UPDATE: Bank of America Merrill Lynch Upgrades Cedar Realty Trust to Neutral, Raises PT

In a report published Monday, Bank of America Merrill Lynch upgraded its rating on Cedar Realty Trust

from Underperform to Neutral, and raised its price target from $4.50 to $5.50. BofA Merrill Lynch noted, “After further review of our NAV calculation (particularly following CDR's exit of the Rio-Can JV), we are moving to a Neutral rating from Underperform on Cedar Realty Trust. In our latest model we are raising our forward NAV from $5.11 to $6.25 and our price objective of $4.50 to $5.50. We assign a 10% discount to forward NAV given the higher leverage of CDR's balance sheet. Major changes to CDR's NAV include: 1) the resulting value following Rio-Can JV exit and 2) lowering the overall cap rate from 7.8% to 7.5% given price discovery with events with Rio-Can and Homburg.” Cedar Realty Trust closed on Friday at $5.28.