UPDATE: Piper Jaffray Upgrades OpenTable to Overweight, Raises PT as Efforts to Drive Seated Diner Growth are Just Getting Started

In a report published Friday, Piper Jaffray analyst Michael J. Olson upgraded the rating on

from Neutral to Overweight, and raised the price target from $65.00 to $80.00. In the report, Piper Jaffray noted, “We are upgrading shares of OPEN to Overweight and increasing our price target from $65 to $80 with the belief that OpenTable's growth strategy is shifting toward a renewed focus on consumer marketing and mobile growth. Although it remains early in these new consumer marketing initiatives, we expect increased spend on mobile advertising and recent hires within senior level marketing positions to help drive an acceleration in OpenTable adoption during 2014-15 which we believe will lead to an inflection point similar to what occurred for online travel during the early 2000s. We have increased our diner growth assumptions for 2014, but also increased our marketing spend assumptions. Our price target moves to $80 based on 35x new CY14 EPS of $2.28 (multiple was 29x). We believe OPEN deserves a 35x multiple based on the increased likelihood for a meaningful reacceleration in diner growth in coming years.” OpenTable closed on Thursday at $69.73.