FBN Securities Initiates Coverage on Akamai Technologies at Outperform and $45 PT

In a report published by FBN securities, analyst Shebly Seyrafi initiated coverage on Akamai technologies AKAM with an Outperform rating and $45 price target. FBN securities reported that, “Initiating with an Outperform/$45PT. We are initiating coverage of Akamai Technologies (AKAM) with an Outperform rating and $45PT. The company is the #1 player in the relatively fast-growing (~15% Y/Y, upside to 20% Y/Y) content delivery network (CDN) market, and the recent exit of AT&T (which will transfer its assets to AKAM) from CDNs is a slight positive. Too, AKAM has a rapidly growing cloud infrastructure business (60% rev.; up 20% Y/Y in FQ4). The stock has underperformed recently due to last quarter's slight revenue miss and due to a subsequent lowering of published estimates due to more taxes being recognized, but AKAM is aggressively investing for growth (it sees an 18% revenue CAGR through 2020 as it targets $5B in revenue that year, up from $1.4B last year; we model only an 11% CAGR) and current estimates already reflect the higher spend this year.” Shares of Akamai Technologies closed at $34.67 on Tuesday.