Panmure Gordon has lifted its price target for retailing group Next from 3,770p to 3,848p following the company's Christmas trading update on Thursday morning which showed 'continued strength'.

The broker said that trading between November 1st and December 24th 2012 was strong with both sales and margins coming in better than expected.

Meanwhile, buy-backs of £241m last year compared with guidance of £200m, and the buy-back guidance for the year to January 2014 is £250m, well ahead of Panmure's £190m estimate.

Finally, Next raised its full-year (ending January 2013) profit before tax guidance from £590-620m to £611-625m. Panmure had pencilled in a figure closer to £612.7m for this year and has moved it up to £617.8m accordingly. The broker also raised next year's forecast from £640.7m to £644.6m.

However, despite the forecast upgrades, Panmure retained its 'hold' rating for Next.

"Trading on a FY2013E price-to-earnings ratio of 13.5 on our new estimates, dropping to 12.3 in FY2014E, we think that Next shares have some upside but not enough to justify a 'buy' recommendation," analysts said.

Nevertheless, they said that they are still "big fans of this blue blood multi-channel retailer".

Shares were up 2.31% at 3,859p in morning trade on Thursday.

BC

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