Broker tips: Lonmin, housebuilders, Mitchells & Butlers

Platinum miner Lonmin has been boosted by a positive note from Citigroup which said that the management came across as confident, 'but not recklessly over-confident' in a meeting with sell-side analysts this week.Citi believes Lonmin's bosses are right to be quietly confident, but added that the 'next few months are key for both Saffy and Hossy shafts' at Marikana in South Africa, which are scheduled to hit full production.'Lonmin has taken prudent action in terms of culling uneconomic production and right-sizing the workforce. The challenge now is to deliver on Saffy's transformation with that reduced workforce and to make some tough decisions on Hossy by year-end. The jury is still out, but we see it as increasingly being won over by management,' said Citi, which has increased its price target for the stock from 859p to 1385p.After being bearish on the housebuilding sector since the second half of 2007, Credit Suisse now thinks the sector might have turned the corner.Improving economic data, some signs of life in the UK housing market, plus attractive valuations for many housebuilding stocks has prompted the Swiss bank to upgrade some of the sector's big players. Barratt Developments and Taylor Wimpey have been upgraded from 'neutral' to 'outperform' while Persimmon now has a neutral rating, an improvement on the 'underperform' rating it previously had.'We are confident that although the housing market may not have reached an absolute trough yet, a period of stabilisation, at the very least, is imminent,' Credit Suisse said.Tim Clarke, chief executive officer of All Bar One and Harvester group Mitchells and Butlers has fallen on his sword after the pub group reported a 48% slump in interim profits.The final straw appears to have been another £69m lost on an interest rate hedging deal on top of the £391m hedging loss that prompted the departure of former finance director Karim Naffah in January 2008.Demonstrating a skill at the art of understatement, Mark Brumby at Blue Oar Securities correctly surmised that 'the announcement of more swap losses and the resignation of the group's chief executive is unlikely to go down well with investors.' The stock is the worst performing FTSE 250 constituent today.While Mitchells & Butlers may rank low on the financial management side, Blue Oar still rates it as a pub operator. 'As regards trading, and trading is, ultimately, what it's all about, M&B is outperforming its competitors and is taking share. Operationally it is a winner and we continue to support the shares.'Charles Stanley is also a fan of the stock, upgrading its rating from 'add' to 'buy', and lifting its price target from 310p to 325p.The broker notes that the debt repayment is ahead of original plans and should easily be below £400m by the end of this year.Analyst James Dawson concedes that M&B has had to give up gross margin, but this was flagged in the January trading statement, while comments accompanying the interim results suggest management is expecting less margin pressure in the second half of its financial year.