BPFH Sees Improvement In Credit Quality
Analysts at BMO Capital Markets maintain their "market perform" rating on Boston Private Financial Holdings (NYSE: BPFH), while raising their estimates for the company. The target price for BPFH has been raised from $5 to $7.
Boston Private Financial Holdings reported its Q4 EPS ahead of the estimates due to onetime gains. BPFH’s core earnings for the quarter were inline with expectations. Management announced that it redeemed $50 million (one-third) of its TARP investment on January 13.
”We feel BPFH has addressed many of the issues surrounding credit quality and capital, although we believe that the core earnings power of the franchise was diminished with the sale of five affiliates last year, particularly WCM,” the analysts say. BMO Capital Markets has raised its EPS estimates for 2010 and 2011 from -$0.05 to -$0.04 and from $0.35 to $0.37, respectively.
