Reckitt Benckiser’s shares have suffered from investors’ cold feet this year, falling from £64 to £58 in a couple of weeks after it became clear that the Omicron variant of Covid was not going to be as bad as feared. The shares have been buffeted around ever since the pandemic struck, as the stock market tried to assess how the company was going to be affected by each new chapter.
The key figure for Reckitt is 80 — the percentage of people who say they will maintain current levels of personal and household hygiene post-pandemic. That is only a few points down on the figure thrown up by surveys a year ago and, while it can be expected to shrink gradually, its resilience is
