Goldman Sachs, one of the banks behind last month's £1.2bn flotation of Pets at Home, has begun coverage of the company but with a target price lower than the original offer price.

Shares in Pets at Home have fallen from the 245p float price to as low at 205p last week. Now Goldman has issued a buy note with a 242p target, ahead of the company's results in June.

The decision by Goldman will inevitably anger some of the original investors in the float who have seen the value of their shares fall to 210p in the space of a few weeks.

Goldman Sachs said this week: “Our research is completely independent from all other parts of our business. Our analysts base their research on objective analysis and projections.”

Investors, however, who are nursing considerable losses on the stock, wondered why the Goldman Sachs analyst’s target price had changed from a pre-flotation range up to 260p to only 242p in the absence of material news or adverse market conditions.

Bank of America Merrill Lynch, which also advised on the flotation, began its coverage with a target price of 260p, more in line with its target ahead of the float.

The initiation of coverage helped drive shares in the retailer up 3.46% to 216.5p.

It came as one of the world’s biggest investors, GIC – the sovereign wealth fund for the government of Singapore – upped its stake in Pets, which was controlled by private equity firm KKR until its float.

GIC increased its stake to over 5%, from 4%.