Barclays Expects the Price of Eaton Vance Corp (EV) to Touch $30

Eaton Vance Corp (NYSE: EV) reported FYQ4 (Oct) EPS of $0.39, vs. the market expectation of $0.33. According to analyst Roger A. Freeman of Barclays Capital, these results are in-line with their expectation as “The beat against our figure was primarily due to a one-time $0.05 tax adjustment related to stock-based compensation.”

Barclays report maintains their FY2010 EPS estimate of $1.60 for Eaton Vance. The shares are currently trading at 18x of Barclays’CY10 EPS estimate of $1.68, which is at a slight premium to 17x for the peer group. But they believe that over time shares could get back to the mid-point of a historical P/E valuation of 20x, as the company continues to benefit from a steady stream of inflows owing to its product innovation in specialized well-managed niche products.