UPDATE: Nomura Equity Research Reiterates Buy Rating, Raises PT on Google

In a report published Friday, Nomura Equity Research reiterated its Buy rating on Google

, and raised its price target from $840.00 to $860.00. Nomura Equity Research noted, “Lowering Numbers for MMI Home. Heading into results, we are updating our estimates and removing the Motorola Home business from our Google model, as we believe Google will exclude the business from its results (moving it to discontinued operations) given the pending $2.35bn sale of the business to ARRIS. This adjustment adversely impacts Google‟s Motorola Mobility (MMI) segment performance. In removing Home, we are lowering our consolidated 4Q:12 Google revenue estimate by $915mn (7%) and by $3.5bn in 2013E. Google‟s MMI segment (now just MMI Mobile) will now be an even greater drag on overall Google profitability. Over the long term, we view the sale of MMI Home as a positive, as it cleans up Google‟s business structure and puts more emphasis on the core ad business. We reaffirm our Buy rating on Google as we believe the company's long-term position to take share within the ad markets and drive the overall desktop and mobile online ad markets is intact.” Google closed on Thursday at $711.32.