Almost exactly a year go (26 November 2023), I declared which UK company I thought had been the best share to buy at the start of the year. That was FTSE 100 information and analytics firm RELX (LSE: REL).
There were so many things to like about RELX. It was a bone fide UK tech star, having outpaced the Nasdaq since the start of the Millennium, growing almost five-fold.
It also seemed likely to benefit from the artificial intelligence (AI) revolution, as it harnessed the ground-breaking tech to enrich its proprietary datasets.
RELX, didn’t do it
It had actually been sitting on my buy list since June last year but, stupidly, I’d never got around to buying it.
Back then, the share price stood at 2,646p. By last November, it had climbed 15% to 3,055p. Today, I’d have to pay 3,719p per share. That’s an increase of another 21.7% over the year. Over five years, the RELX share price is up 97.98%. So I’m still kicking myself.
So what stopped me buying RELX? It always looked so pricey, trading at around 30 times earnings. At the time, I was on a FTSE 100 bargain hunt, mopping up dirt cheap dividend stocks with valuations closer to five or six times earnings. But RELX has taught me that a high yield and low price-to-earnings ratio isn’t everything.
Its shares are still expensive today, trading at 32.65 times earnings with a relatively meagre trailing yield 1.54%. That’s better than it looks though, because the board has a strong track record of dividend growth. In July, it hiked the interim dividend by 7%, for example.
A trading update on 24 October reported that underlying revenues had grown 7% for the first nine months of the financial year, with positive momentum across the group. The board anticipates another year of strong underlying revenue and adjusted operating profit growth.
I should buy this growth stock in December
On 8 November, JP Morgan Cazenove lifted its share price target for RELX from 4,200p to 4,550p, as its Legal and STM (scientific, technical & medical) looked set to enjoy AI-powered growth.
In total, 11 analysts follow RELX and they offer a lower median one-year share price forecast of 4,023p. That’s up 7.97% from today. JP Morgan’s is one of the more recent and suggests growth of 22.2%.
As yet, we don’t know for sure whether AI will prove the great game-changer. Anyone who has played around with chatGPT software has found it has limitations, and cannot be relied upon for 100% accuracy. Or anywhere near.
Plus its fortunes are still tied to the economic cycle. These are uncertain times as inflation proves sticky and sales could take a hit if sectors such as legal or financial services struggle.
But with RELX growing strongly, including through acquisitions, and launching regular share buybacks I think it looks well set for 2025 too.
Now this time I plan to act on that and buy it. If it’s not the very best FTSE 100 share for me to buy today, it’s not far off.
