Halfords Group – the Interims next month will spell out further growth
Mark Watson-Mitchell – 21.10.2026
The Trading Update announced this morning by the £602m-capitalised Halfords Group (LON:HFD) has reported strong trading for the motoring and cycling products retailer for the 26 weeks to Friday 2nd October.
Group like-for-like sales grew 7.1%, driven by a 7.7% increase in retail sales and 6.1% growth in Autocentres.
That performance supports the previously upgraded full-year 2027 underlying profit before tax guidance of £55m to £65m, with the first half weighted towards this profit due to accelerated marketing and technology investments in the second half.
The group’s shares recently tipped a four-year High at 284.50p, before closing last night at 277.50p; however, City analysts are now calling them even higher with 339p being the Highest Target Price mentioned.
Management Comment
CEO Henry Birch stated that:
“The business continued to perform positively through the first half as we benefited from good execution against our strategic priorities and strong sales of seasonal categories through the warm summer weather.
We move into the second half with confidence and look forward to sharing more detail on our progress at our interim results announcement later next month.”
The Business
Based in Redditch, the Halfords Group is the UK’s leading provider of motoring and cycling services and products.
From a traditional motoring and cycling retailer a decade ago, it has now evolved into a consumer and B2B services-focused business with a greater emphasis on motoring.
Powered by 12,500 expert colleagues and unrivalled physical and digital scale, the group operates some 367 Halfords stores, two Tredz Performance Cycling stores, 497 consumer garages and a network of 91 commercial fleet locations nationwide.
The group’s 20m loyal customers also have access to around 250 mobile service vans (trading as Halfords Mobile Expert and National) and about 550 commercial vans.
Additionally, its customers can shop at halfords.com and tredz.co.uk for pick up at their local store or direct home delivery, as well as booking garage services online at halfords.com.
Through its subsidiary Avayler, Halfords also sells the group’s bespoke, internally developed SaaS solution to clients in the USA and Australia.
The Equity
There are some 218.93m shares in issue.
The larger holders include FIL Investment Advisors (UK) (7.51%), Gresham House Asset Management (Investment Management) (6.39%), Barclays Capital Securities (5.90%), Aberforth Partners (4.74%), Gresham Janus Henderson Investors UK (4.52%), Dimensional Fund Advisors (4.24%), Jupiter Asset Management (4.11%), Aberdeen Investment Management (3.57%), Artemis Investment Management (3.22%), BlackRock Investment Management (UK) (2.70%), FIL Investments International (2.49%), and Norges Bank Investment Management (2.48%).
Broker Views
There are some seven analysts closely following the group, five of whom rate the shares as a Buy, while two say Hold.
The Average Target Price is 294p, the Highest at 339p, the Lowest at 260p.
Shore Capital Markets has a Buy note out on the group’s shares, with a 320p Target Price.
Canaccord Genuity has recently rates the shares as a Buy, with a 285p Target Price.
Analysts Rachel Birkett and Andy Hanson, at Zeus Capital, have a Hold note out on the group, with a 270p Target Price.
Their estimates are for the end-March 2027 revenues to have risen to £1,849m (£1,765m), while adjusted pre-tax profits could come in at £63.1m (£45.4m), lifting earnings to 21.0p (15.1p), and a dividend of 12.0p (9.0p) per share.
Into 2028, they predict £1,901m revenues, £61.1m profits, 20.4p earnings and an 11.7p dividend per share.
For 2029 the analysts estimate £1,951m sales, £64.7m profits, 21.6p earnings and a dividend of 12.4 per share.
Halfords is moving in the right direction, says analyst Ben Hunt, at Panmure Liberum, who now has a Buy note on the group’s shares with a Target Price of 300p (260p).
He previously noted that Management was expecting a first-half weighted profit profile to reflect the strong trading to date as well as increased technology and marketing investment.
“Even so, we believe guidance retains some prudence and would not be surprised to see further upgrades before year-end.
Longer-term we expect momentum to be sustained by further benefits from Fusion garage conversions, the return of the cycling replacement cycle and the roll-out of Fusion learnings across the wider autocentres estate.”
My View
I remain a fan of this group, which appears to be doing very well currently.
Planned expenditure in the final part of the year will drag it a bit; however, taking a longer view, it looks absolutely right.
The shares at 277.50p could so easily break the 300p level very soon.
(Profile 23.06.26 @ 172p set a Target Price of 200p plus*)
(Profile 22.06.26 @ 179p set a Target Price of 220p plus*)
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