Analysts Begin Mixed to Aggressive Ratings on Citizens Financial Group

Banking, finance, and taxes

Published: November 3, 2014 9:05 am

Last Updated: November 3, 2014 9:07 am

Citizens Financial Group Inc. (NYSE: CFG) has seen its quiet period come to an end, so analysts inside of the syndicate group could initiate coverage on the bank holding company. The company is the parent of Citizens Bank N.A. and Citizens Bank of Pennsylvania, and its market cap is north of $13 billion. This also is the bank that was tied to the Royal Bank of Scotland Group PLC (NYSE: RBS) with roughly 25% of its shares being sold in the initial public offering (IPO).

What stood out about this IPO on September 24 was that it traded over 60 million shares on its debut day. The formal IPO was a whopping 140 million shares at $21.50 per share. It was shown to have a $21.50 opening price on the first day, with a day range of $21.35 to $23.22, and a first day’s closing price of $23.08.

24/7 Wall St. has shown what the ratings were started as for the bank holding company, and they are grouped by actual ratings and price targets to keep the ratings in order. These first analyst calls were listed as follows:

Deutsche Bank started as Buy with a $26 price target.
Evercore started as Buy with a $27 price target.
Keefe Bruyette & Woods started as Outperform with a $28 price target.
Oppenheimer started as Outperform with a $29 price target.
J.P. Morgan started as Overweight with a $27 price target.
Morgan Stanley started as Overweight with a $27 price target.
Bernstein started as Market Perform with a $25 price target.
Wells Fargo started as Market Perform with a $24 to $26 valuation range.
Barclays started as Equal Weight with a $26 price target.
RBC Capital Markets started as Sector Perform with a $22 price target.
Citigroup started as Neutral with a $26 price target.
Goldman Sachs started as Neutral with a $25 price target.
R.W. Baird started it as Neutral with a $25 price target (last week).

Citizens Financial Group shares closed up 0.77% at $23.62 on Friday, with nearly 1.25 million shares trading hands. The post-IPO range has been $21.35 to $23.92.

Citizens Financial released its earnings report just last week. It posted a 31% rise in profits, up to $189 million from $144 million, since its return as a public company. Revenue rose marginally to $1.16 billion from $1.15 billion.

ALSO READ: A Busy Week for IPOs

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