Brean Capital Sees Long-Term Upside Potential For COMSCORE

In a report published Thursday, Brean Capital analyst Todd Mitchell reiterated a Buy rating and $63.00 price target on

. In the report, Brean Capital noted, "While we see near-term headwinds, we think there is the potential for long-term upside. Shares of SCOR have outperformed over the past year, as the market has come to realize the potential for comScore to leverage its dominant position on website traffic measurement to a leading role in digital advertising ratings. This has been underscored by the emergence of comScore's Validated Campaign Essentials (vCE) over Online Campaign Ratings (OCR) from rival Nielsen (NLSN, $42.67, not rated), most notably demonstrated by vCE's adoption by Google (GOOG, $551.18, not rated) as an integrated solution for its DoubleClick add exchange. WPP PLC (private) has also formed an international partnership with comScore in exchange for a 4.5% interest in comScore and WPP will tender for up to 15% more of comScore's shares outstanding. We see near-term headwinds from likely dilution as comScore has agreed to backstop WPP's tender for up to 10% of its shares, a factor which is underscored by recent insider selling. However, we think the WPP partnership enhances comScore's competitive positioning and positions it well for likely consolidation in the industry. As a result, we reiterate our Buy rating and $63 target price." COMSCORE closed on Wednesday at $49.17.