Broker tips: Zegona Communications, Ecora Resources

(Sharecast News) - Analysts at Canaccord Genuity hiked their target price on telecommunications services provider Zegona Communications from 980p to 1,500p on Wednesday following the firm's €1.4bn FibreCo monetisation deal and the recent creation of €1.2bn in distributable reserves.

Canaccord Genuity said it believes that all the ingredients were there for EJLSHM Funding's 69% stake in the company to get cancelled in the first half of 2026 and estimates that the subsequent reduction in share count could lift fair value to £15.50 per share, assuming a "slightly-above-peers" 6.5x FY26 enterprise value/underlying earnings multiple.

Adding to this, the possibility of a special dividend of up to £1.60 per share implies healthy 22-35% TSR potential from here, said the Canadian bank, which also reiterated its 'buy' rating on the stock.

"With the shares the best-performing UK TMT stock this year, it is tempting to think 'the easy money has been made'. However, we believe Zegona's strong operational & cash flow progress will continue next year with a return to sales growth the final missing ingredient," said Canaccord.

"We believe that delivering sustained positive low- to mid-single digit % revenue growth could drive a further re-rating of the shares with every 0.5x turn on the EV/EBITDAaL multiple potentially adding £1.9/share to fair value. We raise our target price to £15 (from £9.80) based on a now 95% expected probability of a 69% reduction in share count."

Analysts at Berenberg took a fresh look at natural resource royalty and streaming company Ecora Resources on Wednesday after the stock rallied 18% over the past month.

Bernberg said Ecora's 33% year-to-date share price gain was as a result of the global commodity market experiencing "somewhat of a melt-up moment", driven by a mixture of supply issues, stable demand, geopolitical risks and a weaker USD.

"For too long, the market has focused on the Kestrel metallurgical coal royalty, in Australia; however, as we have argued in the past (see New era as Kestrel's dominance finally fades, dated 14 July 2025), the market needs to focus on Ecora's core portfolio, excluding Kestrel, which we expect should grow its portfolio contribution (on our base-case price deck) from $22m in 2024 to $33m in 2025 and $43m in 2026," said Berenberg.

The German bank noted that global diversified miners have moved away from a diversified portfolio, and in fact run "more concentrated portfolios". However,

it also said it likes the diversified nature of Ecora's portfolio and flag three commodities which are all having good rallies and are direct, immediate beneficiaries to the firm's bottom line - copper, cobalt, and uranium.

"At spot commodity prices, we forecast upgrades to our expectations by c8% for 2025 and c14% for 2026. We think that there is much more to come from Ecora's shares and

for a stock that is up 33% ytd, with an attractive deleveraging profile and rising core EBITDA, with mark to market upside, we reiterate our conviction 'buy'," added Berenberg.

Reporting by Iain Gilbert at Sharecast.com