Greene King Share Price (GNK)

Any ideas why Greene King share price has not bounced today following beer duty reduction in the Budget? Wetherspoons and Enterprise Inns were up on the news.

Greene King: Goldman Sachs downgrades from buy to neutral with its target price still at 615p.

Rooney Anand, the Chief Executive of pubs group Greene King, pocketed nearly half a million pounds yesterday by selling off a portion of the shares he was awarded under the company's long-term incentive awards (LTIP) a few years back. Under the LTIP awards that were granted to a number of senior execs on December 9th 2009 which have now vested in full, Anand received 153,000 ordinary shares, 79,959 of which he sold immediately, retaining some 73,041. He sold the shares at a price of 620.07p, earning himself a total of £495,802. This leaves him with 272,794 shares left in the company.

First-half results from pubs giant Greene King will be released on Tuesday morning with the market expecting a slight improvement in profits. The company had reported a strong start to the year in September with like-for-like (LFL) sales up 5.1% in the first 18 weeks despite the poor summer weather. Analysts at Panmure Gordon are forecasting a first-half profit before tax of £82.4m (earnings per share of 28.8p), up 6.7% year-on-year. In a research report on Friday, the broker said: "We expect LFL sales growth in managed pubs to have moderated over the rest of H1 reflecting the tougher comps, particularly in October. "We expect the current trading update will highlight a robust performance in November and the group well positioned to capitalise on the Christmas trading period."

Greene King: Citigroup downgrades to neutral.

Greene King: Investec upgrades from sell to hold, target raised from 381p to 530p.