Brean Says Buy Shares Of Yelp Whether It's For Sale Or Not

In a report published Friday, Brean Capital analysts maintained a Buy rating on Yelp Inc YELP, with a price target of $58.

Yelp is considering a sale of the company. “Without debating the legitimacy of the speculation, in this note we wanted to offer a list of 10 potential buyers for the company,” the analysts stated.

In the report Brean Capital noted ten potential buyers for Yelp:

• Alibaba Group Holding Ltd BABA
• Amazon.com Inc AMZN
• Apple Inc. AAPL
• Facebook Inc FB
• Google Inc GOOGL
• Groupon Inc GRPN
• Microsoft Corporation MSFT
• Priceline Group Inc PCLN
• Rakuten Inc
• Yahoo! Inc YHOO

Yelp is the operator of the “largest crowd-sourced local business directory globally, with 77MM cumulative reviews (since its 2004-launch) and an audience of 142MM monthly users (as of 1Q15),” the analysts mentioned.

Yelp’s current stock valuation does not reflect the true value of the company’s business. “We believe shares of Yelp are worth materially higher than they are currently trading at and recommend investors purchases shares with the potential of a sale as a catalyst for the stock,” the analysts said.