FRANKFURT (dpa-AFX) - Catch-up potential proclaimed by JPMorgan attracted investors to RTL on Wednesday. Analyst Daniel Kerven recommended overweighting the media group's shares in portfolios as part of his sector outlook for 2025. The shares, which had lost up to a third of their value in 2024, benefited from this in the middle of the week with a rise of 3.7%. The annual loss was reduced to 23 percent.

Kerven remains generally optimistic in his outlook in view of good positioning, favorable valuations and possible industry consolidation. In the case of RTL, however, he justified his new confidence primarily by the fact that the share had shown the weakest development in 2024. He also mentioned the dividend as an incentive, because the expected total payout after the sale of the TV business in the Netherlands could correspond to a quarter of the market capitalization.

In the TV sector, investors could generally give up waiting for an economic recovery and "take fate into their own hands", he said, referring to synergies from possible takeovers. The shares of RTL's competitor ProSiebenSat.1 have fared better so far with their stable year on balance due to the corresponding fantasy. On Wednesday, they were unable to follow RTL's rising share price and recently remained at the previous day's level.

JPMorgan has long recommended the potential merger candidates ProSiebenSat.1 and MediaForEurope, as well as the French TF1 and the British ITV. However, the US bank described the shares of Universal Music, Relx, Publicis and Vivendi as "key picks" in the media sector./tih/ag/jha/