UPDATE: Wells Fargo Securities Upgrades Career Education Corp. on International Asset Sales

In a report published Friday, Wells Fargo Securities analyst Trace A. Urdan upgraded the rating on

from Market Perform to Outperform. In the report, Wells Fargo Securities noted, “We are upgrading our rating on CECO shares to Outperform from Market Perform on the basis of the $276.5 million the company expects to receive from the sale of its European assets. With the expected cash infusion, we now believe the shares are worth $5-7 (up from $2.50-4.80) based on our sum of the parts analysis, for a potential mean return of 60% against our current expectations. We had previously estimated CEC's European assets (Paris-based INSEEC Group and the International University of Monaco) to be worth $106-127 million based on the 5.7x EBITDA price originally paid by CEC for INSEEC. We estimate the multiple placed by the private equity acquirer, Apax Partners, to be approximately 13.1x 2013E EBITDA. Our revised analysis does not credit any savings in overhead cost, though we expect there to be some benefit in this area as well.” Career Education Corp. closed on Thursday at $3.80.