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Surely best to stay well clear because of the numerous headwinds, the chief of which is the horrendous debt. I don't understand why anyone would take the risk of buying individual shares. The younger generation have cottoned on, with ETFs being the popular investment route these days. But a world index and just relax is surely the sensible way.

These brokers would be better off just looking at the charts, which suggest movement in a downward direction. Surely new 5 year lows are on the charts - just look at the 5 year chart.

"teamed in with £75k. Also bought £75k WPP"

IF that's the case, you've gone totally against conventional investment wisdom, which is that the trend is your friend. The trend on both shares over 5 years is a horror show, and suggests extended losses.

Just trying to be realistic here with your £100k purchase. The market cap is still a massive £31 bn and net debt is approx £16 bn, but DYOR. That suggests to me that there is no inevitability that this share will bounce any time soon. A good time to buy might be when Dave Lewis buys a meaningful number of shares, but I doubt that will happen until we get near £10 or maybe under, or maybe below.

Careful with the 4.5 per cent yield - it is historic, and the actual yield over the next year may be close to half that.

The shares are in freefall. I wonder whether exiting even at £14 will prove a smart move in due course, given the continued lack of support. I think the market is suspecting a third profits warning in due course. I'm sure the shares will turn around at some point but I'm beginning to doubt my bottom forecast of £13 made when the shares were £20. When we have revised earnings and yield figures, there will surely be further downward momentum. I can now see £10 as a realistic base before things turn around. What do others think?

As you know, I have no skin in the game here and am certainly not intending to do so. I have however found the story of this company's share price decline to be a fascinating one. The Times article encapsulated everything I have been saying on here - high debt, unaffordable dividend, demographic change and the impracticality of selling unwanted brands in a market where there are few if any buyers. I only hope that some on this forum may have paused for thought as a result and were not taken in by the usual echo chamber posts (Just bought under £18 - what a bargain etc).

The digital version of The Times article on Diageo appeared yesterday - possibly the paper article was out today.

Other extracts from the article:

The FTSE 100 owner of Johnnie Walker whisky, Guinness, Smirnoff vodka and Gordon’s gin has a debt problem. The company borrowed heavily to fund expansion into faster-growing markets such as India, China and Latin America. The strategy also focused on more expensive premium brands, the sales of which have suffered during a cost of living crisis.

The first figure we need is the net debt of $21.7 billion. The net debt is all the loans and other borrowing minus the cash in the bank. The other important figure is the net assets, or equity, of $13.7 billion. This is the value of all the brands, stock, cash, buildings and any other assets, less borrowings, money owed to suppliers, tax owed and any other liabilities.

These two figures start to show what a pickle the company is in, because theoretically if trading stopped tomorrow, it would owe a lot more than the company is worth. Those holding the debt get paid first and those holding equity last, if at all. Putting it in perspective, at the end of June 2016 the net debt was $12.8 billion and the equity $15.1 billion. Applying a similar ratio to the current equity on the balance sheet would give a net debt target of $11.5 billion.

Resolving debt issues is an insidious problem for a company like Diageo. They can start selling previously acquired brands, but buyers are thin on the ground with competitors struggling to shift their own warehouses full of overpriced booze.

To make matters worse, you might get a price on your best brands but give away the crown jewels and you’re left trying to run a business with the equivalent of a watered-down bottle of Dubonnet and some crusty crème de menthe.

The best option is some heavy lifting on the balance sheet and that is not easy or quick. Diageo expects to make $3 billion in free cashflow for the year to June, which is the amount of cash leftover after running the business. But from that figure you still have to take around $1.3 billion for dividend payments, even after cutting last year’s 103 cents in half to about 50 cents.

Any other bumps, or wars, in the road and that spare cash could dry up while the debts remain. Lewis has to reduce the debt that was used to fund expansion, share buybacks and dividends as it has been steadily increasing by about $1 billion a year during the past decade.

When Tempus looked at the shares in August, we said avoid until the chief executive issue was resolved. The shares are now 30 per cent lower, and progress has been made on the leadership, but we’d still avoid them until those debts are under control.

From yesterday's Times:

Shares in Diageo may look like an attractive prospect for bargain hunters as they have more than halved in value during the past four years. But there is an often-overlooked number buried in the financial results which can help investors avoid a value trap and will determine when they are worth buying.

When Tempus looked at the shares in August, we said avoid until the chief executive issue was resolved. The shares are now 30 per cent lower, and progress has been made on the leadership, but we’d still avoid them until those debts are under control.

Advice - Avoid

Why: Growing debts raise risks for shareholders

The war in the Middle East is going to push up borrowing costs, and Diageo's net debt appears to be about £16bn, or about half the market capitalisation. That's a possible reason for the recent fall (and cost of living rises dampening demand on discretionary goods), but there are many.

I should have referred to bet debt as 21.7bn dollars and a potential bid as 40 billion pounds - sorry for that confusion. They are only my thoughts - do your own research as always. As stated previously, you can sleep at night if you ditch dangerous individual shares dabbling and just put money into exchange traded funds / trackers.

Sorry to be negative, but I suspect that a bid is unlikely, mainly because net debt appears to equate to about 50 pc of Diageo's market cap. So a buyer would need to take on 21.7bn of debt as well as paying probably 40 bn or so for the company. Any potential buyers will already have suffered huge share price drops themselves and any purchase of Diageo would probably plunge the bidder's share price further. One wonders whether the glut of brands means that some of Diageo's brands might be mothballed rather than sold, since there will be limited demand for a brand of gin, for example, when there are hundreds or maybe thousands out there already.

'The potential rewards outweigh the risks'. So says an investment bank. Yet history shows that the trend is your friend and that you shouldn't catch a falling knife. The fact that the shares used to be more than double the current price doesn't make them cheap. The world has changed since these shares were priced at £40. As Warren Buffett has said - when the facts change, I change my mind.

As the Times has said, the market will question whether a further earnings reset could come. A third profit warning in due course will surely push the shares substantially lower.

With the results of DL's plan 6 months away, there is a good chance that these shares will continue to drift lower.

In the absence of good news, these shares are likely to drift downwards in my view. I suspect a third profit warnings to follow in due course - they often come in threes.

The new annual dividend floor is not much above 2pc. I suspect the market will want more than that to reward investors for their long term patience, given the strong headwinds.. I maintain my £13 target for what it's worth.

DYOR.

It's should be a salutary lesson for investors that the FTSE 100, which includes Diageo, is up over 1 pc today.

Yet another illustration that individual stock selection is a mug's game. Very few find managers beat the trackers, so what hope has Joe Public? No wonder Warren Buffett is such a fan of low risk ETFs.

PS The bright spots appear to be increased consumption in India and Africa. However. localization is a factor here, with consumers wishing to favour local companies and hence their local economy. According to AI (!), Indian spirits, especially Indian Single Malts, are outperforming imported counterparts. Increased tariffs can only exacerbate that trend. I'm not sure that that risk has yet been fully factored in.

The share price has rallied well over the last month or so. However, the chart for the last 5 years shows countless upticks, followed by falls to new lows. I can't predict the future but there's clearly a risk that bad news eg dividend cut will resume the downtrend and create a new low. It's therefore not ridiculous that someone has shorted at about the current price. Basically, it's going to take good news to create a sustainable rise, and for now it seems that all the news is bad.

Corrected heading, sorry!

Heineken is to cut up to 6,000 jobs globally over the next two years – close to 7% of its workforce – as the Dutch brewer struggles with falling demand for beer.

The company, which makes Heineken, Amstel and Tiger, said the cuts would come from brewing and white-collar roles among its 87,000-strong global workforce as it faced “challenging market conditions”.

It came as the world’s second-largest brewer by market value lowered its forecasts for profit growth in 2026.

“We really do this to strengthen our operations and to be able to invest in growth,” the brewer’s head of finance, Harold van den Broek, told reporters after the company released its annual results.

Some jobs would be lost in Europe as well as other markets, he said, adding that some cuts would come from previously announced measures affecting Heineken’s supply network, head office and regional business divisions.

The job cuts come just a month after the surprise resignation of the chief executive, Dolf van den Brink, in January, after six years in the top job. Van den Brink, who will step down in May, had been under pressure to increase Heineken’s growth and productivity, with fewer resources, after investors accused the company of becoming less efficient.

Heineken said the job cuts were aimed at “accelerating productivity at scale to unlock significant savings”.

The company has forecast slower profit growth of between 2% and 6% this year, compared with the 4-8% growth it predicted in 2025.

It came as Heineken reported a 1.2% fall in total beer volumes last year compared with 2024, at a time when the company and its rivals are fighting declining beer sales, particularly in Europe and North America.

Squeezed household finances have played a role, while some consumers are drinking less alcohol because of health concerns and others have cut back after changing their diet and lifestyle while taking weight-loss drugs such as Mounjaro and Wegovy.