Benzinga's Morning Initiation Summary for June 1, 2012

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Listed below are today's Top Initiations covered by Benzinga:
Piper Jaffray Initiates Conn's CONN at Overweight:
Piper Jaffray notes, "CONN represents an attractive 12-month investment opportunity as it is in the process of improving its business model and is poised for significant growth in the coming years. Additionally, we believe CONN is incorrectly characterized by the Street as a retailer of Consumer Electronics to lower income households. In reality, the new CEO Theodore Wright is leading a successful and compelling push toward higher margin furniture and mattresses. Additionally, the company's proprietary credit program has been cleaned up and creates tremendous customer loyalty. All in, CONN still has long-term business drivers in place on store growth, comp growth, gross margin expansion, and charge-off stabilization."
Piper Jaffray Initiates Mattress Firm Holding MFRM at Overweight:
Piper Jaffray says, "We are initiating coverage of MFRM with an Overweight rating and $45 price target, based on 20x our F13E EPS of $2.23. We believe MFRM is well positioned to take market share within the highly fragmented and rapidly growing mattress industry that continues to shift towards specialty/non-innerspring mattresses and away from innerspring mattresses. In addition, the company has a long runway for growth ahead as we believe it can increase its store by base by >150% and complete opportunistic tuck-in acquisitions. Longer term, we believe this growth will allow the company to capitalize on increased buying power, leverage advertising, and leverage general fixed costs."
Goldman Sachs Initiates Domino's Pizza DPZ at Neutral:
Goldman Sachs said, "We see DPZ as being in the “Fountain of Youth” phase of its lifecycle, with emerging markets likely to provide growth for many years to come. India, in particular, appears to be on pace to reach 10% of all DPZ units by 2015. We introduce a Neutral rating, however, due to uncertainty in the US, still a meaningful driver of DPZ's financial results. The US pizza delivery market is shrinking, periods of outperformance (as DPZ just experienced) tend to be fleeting, and our surveys suggest the Domino's brand is weak relative to competitors."
Stifel Nicolaus Initiates Bank of Marin Bancorp BMRN at Buy:
Stifel Nicolaus says, "We are initiating coverage of Bank of Marin Bancorp with a Buy rating and $43 target price. We believe the shares possess an enviable combination of favorable operating markets, strong fundamentals, profitability, and excellent asset quality while trading at a discounted valuation. …Based on our 2013 EPS estimate of $3.49, the shares trade at 10.2x, compared to the median multiple for its West peer of 12x. Our $43 target represents 21% potential upside based on a 12.4x to our 2013 EPS estimate of $3.49."
Stifel Nicolaus Initiates Heritage Commerce HTBK at Hold:
Stifel Nicolaus notes, "HTBK shares trade at the highest P/E multiple in our West Banks coverage group at 16.8x based on our 2013 EPS estimate compared to the peer average of 12.3x. However, the shares trade at a discount on a tangible book basis compared to the peer average of 1.4x. With a limited number of banks with assets greater than $1 billion in assets in the San Francisco Bay Area, the tangible book multiple is a more important factor in consideration in our valuation of the shares. Our fair value for the shares is $6.50, and we are initiating coverage with a Hold rating."
Albert Fried and Company Initiates Synacor SYNC at Underweight:
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Albert Fried notes, "We like SYNC's strategic positioning, sticky client base and unique service offering. SYNC has emerged from its IPO as a unique high growth and profitable play on TV everywhere as well as the emergence of MSO's as next generation Internet Service Providers. However, the recent run up in SYNC shares and the lockout expiration in mid July make SYNC expensive in our view at 18x our 2013E EV/AOCF (EBITDA)."
Imperial Capital Initiates Dycom Industries DY at Outperform:
Imperial Capital comments, "We believe the company is well positioned to benefit from a multi-year capex cycle in the U.S. telecom market. As a leading specialty telecom contractor with a large pool of experienced professionals and a broad network of local offices, we believe that Dycom should continue to capture a meaningful amount of the expected telecom services spend over the next several years."
All of Benzinga's Analyst Ratings news can be viewed here.
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Posted In: Analyst ColorInitiationAnalyst RatingsAlbert Fried and CompanyGoldman SachsImperial Capital ResearchPiper JaffrayStifel Nicolaus
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