Buckingham Analysts Meet With Citigroup's CEO, See More Upside Coming

In a report published Tuesday, Buckingham analyst James Mitchell reiterated a Buy rating and price target of $65 on

, following a meeting with the company's CEO, Michael Corbat. "Overall, management seems confident in its ability to continue to execute on its strategy of improving efficiency, freeing up capital via winding down Citi Holdings and utilizing DTAs, and returning excess capital to shareholders," Mitchell reported. More importantly, the analyst believes that there is increasing confidence in the company's ability to drive growth, given its meaningful balance sheet improvement. The analyst expects this shift in the company's strategy to help provide revenue and market share upside in 2016, especially in the FICC business. "Stock remains a top pick given inexpensive valuation, accelerating capital return, improving growth prospects, and $10 of NPV related to excess regulatory capital generation," according to the Buckingham report. "Along with accelerating asset sales in Citi Holdings this year, this material progress should set the stage for, and gives us greater confidence in, another solid increase in capital return in 2016," Mitchell said, while estimating that the payout ratio would improve to more than 50 percent of the net income, from 40 percent in 2015. In addition, Citigroup expects continuing expense improvement in global consumer, savings from which are likely to be reinvested in the company's growth initiatives. "So while mgmt. believes it can continue to drive efficiency gains in a low single digit revenue growth environment via flat expenses, investors should not assume further absolute cuts as C pivots toward growth," the Buckingham report added. Also, while the company continues to expect China's economy to slow down, the management believes that it isn't cause for too much concern. Citigroup's direct exposure to the Chinese market accounts for less than 2 percent of its revenue and 1 percent of its balance sheet.