most developers are forced sellers in a downturn because debt covenants demand cash. Berkeley is not: it held over £1.0bn of gross cash all year against £660m of long-term borrowings, and generated £260.3m of operating cash flow in FY2026. That allows it to hold stock rather than discount it, to keep building through weak demand, and to buy back shares at a discount to book value when the market is pricing pessimism. The £1,006m of cash due on forward sales is an additional, contracted funding line.

Where the durable advantage sits. The scarce asset is not construction capability but consented London land with a deliverable viability case. Berkeley holds 52,763 plots carrying £6,442m of future gross margin, on sites that typically take the better part of a decade to bring through planning. A new entrant cannot replicate that inside a cycle, and the lengthening planning timelines Berkeley complains about also widen the gap behind it.

What is changing. The new element is recurring income. Berkeley Living, the build-to-rent platform, retains completed homes rather than selling them — 1,122 homes completed or in production across six communities, with a target of 4,000 by the end of FY2035 and roughly £400m of investment at cost. That converts part of a cyclical, lumpy trading business into an annuity, at the cost of tying up capital that would otherwise be returned.

5. Financial Health

All figures below are taken from Berkeley's own full-year results announcements and Annual Report. Berkeley does not publish an adjusted or underlying earnings-per-share measure.

Fiscal Year	Revenue (£m)	YoY %	GAAP EPS	Adjusted EPS	Dividend/share	Long-term debt (YE)
FY2022 (to 30 Apr 2022)	2,348.0	+6.6%	417.8p	417.8p†	Nil‡	£660.0m
FY2023 (to 30 Apr 2023)	2,550.2	+8.6%	426.8p	426.8p†	91.0p	£660.0m
FY2024 (to 30 Apr 2024)	2,464.3	-3.4%	373.9p	373.9p†	92.0p	£660.0m
FY2025 (to 30 Apr 2025)	2,486.5	+0.9%	371.8p	371.8p†	240.0p	£677.9m
FY2026 (to 30 Apr 2026)	2,383.3	-4.2%	331.6p	331.6p†	Nil§	£660.0m

† Berkeley reports no adjusted or underlying earnings-per-share figure, so the GAAP basic EPS is repeated in the Adjusted EPS column. ‡ No ordinary dividend was paid in FY2022; capital was returned through a £451.5m B-share scheme and £63.7m of buybacks. § No dividend was paid in FY2026; the entire £233.0m of shareholder returns was made through buybacks of 6.3m shares at an average price of £37.10.

Berkeley reports in half-years rather than quarters. The table below shows the most recent period first; the second-half figures are derived by deducting the reported first half from the audited full year.

Quarter / Half	Revenue	Adjusted EPS	GAAP EPS
H2 FY2026 (Nov 2025 – Apr 2026, derived)	£1,203.8m	147.9p†	147.9p
H1 FY2026 (six months to 31 Oct 2025)	£1,179.5m	183.7p†	183.7p
H2 FY2025 (Nov 2024 – Apr 2025, derived)	£1,207.6m	185.0p†	185.0p
H1 FY2025 (six months to 31 Oct 2024)	£1,278.9m	186.8p†	186.8p
FY2026 total (year to 30 Apr 2026)	£2,383.3m	331.6p†	331.6p

Balance sheet and cash flow, FY2026. Cash and cash equivalents were £1,023.3m against £660.0m of non-current borrowings, leaving net cash of £363.3m. Inventories stood at £4,743.3m, down from £5,052.2m, of which work in progress was £3,848.5m and completed stock £331.7m. Net assets were £3,640.2m. Operating cash flow was £260.3m (FY2025: £193.1m), against £69.2m of additions to investment property and no purchases of property, plant and equipment. Depreciation and amortisation was £3.3m (FY2025: £3.8m) — immaterial, since Berkeley's own property, plant and equipment base is only £11.6m. Financing outflows of £253.2m were dominated by £233.0m of buybacks and a £17.9m repayment of the Homes England facility.

6. Valuation Metrics

Share prices, and figures worked out from them, are not shown for London-listed companies on ChartsView.

Raw metrics, September 2026. Not opinions on whether the stock is cheap or expensive.

Metric	Value
Short interest (% of float)	4.89% as at 11 September 2026, per the FCA aggregate net short position published via Shortregister. Since July 2026 the FCA publishes only an anonymised aggregate rather than named positions.

7. What Are They Building

Berkeley 2035, rephased. On 1 April 2026 management reset the long-term plan it had set out in December 2024. New land is no longer being acquired outright — only through joint ventures — on the grounds that the tax and regulatory burden makes fresh acquisition uneconomic against the existing bank. Instead the target is to add £2bn of value to land already owned through optimisation and planning work. The operating margin target is 17.5% to 19.5%, and return on capital is targeted at 15% in the core business, with 11% to 15% in the interim. FY2026 delivered an 18.7% operating margin and 13.8% return on capital, both inside those ranges.

Berkeley Living, the build-to-rent platform. Six communities — Alexandra Gate, Kidbrooke Village, Eden Grove, Horlicks Quarter, Grand Union and Silkstream — account for 1,122 homes completed or in production, with a further 2,878 homes of future build-to-rent production identified. The first residents moved into Foundry Yard at Alexandra Gate in April 2026 and over 120 homes had been let by the year end. The investment property carrying value rose to £297.2m from £145.7m, against roughly £400m of planned investment at cost for the first six communities, completing by FY2028. The stated long-term target is 4,000 build-to-rent homes by the end of FY2035.

The planning pipeline. Berkeley's development story is a planning story. FY2026 brought both wins and losses: the Camden Goods Yard appeal was won after the year end, while Peckham Rye was refused on conservation-area grounds and Beckton and Motspur Park Gasworks were blocked at local authority level before being called in by the Greater London Authority. Land holdings stand at 52,763 plots across 59 developments with £6,442m of future gross margin, plus an 11,000-plot pipeline — down from 12,000 a year earlier, reflecting the pause on land buying.

Funding the programme. After the year end Berkeley extended its bank facility to £1.0bn running to 2031, with an option to 2033, alongside £400m of Green Bonds maturing in August 2031. That, with £1.02bn of gross cash and £1,006m of contracted forward sales, is the war chest behind both the build programme and the buyback.

8. Competitive Landscape

Peer	Key 2025 metric
Barratt Redrow (BTRW.L)	17,667 completions in the year to 28 June 2026, up from 16,565 in FY2025, with FY2026 underlying pre-tax profit guided to around £560m — roughly four times Berkeley's unit volume.
Persimmon (PSN.L)	FY2025 revenue £3.75bn, up 17%, on 11,905 completions, up 12%, with underlying pre-tax profit of £445.6m; FY2026 guidance around 12,500 completions.
Taylor Wimpey (TW.L)	H1 2026 pre-tax profit of £116.8m against a £92.7m loss in H1 2025; full-year 2026 UK completions guided to 10,600–10,800, the low end of the prior range.
Bellway (BWY.L)	FY2026, to 31 July 2026: revenue £3.14bn, up 13%, on 9,695 completions, up 10.8%, with net cash of £157.7m against £41.8m a year earlier.

The comparison is unflattering on volume and flattering on price. Berkeley completed 4,076 homes against Barratt Redrow's 17,667, but at an average selling price of £546,000 against a sector average closer to £300,000, and at an 18.7% operating margin that remains at the top of the listed peer group. Berkeley is also the only one of the five to end its latest year with a net cash position of more than £350m. All five — together with Bloor Homes and Vistry — are named respondents in the £4.5bn Competition Appeal Tribunal class action that followed the CMA's housebuilding information-sharing investigation. Market capitalisations above were taken live on 16 September 2026.

9. Insider Activity

Berkeley's chief executive is Richard Stearn, who moved from chief financial officer to CEO on 5 September 2025, with founder-era chief executive Rob Perrins moving to Executive Chair at the same time and Neil Eady becoming chief financial officer. Directors have been net buyers through 2026, in most cases applying a proportion of their net annual bonus for FY2025/26 to open-market purchases — a long-standing Berkeley practice rather than a one-off signal.

Name	Date	Type	Shares	Plan Type
Richard Stearn (Chief Executive Officer)	11 Aug 2026	Buy	1,692	Open-market purchase funded from net FY2025/26 annual bonus
Mrs Jane Eady (person closely associated with CFO Neil Eady)	11 Aug 2026	Buy	3,405	Open-market purchase, person closely associated
Rob Perrins (Executive Chair)	30 Apr 2026	Buy	7,000	Open-market purchase
Rachel Downey (Non-Executive Director)	15 Apr 2026	Buy	575	Open-market purchase

No director or PDMR disposals were disclosed by regulatory announcement during 2026 in the filings reviewed. Separately, the company itself bought back 6.3m shares during FY2026 at an average price of £37.10, above the level at which directors were buying in April and August 2026.

10. Key Risks

• Demand and buyer confidence: forward sales fell to £1,006m from £1,403m and reservations were running around 15% lower year on year at the September 2026 AGM. Management explicitly linked the softness to political uncertainty ahead of the autumn Budget and to Middle East conflict, and warned buyers may delay decisions until after it.
• Taxation and regulation: the 4% Residential Property Developer Tax stacked on 25% corporation tax produced a 29.5% effective rate in FY2026, up from 27.8%. The Building Safety Levy has still to be introduced, and Berkeley's own results statement calls the additional burden counter-productive. Further fiscal measures aimed at housing would land directly on margin.
• Planning and land availability: Berkeley reports that taking a London apartment building from consent to completion now takes about eight years against five a decade ago. FY2026 saw refusals at Peckham Rye and blocks at Beckton and Motspur Park Gasworks. With outright land buying paused, delivery depends entirely on getting the existing bank through the system.
• Building safety and legacy remediation: £226.3m of provisions cover post-completion obligations including fire safety, with 825 relevant buildings identified, assessments complete on 99% of them and 39 still having works outstanding. Cost inflation or a widening of scope would increase the charge.
• Competition litigation: Berkeley is one of seven housebuilders named in a £4.5bn opt-out class action before the Competition Appeal Tribunal on behalf of new-build buyers between October 2015 and June 2026. The CMA itself found no infringement and accepted binding commitments plus a collective £100m affordable-housing payment, but the follow-on claim is unresolved.
• Geographic and product concentration: essentially all revenue comes from London and the South-East, and from large, long-duration, high-price-point apartment schemes. There is no regional or product diversification to offset a London-specific downturn, and the average selling price of £546,000 makes the business more exposed to mortgage rates and to international buyer sentiment than volume housebuilders are.

11. Recent Developments

• 11 Sep 2026 — AGM and trading update strikes a cautious tone. Berkeley reaffirmed the £1.4bn cumulative pre-tax profit target for FY2027 to FY2030 but said trading since May 2026 had been affected by Middle East conflict and UK political uncertainty. Enquiry levels were described as stable with buyers cautious, production is to be re-phased down by around 25% over four years in favour of cash generation, FY2027 earnings will be weighted to the first half, and £171m of the £640m buyback tranche had been completed.
• 11 Aug 2026 — Annual Report 2026 published and directors buy. Alongside publication of the annual report, chief executive Richard Stearn bought 1,692 shares at an average £35.245 and Mrs Jane Eady, closely associated with the chief financial officer, bought 3,405 shares at £35.15, both funded from net FY2025/26 bonuses.
• 24 Jun 2026 — FY2026 results show a step down. Revenue of £2,383.3m was 4.2% lower, pre-tax profit of £451.4m was 14.7% lower, and basic EPS fell to 331.6p. No ordinary dividend was declared; £233.0m was returned through buybacks.
• 30 Apr 2026 — Executive Chair adds to his holding.
• 01 Apr 2026 — Berkeley 2035 rephased. Management stopped acquiring new land outright other than through joint ventures, shifted the emphasis to adding £2bn of value to existing land holdings, and restated the shareholder-return schedule of £640m by September 2030 and £1,100m by September 2034.

12. Key Dates to Watch

• 09 Dec 2026 — half-year results for the six months to 31 October 2026, per Berkeley's published financial diary. The first hard read on whether the softer reservations reported at the September AGM have fed through to completions and margin.
• 30 Apr 2027 — financial year end for FY2027, the first of the four years covered by the £1.4bn cumulative pre-tax profit target.
• Expected Jun 2027 — FY2027 full-year results announcement. Berkeley has reported its full year in late June in each of the last several years; a date has not yet been published.
• Expected Sep 2030 — deadline for the £640m tranche of the shareholder-return programme, of which £171m had been completed by September 2026.
• Expected Sep 2034 — deadline for the full £1,100m cumulative tranche, completing the £2.0bn ten-year return commitment.
• TBC — Competition Appeal Tribunal timetable for the £4.5bn opt-out class action naming Berkeley and six other housebuilders. No hearing date has been published.
• TBC — introduction date and rate for the Building Safety Levy, which Berkeley's FY2026 results statement flags as still to come.

No ordinary dividend was declared for FY2026, so there is no forthcoming ex-dividend date under the current buyback-first capital allocation policy. Scheduled macro events that bear on UK housing demand — Bank of England rate decisions, inflation prints and the autumn Budget — are tracked on the ChartsView Economic Calendar, and members discuss UK housebuilders in the ChartsView Forum.

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Disclaimer: This research is produced by ChartsView for educational and informational purposes only. It does not constitute financial advice or a recommendation to buy or sell any security. All information is sourced from publicly available company filings, press releases, and official data. ChartsView does not use analyst opinions or third-party ratings. Always conduct your own due diligence and consider your personal financial situation before making investment decisions. Past performance is not indicative of future results.

Last Updated: 15 September 2026

Tritax Big Box REIT plc is the UK's largest listed logistics landlord and, since 2026, an increasingly serious data centre developer. It owns the very large distribution warehouses that sit behind British retail and manufacturing supply chains — let to Amazon, Argos, B&Q, Co-op, GXO, Unilever and others — and it controls the largest logistics-focused land bank in the country. In the twelve months to September 2026 the investment case has shifted materially: the group secured planning for a 107MW data centre at Manor Farm in Slough, nearly doubled its secured grid power to 507MW, raised roughly £350 million of fresh equity to fund that pipeline, and told the market it now expects to grow adjusted earnings per share by 65% by 2030/31. This report sets out what the filings actually say, with no analyst opinions and no price targets.

1. Company Snapshot

Field	Value
Legal name	Tritax Big Box REIT plc (incorporated in England and Wales, company no. 08215888)
Ticker / exchange	BBOX, London Stock Exchange main market (ISIN GB00BG49KP99); UK Real Estate Investment Trust
Sector	Real estate — industrial and logistics REIT, with a growing data centre development platform
Headquarters	London, United Kingdom
CEO / Leadership	Colin Godfrey (Chief Executive), Frankie Whitehead (Chief Financial Officer), Aubrey Adams (Chairman). Named as CEO and CFO in the FY2025 results announcement dated 27 February 2026 and the H1 2026 results announcement dated 5 August 2026.
Employees	The REIT itself has no direct employees. It is externally managed by Tritax Management LLP under an investment management agreement; the six Members of the Manager during FY2025 were Colin Godfrey, James Dunlop, Henry Franklin, Petrina Austin, Bjorn Hobart and Frankie Whitehead (FY2025 results, related party note).
Revenue (FY2025, total property income)	£327.7 million, up 11.4% on FY2024 (£294.2 million). Development management and land sale income of a further £104.1 million is reported separately as other operating income.
Net rental income (FY2025)	£305.3 million (FY2024: £276.0 million)
IFRS profit after tax (FY2025)	£363.3 million (FY2024: £445.5 million)
Portfolio value	£7.68 billion at 30 June 2026 (£7.89 billion at 31 December 2025)
Contracted annual rent roll	£355.7 million at 30 June 2026 (£360.9 million at 31 December 2025)
Loan to value	32.9% at 30 June 2026 (33.2% at 31 December 2025)
EPRA Net Tangible Assets per share	185.9p at 30 June 2026 (187.8p at 31 December 2025)
Dividend declared FY2025	—
Manager	Tritax Management LLP; 25% of the management fee, net of tax, is applied to buying BBOX shares for the Manager's partners and staff

2. Bull Case and Bear Case

Bull Case

• Power is the scarce asset, and Tritax has it: the group secured planning consent for a 107MW data centre at Manor Farm, Slough in July 2026 and has near-doubled total secured grid power to 507MW, in a UK market where grid connections are the binding constraint on data centre supply.
• Recurring earnings are compounding: net rental income rose 16.2% to £173.3 million in H1 2026 and adjusted EPS excluding all development management income rose 7.0% to 4.41p, so the underlying rent engine is growing without relying on lumpy development fees.
• Embedded reversion inside the existing book: the FY2025 results identified £101.1 million of additional rent capturable from the standing portfolio inclusive of vacancy, of which 73.1% is contractual or open-market reviewable, giving visible rental growth that does not require new acquisitions.
• Scale and integration are delivering: the roughly £1.0 billion Blackstone logistics portfolio acquired in October 2025 flowed through FY2025 and H1 2026 results, lifting gross rental income from £281.1 million to £312.5 million and taking the portfolio to £7.68 billion.

Bear Case

• Leverage has risen sharply: total borrowings grew from £1,953.5 million at end-2024 to £2,733.9 million at end-2025, and loan to value moved from 28.8% to 33.2%, narrowing the buffer before the group's stated gearing comfort zone.
• Vacancy is drifting the wrong way: EPRA vacancy was 5.6% at 31 December 2025 and the contracted rent roll fell 1.4% over H1 2026 to £355.7 million, so not every part of the enlarged book is fully working yet.
• Single-customer concentration: Amazon represented 13.3% of contracted rental income at FY2025, and one tenant accounted for £36.9 million of gross rental income, meaning a single occupier decision moves group earnings.
• Data centres are a different business: Manor Farm needed a judicial review before consent was confirmed, and the group is moving from warehouse development into power-intensive, capital-hungry projects where it has no long track record.

3. Revenue Segments

Tritax does not report conventional operating segments. The table below breaks down the group's FY2025 gross income of £431.8 million — total property income of £327.7 million plus gross other operating income of £104.1 million — using the revenue categories disclosed in notes 6 and 8 of the FY2025 results.

Segment / revenue category	% of FY2025 gross income (£431.8m)	What it is
Rental income — freehold property	60.7% (£262.1m)	Rent from big box and urban logistics warehouses the group owns outright; the core earnings engine
Development management and land sales	24.1% (£104.1m gross: DMA income £74.7m, sale of land £29.4m)	Fees and land profits from delivering schemes for third parties off the group's land bank; lumpy and not guaranteed year to year
Rental income — long leasehold property	8.8% (£37.8m)	Rent from assets held on long leaseholds rather than freehold title
Property insurance and service charge income	3.5% (£15.2m)	Recoverable insurance and service charge costs passed through to occupiers; largely offset by matching expense
Lease incentive spreading, guaranteed uplifts and other	2.9% (£12.6m)	Non-cash straight-lining of rent-free periods and contractual rental uplifts under IFRS

4. Business Model and Moat

How it makes money. Tritax buys, builds and lets very large logistics warehouses on long leases with contractual or open-market rental uplifts, and distributes the resulting income as a UK REIT. Gross rental income was £312.5 million in FY2025 against direct property costs and service charge expense of £22.4 million, leaving net rental income of £305.3 million. Alongside this it earns development management fees and land sale profits from its development platform, which contributed £104.1 million of gross other operating income in FY2025.

Unit economics. The model works because the operating cost base is thin relative to the asset base. The EPRA cost ratio excluding vacancy costs was 12.2% in H1 2026, down from 12.9% a year earlier, and the weighted average cost of debt was 3.6% with 76% of drawn debt fixed or hedged. Operating profit before changes in fair value and other adjustments was £281.6 million in FY2025 on total property income of £327.7 million, so the great majority of rent collected reaches the operating profit line before financing.

The moat. Three things are hard to replicate. First, scale: at £7.68 billion the portfolio is the largest listed UK logistics book, which brings occupier relationships and the ability to take on whole portfolios such as the Blackstone transaction. Second, land: the development platform holds the largest logistics-focused land bank in the UK, which converts into new assets at development yields rather than acquisition yields. Third, and newly important, power: 507MW of secured grid connections is an asset that cannot be bought quickly at any price in the current UK market, and it is what turns a warehouse land bank into a data centre pipeline.

The structural weakness. The REIT is externally managed. The Manager, Tritax Management LLP, is paid a fee on assets, and that alignment is only partly corrected by the arrangement under which 25% of the net fee is applied to buying BBOX shares for the Manager's partners and staff. Investors who dislike external management structures will see this as a permanent governance discount.

5. Financial Health

All figures below are taken from the company's own audited and reported results: the FY2025 results announcement published 27 February 2026, the H1 2026 results announcement published 5 August 2026, and the FY2023 and FY2022 preliminary results announcements. Revenue is stated on the "total property income" basis of note 6 of the accounts, which is gross rental income plus property insurance and service charge income. Development management and land sale income is reported separately by the company as other operating income and is excluded from this column.

Fiscal Year	Revenue — total property income (£ millions)	YoY %	GAAP EPS	Adjusted EPS	Dividend/share	Long-term debt (YE)
FY2021	189.8	n/d	55.39p	8.23p	6.70p	£1,345.2m
FY2022	212.5	+12.0%	(32.08)p	7.79p	7.00p	£1,613.9m
FY2023	228.4	+7.5%	3.72p	7.75p	7.30p	£1,615.2m
FY2024	294.2	+28.8%	19.67p	8.91p	7.66p	£1,953.5m
FY2025	327.7	+11.4%	14.39p	8.87p	8.00p	£2,733.9m

Long-term debt is total year-end borrowings: bank borrowings plus loan notes, current and non-current. FY2025 comprises £65.6m of current loan notes, £1,480.1m of non-current bank borrowings and £1,188.2m of non-current loan notes. FY2021 YoY is shown as n/d because FY2020 total property income is outside the five-year window presented. The FY2022 GAAP loss per share reflects a £759.5m negative revaluation of investment property in that year, not an operating loss.

Quarter / Half	Revenue — total property income (£ millions)	Adjusted EPS	GAAP EPS
H1 2026 (6m to 30 Jun 2026)	186.7	4.41p	2.80p
H1 2025 (6m to 30 Jun 2025)	160.2	4.63p	6.72p
H1 2024 (6m to 30 Jun 2024)	130.5	4.35p	9.14p
H1 2023 (6m to 30 Jun 2023)	112.4	3.94p	5.39p
FY2025 (full year)	327.7	8.87p	14.39p

Tritax reports half-yearly rather than quarterly. Adjusted EPS in H1 2026 was 4.41p on both the including-DMA and excluding-DMA bases because no development management income was recognised in the period, against £13.3 million in H1 2025. The IFRS EPS line swings with property revaluation and is not a measure of cash earnings.

Balance sheet and cash flow, FY2025 and H1 2026. At 31 December 2025 total assets were £8,045.8 million and total net assets £5,058.9 million, with cash of £109.5 million plus £21.1 million of restricted cash. FY2025 net cash generated from operating activities was £312.8 million, against additions to investment properties of £1,168.6 million and additions to land options of £8.6 million, funded by £1,310.0 million of bank borrowings drawn, £297.0 million of loan notes issued and £353.9 million of disposal proceeds. Dividends paid absorbed £199.8 million. At 30 June 2026 total borrowings were £2,626.5 million (£187.4 million current bank borrowings, £65.6 million current loan notes, £1,184.6 million non-current bank borrowings and £1,188.9 million non-current loan notes) with cash of £115.0 million and over £530 million of available cash and undrawn facilities. Amortisation of intangible property assets was £0.9 million in FY2025; investment property is carried at fair value and is not depreciated.

6. Valuation Metrics

Share prices, and figures worked out from them, are not shown for London-listed companies on ChartsView.

Raw metrics, September 2026. Not opinions on whether the stock is cheap or expensive.

Metric	Value
Loan to value	32.9% at 30 June 2026 (33.2% at 31 December 2025; 28.8% at 31 December 2024)
Short interest (% of float)	Not published for this period. The FCA's daily short positions file, the standard UK source, contains no disclosed net short position in Tritax Big Box, and UK individual short-position disclosure changed from 13 July 2026 with ShortTracker.co.uk now closed. Verify at fca.org.uk short positions daily update.

7. What Are They Building

Data centres, power first. This is the major change to the business since the last version of this report. Tritax has adopted what it calls a power-first approach: secure grid connection agreements on or adjacent to its land bank before committing development capital. At the H1 2026 results on 5 August 2026 the group announced that secured power had near-doubled to 507MW. The flagship scheme is Manor Farm in Slough, a 107MW data centre for which planning consent was confirmed on 27 July 2026 following a judicial review, with a pre-let in legal documentation and a targeted yield on cost of 9.3%. The group has separately described a 147MW data centre development opportunity.

Logistics development. The historic engine continues. The development platform, formerly Tritax Symmetry and now Tritax Big Box Developments, converts land into pre-let and speculative logistics schemes, generating both new rent and development management income. Development management income was £74.7 million in FY2025 and land sales a further £29.4 million, though nothing was recognised in H1 2026, which is a useful reminder of how lumpy this line is.

Rental capture inside the existing book. Management identified £101.1 million of additional rent available from the standing portfolio at FY2025, of which 73.1% is contractual or subject to open-market review. EPRA like-for-like rental growth was 5.1% in H1 2026. FY2025 also saw five-year lease renewals agreed with GXO at Swadlincote, Amazon at Peterborough, Co-op at Thurrock and Unilever.

The stated financial target. Combining the enlarged data centre pipeline with the August 2026 equity issue, management raised its ambition to grow adjusted EPS by 65% between now and 2030/31. That is the number against which the next several years of this story should be judged.

8. Competitive Landscape

Tritax competes for assets, occupiers and capital with other listed industrial landlords. SEGRO is much larger and internally managed with substantial continental European exposure; LondonMetric has become the UK's biggest triple-net-lease REIT after absorbing Urban Logistics; Prologis is the global benchmark; Sirius Real Estate operates at the smaller, multi-let end of the same asset class.

Peer	Key 2025/2026 metric
SEGRO plc (LSE: SGRO)	Portfolio valued at £18.70bn at 30 June 2026, down 1.2% from £18.96bn at December 2025; adjusted EPS up 6.6% to 19.3p in H1 2026 (SEGRO 2026 half year results)
LondonMetric Property plc (LSE: LMP)	£7.6bn triple-net-lease portfolio; net rental income up 16.6% to £455.3m and EPRA EPS up 2.4% to 13.5p for the year to 31 March 2026 (LondonMetric full year results)
Prologis, Inc. (NYSE: PLD)	1.3bn sq ft logistics portfolio across 20 countries; owned and managed period-end occupancy 95.5% and Q2 2026 revenues of $2.43bn (Prologis Q2 2026 results, 16 July 2026)
Sirius Real Estate Ltd (LSE: SRE)	FY2026 profit before tax up 4.9% to €211.4m; funds from operations up 8.4% to €133.5m; like-for-like annualised rent roll up 6.4% to €224.2m (Sirius FY2026 results)

The competitive point that matters in 2026 is that none of these peers has publicly matched Tritax's secured 507MW of UK grid power. That is a genuine differentiator if the data centre pipeline converts, and an expensive distraction if it does not.

9. Leadership and Insider Activity

Chief Executive Colin Godfrey and Chief Financial Officer Frankie Whitehead lead the business through the external manager, Tritax Management LLP, under the chairmanship of Aubrey Adams. Because the REIT has no direct employees, most director and PDMR share activity is structural rather than discretionary: 25% of the Manager's net management fee is applied to buying BBOX shares for its partners and staff, and directors subscribed alongside external investors in the August 2026 equity issue. Investors should read the transactions below in that light rather than as open-market conviction buying.

Name	Date	Type	Shares	Plan Type
Tritax Management LLP (on behalf of partners and employees including PDMRs)	10 Aug 2026	Purchase	1,751,952	Management fee applied to share purchase under the investment management agreement
Directors and PDMRs (aggregate, including connected persons)	26 Aug 2026	Subscription	771,195	Subscription in the August 2026 equity issue at the placing price
Alfred Franklin (person closely associated with PDMR Henry Franklin)	23 Mar 2026	Sale and matching purchase	6,750	Transfer into ISA; no change in beneficial ownership
William Franklin (person closely associated with PDMR Henry Franklin)	23 Mar 2026	Sale and matching purchase	8,250	Transfer into ISA; no change in beneficial ownership
Oscar Franklin (person closely associated with PDMR Henry Franklin)	23 Mar 2026	Sale and matching purchase	13,450	Transfer into ISA; no change in beneficial ownership

Related party disclosure in the FY2025 results shows the dividends the Members of the Manager received on their BBOX holdings during the year, including £216,066 to Colin Godfrey, which gives a sense of the size of the personal shareholdings built up through the fee-in-shares arrangement.

10. Key Risks

• Refinancing and interest rates: total borrowings reached £2,733.9m at 31 December 2025 from £1,953.5m a year earlier. The weighted average cost of debt is 3.6% with 76% of drawn debt fixed or hedged, which means roughly a quarter is not, and maturing facilities will reprice into a higher rate environment than the one in which they were struck.
• Occupier concentration: Amazon accounted for 13.3% of contracted rental income at FY2025 and one tenant represented £36.9m of gross rental income. A single large occupier decision materially changes group rent roll.
• Development and planning execution: Manor Farm required a judicial review before consent was confirmed in July 2026. Data centre development carries planning, grid-connection, construction and pre-letting risk in an asset class where the group has limited completed track record.
• Lumpy development income: other operating income was £104.1m gross in FY2025 but nil in H1 2026. Any year in which the market assumes development income recurs at FY2025 levels risks disappointment.
• Vacancy and rent roll: EPRA vacancy of 5.6% at FY2025 and a 1.4% fall in contracted rent roll over H1 2026 show that integrating a large acquired portfolio is not frictionless.
• External management structure: fees are levied on assets by Tritax Management LLP rather than earned by employees of the REIT. This is a permanent governance consideration and can weigh on the rating relative to internally managed peers.

11. Recent Developments

• 27 Feb 2026 — FY2025 results published. Net rental income rose 10.6% to £305.3m, operating profit before fair value movements rose 6.1% to £281.6m, the portfolio reached £7.89bn and the declared dividend rose 4.4% to 8.00p. Loan to value moved up to 33.2% from 28.8%.
• 23 Mar 2026 — PDMR-connected ISA transfers notified. Persons closely associated with PDMR Henry Franklin executed matched sales and purchases moving holdings into ISA accounts, with no change in beneficial ownership.
• 07 May 2026 — Annual General Meeting held at Ashurst LLP, London Fruit and Wool Exchange, 1 Duval Square, London E1 6PW.
• 27 Jul 2026 — Planning consent secured for the 107MW Manor Farm data centre. Consent for the Slough scheme was confirmed after a judicial review, with a pre-let in legal documentation and a targeted yield on cost of 9.3%.
• 05 Aug 2026 — H1 2026 results. Net rental income up 16.2% to £173.3m, adjusted EPS excluding all DMA income up 7.0% to 4.41p, IFRS EPS 2.80p, EPRA NTA 185.9p, portfolio £7.68bn, loan to value 32.9%, and secured power near-doubled to 507MW.
• 05 Aug 2026 — Proposed equity issue announced. A placing, retail offer and director subscription targeting roughly £350m gross at 164p per share to fund the enlarged data centre pipeline, alongside a raised ambition to grow adjusted EPS by 65% by 2030/31.
• 10 Aug 2026 — Manager share purchase. Tritax Management LLP acquired 1,751,952 shares at £1.6684 for partners and employees including PDMRs under the fee-in-shares arrangement.
• 26 Aug 2026 — Equity issue completed. 213,414,634 new ordinary shares, about 7.9% of the prior issued capital, were admitted to trading, with directors and PDMRs subscribing for 771,195 shares at the placing price.

12. Key Dates to Watch

• Expected Nov 2026 — Q3 2026 trading update and third interim dividend declaration, based on the group's established quarterly dividend pattern
• Expected Feb 2027 — FY2026 full year results, following the 27 February 2026 date for FY2025
• Expected May 2027 — Annual General Meeting, following the 7 May 2026 date for the 2026 meeting
• Expected Aug 2027 — H1 2027 results, following the 5 August 2026 date for H1 2026
• TBC — financial close and construction start on the 107MW Manor Farm data centre, once the pre-let currently in legal documentation is signed
• TBC — further grid connection agreements beyond the 507MW secured at August 2026

Tritax publishes its confirmed reporting calendar and dividend timetable on its investor relations pages; the dates above marked Expected are derived from the company's own prior-year reporting pattern rather than from a published announcement. Discuss what you are watching with other investors on the ChartsView Forum.

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Disclaimer: This research is produced by ChartsView for educational and informational purposes only. It does not constitute financial advice or a recommendation to buy or sell any security. All information is sourced from publicly available company filings, press releases, and official data. ChartsView does not use analyst opinions or third-party ratings. Always conduct your own due diligence and consider your personal financial situation before making investment decisions. Past performance is not indicative of future results.

Last Updated: 15 September 2026

Beazley plc is one week away from ceasing to exist as a listed company. On 2 March 2026 Zurich Insurance Group agreed a recommended all-cash offer of 1,310 pence per share plus a permitted interim dividend of 25 pence, valuing the Lloyd's specialty insurer at roughly £8.1 billion. Shareholders approved the scheme of arrangement overwhelmingly, all regulatory approvals have now been satisfied, the Court sanction hearing is listed for 22 September 2026, and the Effective Date is expected on 1 October 2026 with cancellation of the London listing around 2 October 2026. Anyone reading this report should treat it as a record of what Beazley is and how it has performed, not as a live investment thesis on a going-concern quoted equity.

1. Company Snapshot

Field	Value
Legal name	Beazley plc
Ticker / exchange	BEZ, London Stock Exchange main market
Sector	Non-life insurance — Lloyd's of London specialty insurance and reinsurance
Headquarters	London, United Kingdom
Reporting currency	US dollars; earnings per share and dividends are also reported in pence
CEO / Leadership	Adrian Cox (Chief Executive since April 2021), Barbara Plucnar Jensen (Group Chief Financial Officer, appointed June 2024), Clive Bannister (Chair). The FY2025 financial statements were signed by C Bannister and B Plucnar Jensen on 3 March 2026.
Employees	Average of 2,658 employees during FY2025 (FY2024: 2,492), per note 10 of the Annual Report and Accounts 2025
Revenue (FY2025, insurance revenue)	$6,064.8 million, up 6.8% on FY2024 ($5,678.1 million). Total revenue as defined by the company, including interest on cash and other income, was $6,170.5 million.
Insurance written premiums (FY2025)	$6,100.7 million (FY2024: $6,164.1 million), a decline of 1.0%
Profit before tax (FY2025)	$1,146.5 million (FY2024: $1,423.5 million)
Combined ratio (FY2025)	77.3% discounted, 81.2% undiscounted (FY2024: 74.8% and 79.0%)
Return on equity (FY2025)	19.3% (FY2024: 26.6%)
Net assets per share	616.7p at 30 June 2026 (612.0p at 31 December 2025)
Pending corporate action	Recommended all-cash acquisition by Zurich Insurance Group at 1,310p plus a 25p permitted dividend, total 1,335p per share. Court hearing 22 September 2026; Effective Date expected 1 October 2026.

2. Bull Case and Bear Case

Bull Case

• A cash exit at a defined price: the Zurich scheme pays 1,310p in cash plus a 25p permitted dividend, a total of 1,335p per share, with regulatory approvals already satisfied and only Court sanction outstanding as of 15 September 2026.
• Genuine underwriting franchise: Beazley produced an insurance service result of $1,169.1 million in FY2025 on insurance revenue of $6,064.8 million, an undiscounted combined ratio of 81.2%, and a third consecutive year of roughly $1 billion or better pre-tax profit.
• Cyber market leadership with real infrastructure behind it: Cyber Risks wrote $1,164.0 million of insurance written premiums in FY2025 at a 75.6% discounted combined ratio, supported by Beazley Security, the group's own incident response and threat intelligence arm.
• Strong, liquid balance sheet: cash and investments of $11,976.4 million at FY2025 delivered a 5.2% investment return and $607.5 million of net investment income, with total equity of $4,871.4 million against only $559.6 million of financial liabilities.
• Demonstrated capital discipline: the group returned $1.2 billion to shareholders through dividends and buybacks from 1 January 2024, including a $503.1 million buyback and $211.0 million of dividends paid in FY2025 alone.

Bear Case

• The cycle has turned and it shows: H1 2026 profit before tax fell to $237.7 million from $502.5 million, the undiscounted combined ratio deteriorated from 84.9% to 93.3%, and annualised return on equity dropped from 18.2% to 7.6%.
• Premiums are shrinking: insurance written premiums fell 4.3% to $3,050.6 million in H1 2026 and insurance revenue fell to $2,734.7 million from $2,933.6 million, as the group declined business rather than chase inadequate rates.
• Cyber pricing is the pressure point: cyber underwriting shrank 8.8% in FY2025 against 7.7% growth the year before, with management describing the US rating environment as unsustainable — the flagship division is the one facing the hardest market conditions.
• Deal risk has not disappeared: the scheme still requires Court sanction on 22 September 2026 and delivery of the Court order to the Registrar of Companies. Until those happen the shares carry completion risk with almost no upside, since they already trade close to the offer terms.
• No independent future to underwrite: on completion, holders receive cash and lose exposure to a franchise that has compounded net assets per share from 504.7p at mid-2024 to 616.7p at mid-2026. There is no continuing listed security to roll into.

3. Revenue Segments

Beazley reports five underwriting divisions. The percentages below are of FY2025 insurance written premiums of $6,100.7 million as disclosed in the Group Chief Underwriting Officer's statement in the Annual Report and Accounts 2025. From 2026 the group has said Digital will no longer be reported separately, with its capabilities absorbed into the underwriting divisions.

Segment / division	% of FY2025 insurance written premiums	What it is
Specialty Risks	32.4% ($1,976.8m)	Professional lines, management liability and other complex commercial liability business; the largest division and the main home of US casualty exposure
Property Risks	28.4% ($1,732.8m)	Commercial and high-value property, including catastrophe-exposed risk; revenue recognition is seasonally weighted to the second half
Cyber Risks	19.1% ($1,164.0m)	First and third party cyber cover including ransomware and data breach, plus the Full Spectrum Cyber proposition and Beazley Security services
MAP Risks	16.3% ($995.6m)	Marine, accident and political risk, including war, terrorism, political violence and a growing renewable energy book
Digital	3.8% ($231.5m)	Small commercial and SME business traded through digital distribution; reported separately for the last time in FY2025

4. Business Model and Moat

How it makes money. Beazley earns from two distinct sources. The first is underwriting margin: it collects premium, pays claims and expenses, and keeps the difference. In FY2025 insurance revenue of $6,064.8 million less insurance service expenses of $4,436.6 million, reinsurance premium allocation of $906.4 million and amounts recoverable of $447.3 million produced an insurance service result of $1,169.1 million. The second is investment return on the float held between premium receipt and claim payment: $607.5 million of net investment income in FY2025, a 5.2% return on cash and investments of $11,976.4 million.

Unit economics. The combined ratio is the single number that matters. At 81.2% undiscounted in FY2025, roughly 19 cents of every dollar of insurance revenue fell through as underwriting profit before investment income. The FY2025 claims ratio was 44.5% and the expense ratio 32.8%. Division-level discipline varies: Property Risks ran a 29.7% claims ratio, Specialty Risks 58.1%. When the cycle softens, as it did in H1 2026, that margin compresses fast — the undiscounted combined ratio moved to 93.3% in six months.

The moat. Beazley's advantages are structural rather than contractual. Lloyd's licences and the syndicate platform give worldwide trading rights that are slow and expensive for a newcomer to replicate. Two decades of cyber claims data underpin risk selection in a line where most competitors are still guessing. Beazley Security turns claims handling into a service relationship and a data feedback loop. And an A-rated US excess and surplus carrier, Beazley Excess and Surplus Insurance, gives direct access to the fastest-growing part of the US commercial market.

Why Zurich wanted it. The acquisition logic is coverage rather than cost: Zurich gains Lloyd's access, a leading cyber book, and US E&S capability that would take years to build organically. That is also the reason the offer carried a meaningful premium to the pre-announcement price.

5. Financial Health

All figures are from Beazley's own reported accounts: the Annual Report and Accounts 2025 published 11 March 2026, the FY2023 and FY2022 annual reports, and the H1 2026 and H1 2025 results announcements. Beazley adopted IFRS 17 from FY2023 and restated FY2022. FY2021 is presented on the earlier IFRS 4 basis and is not directly comparable.

Fiscal Year	Revenue — insurance revenue (US$ millions)	YoY %	GAAP EPS	Adjusted EPS	Dividend/share	Long-term debt (YE)
FY2021	3,346.3	n/d	50.9c	50.9c	12.9p	$554.7m
FY2022	4,848.4	n/m	79.0c	79.0c	13.5p	$562.5m
FY2023	5,442.4	+12.2%	154.7c	154.7c	14.2p	$554.6m
FY2024	5,678.1	+4.3%	175.1c	175.1c	25.0p	$576.0m
FY2025	6,064.8	+6.8%	149.4c	149.4c	25.0p	$559.6m

† Beazley does not report an adjusted, underlying or non-GAAP earnings per share. The Adjusted EPS column therefore repeats the statutory basic EPS in cents. ‡ FY2021 is the "Revenue" line of the pre-IFRS 17 income statement, being net earned premiums plus investment and other income; from FY2022 the figure is IFRS 17 insurance revenue with FY2022 restated. The FY2022 year-on-year change is shown as n/m because the two bases are not comparable, and FY2021 is shown as n/d because FY2020 falls outside the window presented. Long-term debt is the reported financial liabilities balance, comprising Tier 2 subordinated notes ($250.0m of 5.875% notes due 2026 and $300.0m of 5.5% notes due 2029) together with derivative financial liabilities.

Quarter / Half	Revenue — insurance revenue (US$ millions)	Adjusted EPS	GAAP EPS
H1 2026 (6m to 30 Jun 2026)	2,734.7	31.2c	31.2c
H1 2025 (6m to 30 Jun 2025)	2,933.6	67.2c	67.2c
H1 2024 (6m to 30 Jun 2024)	2,730.6	86.8c	86.8c
FY2025 (full year)	6,064.8	149.4c	149.4c

Beazley reports half-yearly. In pence, basic EPS was 23.2p in H1 2026, 52.5p in H1 2025, 68.7p in H1 2024 and 113.4p for FY2025. Profit before tax was $237.7m in H1 2026, $502.5m in H1 2025, $728.9m in H1 2024 and $1,146.5m in FY2025. The undiscounted combined ratio was 93.3%, 84.9%, 80.7% and 81.2% respectively.

Balance sheet and cash flow. At 31 December 2025 total assets were $16,193.3 million against total liabilities of $11,321.9 million, leaving total equity of $4,871.4 million. Cash and cash equivalents were $1,368.5 million and financial assets at fair value $10,607.9 million. FY2025 net cash inflow from operating activities was $1,314.8 million, against investing outflows of $66.9 million comprising $13.4 million of plant and equipment purchases and $53.5 million of software and intangible development. Depreciation and amortisation charged in FY2025 was $44.7 million (FY2024: $27.6 million). Financing outflows of $797.0 million included a $503.1 million share buyback and $211.0 million of dividends. At 30 June 2026 total equity had risen to $4,896.2 million, cash was $1,115.8 million and financial liabilities $552.5 million. Eligible Tier 2 capital stood at $608.8 million at FY2025.

6. Valuation Metrics

Share prices, and figures worked out from them, are not shown for London-listed companies on ChartsView.

Raw metrics, September 2026. Not opinions on whether the stock is cheap or expensive.

Every multiple below is therefore effectively a restatement of the offer terms.

Metric	Value
Offer value	1,335p per share in total (1,310p cash plus a 25p permitted dividend), valuing the equity at roughly £8.1bn. The shares trade about 2.3% below the total offer terms, which is the market's pricing of completion risk and the time to payment.
Short interest (% of float)	Not published for this period. The FCA's daily short positions file contains no disclosed net short position in Beazley, and UK individual short-position disclosure changed from 13 July 2026. Verify at fca.org.uk short positions daily update.

Watch how the shares behave into the Court hearing on the ChartsView Live Charts page, and check the wider macro schedule on the Economic Calendar.

7. What Are They Building

Bermuda. Beazley stood up a Bermuda platform during 2025 and 2026, writing property treaty reinsurance where it reported exceeding its targets by August 2026, and adding alternative risk transfer and mortgage indemnity capability in the second half of 2026. A parametric and structured solutions team established a permanent Bermuda presence in summer 2026.

Cyber insurance-linked securities. Chief Executive Adrian Cox has described securitisation as the next step for systemic cyber risk, with a cyber ILS fund targeted for launch in 2026 and the Bermuda entity providing the vehicle. This matters because it is the mechanism by which Beazley could keep growing cyber premium without absorbing all the aggregation risk on its own balance sheet.

US excess and surplus. Beazley Excess and Surplus Insurance received an A (Excellent) financial strength rating from AM Best, and the group has been transferring roughly $1.6 billion of E&S business from Syndicate 623 into the new carrier, with Names representing around 97% of capacity approving the move.

Renewable energy underwriting. The acquisition of kWh Analytics, a US renewable energy managing general agent, completed in March 2026 and has been embedded into the MAP Risks team, adding data and underwriting capability across solar and wider renewable portfolios.

The honest caveat. Every one of these initiatives now becomes Zurich's to fund and direct. Whether the cyber ILS fund, the Bermuda build-out and the E&S transfer continue in their current form after 1 October 2026 is a decision for the acquirer, not for Beazley's board.

8. Competitive Landscape

Beazley competes in specialty lines at Lloyd's and in the US surplus market. The comparison that matters in 2026 is the combined ratio, because every listed specialty insurer is navigating the same softening rate environment.

Peer	Key 2025/2026 metric
Hiscox Ltd (LSE: HSX)	Undiscounted combined ratio of 90.4% in H1 2026, improved from 92.6% in H1 2025 (Hiscox 2026 interim results, 5 August 2026)
Lancashire Holdings Ltd (LSE: LRE)	Undiscounted combined ratio of 90.8% in H1 2026, improved from 97.8% a year earlier (Lancashire H1 2026 results)
Conduit Holdings Ltd (LSE: CRE)	Undiscounted combined ratio of 92.6% and return on equity of 7.8% in H1 2026 (Conduit H1 2026 interim results)
Chubb Limited (NYSE: CB)	Property and casualty combined ratio of 83.8% for Q2 2026 and 83.9% for the six months to 30 June 2026 (Chubb Q2 2026 results)

On that basis Beazley's H1 2026 undiscounted combined ratio of 93.3% was the weakest of the UK-listed group, having been among the strongest a year earlier at 84.9%. The swing was driven by softening rates in cyber and property plus an active large-loss environment, and by the cost of standing up the Bermuda operation and integrating kWh Analytics.

9. Leadership and Insider Activity

Adrian Cox has been Chief Executive since April 2021, having succeeded Andrew Horton. Barbara Plucnar Jensen joined as Group Chief Financial Officer in June 2024 from Tryg A/S, and Clive Bannister has chaired the board since April 2023. Below board level, 2026 brought a reshuffle: in June 2026 the group named co-leads for Specialty Risks and an interim chief executive for Beazley Furlonge, the Lloyd's managing agency. Insider dealing in 2026 has been dominated by routine long-term incentive plan vesting and the associated tax sales, which is what one would expect ahead of a scheme of arrangement when discretionary dealing windows are closed.

Name	Date	Type	Shares	Plan Type
Adrian Cox (Chief Executive)	04 Mar 2026	LTIP exercise and sale to cover tax	77,032 options exercised	Long-term incentive plan; post-transaction holding 1,352,506 shares (0.22% of issued capital)
Adrian Cox (Chief Executive)	01 Apr 2026	LTIP exercise and sale	113,079 options exercised; 53,281 shares sold	Long-term incentive plan vesting and associated sale
Paul Bantick (Group Chief Underwriting Officer, Cyber)	06 Mar 2026	Sale	18,360	Share-plan related disposal
Paul Bantick (Group Chief Underwriting Officer, Cyber)	10 Apr 2026	Purchase and matching award	141 partnership shares plus 141 matching shares	UK Share Incentive Plan 2023; matching shares awarded at nil cost
Clive Bannister (Chair)	02 Mar 2026	Irrevocable undertaking	Entire beneficial holding	Undertaking to vote in favour of the Zurich scheme, disclosed in the Rule 2.7 announcement

10. Key Risks

• Deal completion: the scheme requires Court sanction at the hearing listed for 22 September 2026 and delivery of the Court order to the Registrar of Companies.
• Softening rate cycle: H1 2026 insurance written premiums fell 4.3% to $3,050.6 million and the undiscounted combined ratio rose to 93.3% from 84.9%, which the company attributed to an acceleration in rate softening across cyber and property.
• Systemic cyber aggregation: Cyber Risks was 19.1% of FY2025 premiums. A single widely propagated cloud, software supply chain or ransomware event could trigger correlated losses across the whole book rather than isolated claims.
• Catastrophe exposure: Property Risks was 28.4% of FY2025 premiums, with natural catastrophe accumulation identified as a principal risk in the group's own risk framework. H1 2026 already reflected an active large-loss environment.
• Reserve adequacy in US casualty: Specialty Risks ran a 58.1% claims ratio in FY2025 with adverse prior year development of $183.0 million in that division. US social inflation has forced reserve strengthening across the sector.
• Investment portfolio and interest rates: net investment income of $607.5 million was more than half of FY2025 profit before tax. A sharp move in rates or credit spreads on the $10,607.9 million fair value portfolio would flow straight to earnings.
• Execution cost of new platforms: H1 2026 expenses rose partly because of standing up the Bermuda operation and acquiring kWh Analytics, compressing margins in the same period as rate softening.
• Governance and reputation: the 2025 departure of the former Chief Risk Officer over non-financial misconduct allegations resurfaced in June 2026 media coverage, a reminder that conduct risk carries reputational cost in the London market.

11. Recent Developments

• 02 Mar 2026 — Zurich agrees recommended all-cash offer. Zurich Insurance Group and Beazley announced a Rule 2.7 offer of 1,310p cash plus a 25p permitted dividend, total 1,335p per share, valuing Beazley at roughly £8.1 billion. The Chair gave an irrevocable undertaking to vote in favour.
• 04 Mar 2026 — FY2025 results published. Insurance revenue $6,064.8m, profit before tax $1,146.5m, basic EPS 113.4p, undiscounted combined ratio 81.2%, return on equity 19.3% and an interim dividend of 25.0p covering the whole year.
• 10 Mar 2026 — kWh Analytics acquisition agreed. Beazley agreed to acquire the US renewable energy managing general agent, later embedded into the MAP Risks division.
• 11 Mar 2026 — Annual Report and Accounts 2025 published. Total assets $16,193.3m, total equity $4,871.4m, cash and investments $11,976.4m, average headcount 2,658.
• 22 Apr 2026 — Annual General Meeting held, per the company's published financial calendar.
• 16 Jun 2026 — Senior leadership changes. The group named co-leads for Specialty Risks and an interim chief executive for Beazley Furlonge, the Lloyd's managing agency.
• 05 Aug 2026 — H1 2026 results. Insurance written premiums down 4.3% to $3,050.6m, insurance revenue $2,734.7m, profit before tax down to $237.7m, undiscounted combined ratio 93.3%, annualised return on equity 7.6%, net assets per share 616.7p.
• 05 Aug 2026 — Bermuda property treaty targets exceeded, with alternative risk transfer and mortgage indemnity capability planned for the second half of 2026.
• 10 Sep 2026 — Final regulatory approvals confirmed. Zurich and Beazley confirmed that all regulatory conditions had been satisfied, with the Court hearing set for 22 September 2026 and the Effective Date expected on 1 October 2026.

12. Key Dates to Watch

• 22 Sep 2026 — Court sanction hearing for the Zurich scheme of arrangement
• 01 Oct 2026 — expected Effective Date of the acquisition, once the Court order is delivered to the Registrar of Companies
• 02 Oct 2026 — expected cancellation of Beazley's listing and admission to trading on the London Stock Exchange
• Expected Oct 2026 — despatch of cash consideration to shareholders, stated as within 14 days of the Effective Date
• TBC — FY2026 full year results. Beazley's published financial calendar lists no reporting date beyond the 5 August 2026 interim results, consistent with the company expecting to be private before its next scheduled report.

If the scheme completes on the expected timetable there will be no further Beazley reporting calendar to track. Share views on how the Lloyd's specialty cycle plays out from here on the ChartsView Forum.

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