UPDATE: Blaylock Robert Van Initiates Freescale Semiconductor at Hold; Growth, Margin Offset by Valuation

Blaylock Robert Van initiated coverage on Freescale Semiconductor FSL with a Hold rating and a $16.00 price target. Blaylock Robert Van analyst Liwen Zhang wrote, "We believe that Freescale's market share leadership, above-industry growth for its serviceable addressable markets (SAMs) and allocating more resources to Asia Pacific, continuing investment in technologies will drive topline to outgrow the overall industry. In addition, its current business model starts benefiting from years of restructuring, which will drive gross margin expansion. Further, deleverage will drop to earnings growth. However, with FSL already trading at 2.2x, group average EV/sales, we believe accelerating growth, margin expansion and deleverage are priced into the shares at current level." Freescale Semiconductor closed at $15.67 on Tuesday.