Broker tips: IAG, Greatland Gold

(Sharecast News) - BA and Iberia owner IAG flew higher on Wednesday as JPMorgan Cazenove said it was the "most compelling" overweight in the airline sector and added the stock to its Analyst Focus List and put it on "positive catalyst watch". JPM said this was driven by solid pricing, strong free cash flow leading to shareholder cash returns and a re-rating potential.

More broadly, the bank said 2025 was expected to be a mixed year for the transport sector.

"We see a weakening backdrop for trade despite volumes in air and ocean freight being well below the normalised level," it said."The main pocket of earnings growth may come from the European airlines given a fuel tailwind and resilient pricing sustained by a benign demand-supply balance."

Analysts at Canaccord Genuity raised their target price on development and exploration firm Greatland Gold from 15.0p to 17.0p on Wednesday and reiterated their 'speculative buy' rating on the stock after the group completed its acquisition of the 70% of the Havieron project that it did not already own, in addition to the Telfer mine from Newmont.

As part of the completion, Greatland has agreed to waive certain administrative conditions related to the transfer of leases, having determined that the benefits of taking control of the asset outweigh the risks of waiting until these administrative procedures are complete.

Canaccord stated the transaction "immediately transforms" Greatland into a producer of significant scale and expects production of roughly 330,000 ounces of gold over an initial 15-month mine plan from Telfer and Havieron production of 200,000 to 250,000 ounces per annum.

"Based on our numbers, Greatland trades at an EV/EBITDA of ~4x for FY25E (June YE) and a P/NAV of just 0.42x. This lags both Australian producing peers and London-listed producers which trade at ~0.70x. In our view, this discount ignores both the near-term earnings potential and the long-life nature of Havieron. Therefore, in addition to being bullish on the sector in general, we also expect this valuation gap to close," said the Canadian bank.