Consumer products giant Reckitt Benckiser is due to report its third-quarter results on Wednesday.
The company, whose 'powerbrands' include Vanish, Harpic, Cillit Bang and Finish, is expected to report a 3.8% organic sales growth rate on the guided metric (excluding RB Pharmaceuticals and including Foods), according to consensus estimates.
Investec, however, predicts a 3.1% increase - "a low-end view", it admits. "We note the one percentage point tougher comp than Q2, continuing challenges in Southern Europe and hints of a slowdown in Asia," said analyst Martin Deboo in a research report on Monday.
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"We continue to see the impending change of CFO as a positive catalyst and are warming to the Reckitt story. But there are some difficult H2 waters to navigate," Deboo said.
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Meanwhile, cigarette giant British American Tobacco is also on the schedule for a third-quarter update on Wednesday, in which it is expected to reported a 5% increase in organic revenues (constant currency basis) for the nine months to September 30th, according to Panmure Gordon last week.
This will be an acceleration from the 4% growth reported in the first half, driven by improved pricing, the broker said.
Group volumes are forecast to fall by one billion sticks, or 0.1%, to 522bn over the nine-month period.
Panmure said: "Tobacco stocks have been weak recently, impacted by negative regulatory news flow and a more general switch out of defensive names. Year to date BATS' shares have underperformed the FTSE All Share by 1.3%, recording an absolute gain of 5.9%."
The broker said that the valuation - shares were trading last week at 14.3 times earnings - is undemanding "given the strength of the underlying cash flows".
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