UPDATE: Bank of America Upgrades Pinnacle Entertainment on Deal Risks Being Removed

In a report published on Friday, Bank of America analyst Shaun C. Kelley upgraded

from Underperform to Buy and raised the price target on the company from $14 to $30. In the report, Bank of America stated, "om Underperform We are upgrading shares of PNK to Buy from U/P. Our big concern with PNK had been high peak leverage of over 6.7x and lack of cash flow until Lake Charles construction was complete. Divesting Lake Charles addresses both issues with lower overall leverage (now peak at 6.2x) and faster deleveraging. As such, PNK- ASCA's combination of synergies, free cash flow and deleveraging are too strong to ignore, even with anemic regional fundamentals." Pinnacle Entertainment closed on Thursday at $19.70.