UPDATE: Wunderlich Upgrades BancorpSouth

In a report published Friday, Wunderlich Securities analyst Kevin Reynolds upgraded

to Buy from Hold, raising its price target to $30.00 from $26.00. According to the report, the upgrade follows the company's reported 4Q13 results that exceeded consensus expectations with solid loan growth and continued NIM expansion. “Additionally, BXS announced its 2nd accretive acquisition in the past two weeks, which combined will add roughly $2 billion in assets and be meaningfully accretive to EPS after completion in 2Q14. In our opinion, things are all falling into place for BancorpSouth, with both loan growth and the NIM strengthening, improving asset quality, and expected declines in the efficiency ratio, now complemented by accretive M&A, the latter of which is just beginning, but is likely to continue for years to come,” the report noted. Some highlights from the report included: -4Q results exceed consensus -Period end loans increase for the 3rd straight quarter; NIM expands -Two accretive acquisition announcements in two weeks BXS closed Thursday at $24.86.