UPDATE: Stifel Reiterates on Citrix Systems Following Investor Meetings

In a report published Friday, Stifel analyst Brad Reback reiterated a Buy rating on

, and raised the price target from $70.00 to $74.00. In the report, Stifel noted, “This week we had the opportunity to host investor meetings with Citrix's head of Investor Relations. The meetings served to solidify our belief much of the uneven performance in recent quarters was due to a combination of mis-execution on the sales front as well as cyclical, not secular, headwinds and we continue to expect modest core desktop growth in 2014. Not surprisingly, Amazon WorkSpaces (Desktop-as-a-Service) was a frequent topic of conversation and we think this is more of a side-show than a meaningful enterprise threat, especially over the near-to-medium term. Looking ahead, we continue to believe there are several potential catalysts (accelerating momentum with mobile and XD7, potential for new leadership) that could lead to multiple expansion and send shares higher in coming quarters. While we understand the bear case and by no means suggest the company is out of the woods, we think the pessimistic sentiment is overdone and most of the bad news is currently reflected in the stock price. Given this backdrop and our view of an attractive risk/reward, (17.5x CY14E EPS of $3.37, 10.8x CY14E FCF of $876.3M, below historical averages/peers), we remain buyers and raise our TP to $74.” Citrix Systems closed on Thursday at $58.81.