Haleon PLC (HLN) Stock on December 4, 2025: Price, Latest News, Analyst Targets and 2026 Outlook

Updated: December 4, 2025

Haleon PLC – the consumer‑health group behind Sensodyne, Voltaren, Advil, Panadol and Centrum – is ending 2025 in a strangely paradoxical place: the business is grinding out steady growth and strong cash flow, while the share price has been drifting lower in recent weeks.

As of early trading on December 4, 2025, Haleon’s New York‑listed ADR (NYSE: HLN) is changing hands around $9.5 per share, implying a market cap in the mid‑$40 billion range. ^[1] On the London Stock Exchange (LSE: HLN), the stock closed at £3.61 on Wednesday, December 3, down 2.09% on the day and almost 14% below its 52‑week high of £4.20. ^[2]

Yet analysts remain broadly positive, guidance has been reaffirmed, and management is still talking about mid‑single‑digit growth and margin expansion from 2026 onward. ^[3]

This article pulls together the latest price action, December 2025 news flow, analyst forecasts and strategic outlook for Haleon PLC stock, based on public information available as of December 4, 2025.

Haleon share price snapshot on 4 December 2025

London listing: drift away from the highs

Recent trading in London has been soft:

3 December 2025: Haleon closed at £3.61, down 2.09% on the day, underperforming a weak FTSE 100 and sitting 13.9% below its 52‑week high of £4.20. Trading volume (16.5 million shares) was below the 50‑day average of 21.8 million, suggesting somewhat muted demand. ^[4]
2 December 2025: The stock finished at £3.69, down 1.50%, also lagging the broader index, and around 12% below the 52‑week high. ^[5]
Mid‑November saw similar underperformance: Haleon fell 2.0% on 14 November to £3.69, again on lower‑than‑average volume. ^[6]

The pattern is classic “orderly derating” rather than panic: prices slipping, volumes somewhat subdued, and the stock gradually moving away from the spring peak.

New York ADR: mid‑$9s, technical “hold/accumulate”

On the NYSE, the ADR (HLN) trades in parallel with the London listing:

Spot price: Around $9.51 per share in early trading on December 4, 2025.
12‑month range: MarketBeat cites a $8.71–$11.42 12‑month range, implying the stock is currently closer to the lower half of that band. ^[7]
Valuation: The same source pegs Haleon at a price‑to‑earnings ratio of about 25x and a market cap near $43.7 billion, framing it as a mature consumer‑health name with a “quality but not cheap” multiple. ^[8]

Short‑term technical models are cautious. StockInvest, which runs an algorithmic signal‑based system, labels Haleon as a “hold/accumulate” name with “several negative signals,” and estimates a “fair” opening price of $9.60 for December 4, 2025 – only marginally above the current quote and consistent with a sideways bias rather than a clear trend. ^[9]

Q3 2025 results: slow volume, strong brands, pricing doing the heavy lifting

Haleon’s Q3 2025 trading statement, published on October 30, set much of the tone for how the stock is viewed going into year‑end. ^[10]

Key numbers for the quarter (three months ended 30 September 2025):

Reported revenue: £2.799 billion
Organic revenue growth:+3.4%, ahead of consensus around 3.3% ^[11]
Reported revenue growth: just +0.7%, reflecting:
- Around 2.3 percentage points of dilution from M&A, mainly the sale of the non‑US Nicotine Replacement Therapy (NRT) business
- A 0.4‑point FX headwind ^[12]

The growth mix is important:

Pricing vs volume/mix: Organic growth was roughly split between pricing (+1.8 percentage points) and volume/mix (+1.6 points). ^[13]
Geography:
- North America: modest +0.4% organic growth, but this marked a recovery from earlier weakness and gained about 100 bps of market share in the U.S. ^[14]
- EMEA & LatAm:+5.3% organic growth
- APAC:+5.1% organic growth, though North Asia saw a temporary decline linked to retailer stocking patterns expected to reverse in Q4. ^[15]
Categories:
- Oral Health: +6.9% organic growth – driven by strong demand for Sensodyne, gaining share in the U.S. and India ^[16]
- Vitamins, Minerals & Supplements (VMS): +4.9%
- Pain Relief: +3.7% (brands like Advil and Panadol)
- Respiratory Health: –1.8%, reflecting a less intense cold and flu season and some destocking in certain markets ^[17]

Investing.com’s write‑up of the quarter described the performance as “mixed” – volume a bit lighter than expected, pricing stronger than feared – but emphasised that Haleon still slightly beat revenue growth forecasts and reaffirmed its outlook. ^[18]

Management’s message here has been pretty consistent: the brands are holding up, pricing power is real, but certain categories (particularly respiratory and some discretionary health products) are facing a tougher backdrop, especially in North America. ^[19]

2025 guidance: “around 3.5%” growth and high‑single‑digit profit gains

Haleon has tweaked guidance during the year, but the current message for full‑year 2025 is:

Organic revenue growth:“around 3.5%”
Organic operating profit:high‑single‑digit growth
M&A impact 2025: roughly –2.0 percentage points on revenue and –5.5 points on adjusted operating profit due to disposals such as ChapStick and the non‑US NRT business ^[20]
FX: expected translation headwind of about –4.0% on net revenue and –6.5% on adjusted operating profit for 2025 ^[21]
Assumption: a “normal” cold and flu season underpinning respiratory category demand ^[22]

That “around 3.5%” revenue growth level is lower than the 4–6% originally talked about early in 2025, as management absorbed the impact of divestments and weaker volume trends in North America. ^[23]

Crucially, in its commentary following Q3, Haleon reiterated this guidance and expressed confidence in a better organic growth trend into 2026 as retailer inventory normalises and innovation cycles in Oral Health and VMS continue. ^[24]

2026 and beyond: “Win as One”, productivity and a 4–6% growth ambition

Medium‑term, Haleon’s story is built around its Capital Markets Day 2025 framework and its “Win as One” strategy. ^[25]

From 2026 onward, the company is guiding to:

4–6% annual organic revenue growth
High‑single‑digit adjusted operating profit growth at constant currency
50–80 basis points of adjusted gross margin expansion per year, on average, supported by a multi‑year productivity programme targeting about £800 million of gross productivity savings spread over five years ^[26]

The idea is straightforward:

Scale the brands – Sensodyne, Panadol, Voltaren, Centrum, Advil and others – by closing what management calls the “incidence vs treatment gap” (lots of people have health issues; fewer actually use branded OTC solutions). ^[27]
Push deeper into emerging markets and lower‑income consumers, where penetration is still relatively low. ^[28]
Drive efficiency: simplify supply chains, lower working capital by roughly 30%, and hold capex around 4% of revenue while still supporting innovation. ^[29]

If management executes on this plan, the model becomes: moderate top‑line growth + margin expansion + disciplined capital allocation = mid‑teens EPS growth, at least in theory. The market, as usual, is in the business of deciding how much of that to believe and how much to discount.

Balance sheet, cash returns and share structure

The H1 2025 results help explain why many analysts see Haleon as a relatively “defensive compounder” rather than a high‑beta trading play. ^[30]

For the six months ended 30 June 2025:

Organic revenue growth:+3.2% (2.4 points from price, 0.8 from volume/mix)
Adjusted operating profit: £1.243 billion, up 9.9% organically, with an adjusted operating margin of 22.7% (about 140 bps improvement on an organic basis) ^[31]
Free cash flow:£734 million, up 34% year‑on‑year ^[32]
Net debt:£7.72 billion, with leverage at 2.8x net debt/adjusted EBITDA ^[33]

Capital allocation has three main planks:

Share buybacks
- Haleon repurchased 95.2 million shares for roughly £370 million in H1 2025 as part of a £500 million buyback programme. ^[34]
Dividends
- The interim dividend was raised 10% to 2.2p per share, consistent with a policy to pay about one‑third of the prior year’s full‑year dividend at the interim stage and to grow the ordinary dividend at least in line with adjusted earnings over time. ^[35]
Selective M&A and portfolio shaping
- Haleon completed the purchase of the remaining 12% stake in its China OTC joint venture for £174 million, while continuing to divest non‑core assets like ChapStick and the non‑US NRT business. ^[36]

A share capital update published on December 1, 2025, showed that as of 30 November 2025 Haleon had: ^[37]

8,952,353,648 ordinary shares in issue
45,882,158 shares held in treasury
8,906,471,490 shares with voting rights – the denominator investors must use for regulatory threshold calculations in the U.K.

Management says it sees “optimal leverage” around 2.5x net debt/adjusted EBITDA, giving some room to either reduce debt, continue buybacks, or pursue bolt‑on deals without stretching the balance sheet. ^[38]

What analysts are saying about Haleon PLC stock

Consensus rating: “Moderate Buy” to “Buy”, but not unanimously

Several major data providers now show a broadly positive, but not euphoric, stance on Haleon:

MarketBeat:
- Labels the ADR (NYSE: HLN) as a “Moderate Buy”, based on coverage from 10 brokerages.
- Rating mix: 6 Hold, 3 Buy, 1 Strong Buy.
- Average 12‑month price target: about $12.33, implying healthy upside from the mid‑$9s. ^[39]
Zacks:
- Reports U.S. dollar price targets ranging from $10.80 to $13.44, with an average target implying ~30% upside from a last close around $9.67 at the time of their report. ^[40]
Wall Street Journal:
- For HLN ADR, cites an average price target of about $10.94, with a high of $13.48 and low of $8.28, and a recent price of roughly $9.82. ^[41]

On the London‑quoted line (HLN.L):

TipRanks:
- Shows 16 Buy, 5 Hold and 2 Sell ratings in the current month.
- Average analyst price target:414p per share. ^[42]
Investing.com:
- Aggregates views from 15 analysts, with a consensus rating of “Buy”.
- Average 12‑month target: around 416p, with a high estimate of 517p and a low of 335p. ^[43]

Directorstalk, summarising this landscape, notes that at a U.S. price of $9.78, the average target of $11.61 implies about 18.7% upside, framing Haleon as a “potential upside” story in the healthcare sector. ^[44]

Overlay that with the technical view from StockInvest – negative short‑term signals, but a “hold/accumulate” tag – and you get a split personality:

Fundamentals and long‑term guidance skew positive,
Near‑term trading momentum is soft and more tactical models are cautious. ^[45]

Strategy and catalysts: where the Haleon story could surprise

The investment case around Haleon PLC stock heading into 2026 rests on several structural themes:

Category strength and brand power Haleon is a pure‑play consumer‑health company with a portfolio stretching across Oral Health, VMS, Pain Relief, Respiratory Health, Digestive Health and Therapeutic Skin Health & Other. ^[46] Stand‑out brands like Sensodyne (toothpaste), Voltaren (topical pain), Advil and Panadol (systemic pain), Centrum (VMS) and Theraflu (cold & flu) give it entrenched shelf space and strong brand equity in pharmacies and mass retail. ^[47] Q3 2025 results reinforced the idea that Oral Health and VMS are structural growth engines, while Respiratory is more cyclical and weather‑dependent. ^[48]
Productivity and margin expansion The company’s £800 million productivity plan, aimed at supply‑chain simplification and better procurement, is intended to deliver that 50–80 bps of gross margin expansion per year, which is a big part of the medium‑term profit upgrade story. ^[49] In H1 2025, Haleon was already showing 140 bps of organic margin improvement, backed by those productivity gains, and it expects this to continue. ^[50]
Capital returns and balance sheet discipline With leverage around 2.8x and a target near 2.5x, Haleon has room to: ^[51]
- Continue buybacks (the current £500 million programme is well‑advanced),
- Raise the dividend in line with adjusted earnings,
- Or pursue bolt‑on acquisitions in core categories and geographies.
For income‑oriented investors, the combination of a growing dividend and occasional buybacks can be attractive, especially if the company can sustain mid‑single‑digit top‑line growth.
Leadership and governance Directorstalk recently highlighted a governance shift: Sir Dave Lewis will step down as Chair at the end of December 2025, with Vindi Banga set to take over from January 2026. ^[52] Markets tend to be twitchy about board changes, but Banga brings substantial consumer‑sector experience, and the transition is framed as orderly.

Risks and pressure points for Haleon stock

Even with the reassuring tone from management and broadly supportive analyst coverage, several risks hang over Haleon PLC shares:

North American consumer softness
H1 2025 saw –0.4% organic revenue growth in North America, and management continues to describe the consumer environment there as “subdued,” with promotional intensity and cautious retailers. ^[53]
If this doesn’t normalise as expected in 2026, the company may find it harder to hit the upper end of its 4–6% growth ambition.
Reliance on pricing power
In both H1 and Q3 2025, price increases did more work than volume in delivering growth. ^[54]
Over the medium term, investors will want to see volume and mix contribute more heavily, especially as inflation cools and consumers become more price‑sensitive.
FX and macro volatility
Management is already guiding to meaningful FX headwinds on both revenue and profit in 2025. ^[55]
As a global business with significant EM exposure, Haleon is exposed to currency swings and local economic slowdowns.
Execution risk on productivity and “Win as One”
Productivity programmes are famous for looking great in slides and less great in real‑world factories. Haleon needs to prove it can extract the promised £800 million of savings without under‑investing in brands or damaging service levels. ^[56]
Regulatory and product‑liability overhangs
As a large OTC healthcare business, Haleon is continually exposed to changing regulation, pricing scrutiny and potential product‑liability issues. None of these are acute new developments in December 2025, but they are always part of the risk calculus for a consumer‑health stock.

Bottom line: Haleon PLC stock’s setup going into 2026

As of December 4, 2025, Haleon PLC sits in an interesting spot:

Share price: Drifting below mid‑year highs, with the London line well off its 52‑week peak and the U.S. ADR hovering in the high‑$9s. ^[57]
Fundamentals: Steady, not spectacular – 3–4% organic growth, high‑single‑digit profit growth, robust cash generation and a clear productivity roadmap. ^[58]
Guidance: Reaffirmed for 2025 and ambitious for 2026+, with 4–6% organic revenue growth and margin expansion the stated medium‑term aim. ^[59]
Analyst stance: Generally positive – “Moderate Buy” to “Buy” – with average price targets in both London and New York pointing to double‑digit percentage upside from current levels, albeit with a wide range of views. ^[60]
Technical tone: Short‑term technical models leaning cautious, flagging negative signals but not outright capitulation – more of a “watchful hold” than a screaming buy or sell. ^[61]

For investors watching Haleon PLC stock, the real exam in 2026 will be whether the company can translate its “Win as One” strategy and productivity promises into visibly stronger volume growth and expanding margins, while keeping leverage and capital returns on the track outlined this year.