Sterne Agee Raises PT on General Cable Corp. to $54 (BGC)

Sterne Agee is out with its report today on General Cable Corp.

, raising its PT from $49 to $54. In a note to clients, Sterne Agee writes, "4Q10 total operating income of $63M, 4.7% operating margin, was ~$15M ahead of our estimate. Value-added pricing remained weak in the quarter. While the quarter was not normal in terms of seasonality (N.A. and ROW volume increased Q/Q) we think the SGA efficiency at ~6% is BGC's new normal and hints at BGC being a much better company today than the period leading up to 2006 when value-added pricing accelerated. By contrast, in 2004 gross margins were similar to the 4Q10 level at ~10.8%; however, SGA was 200bps higher. We are reiterating our Buy rating and increasing our 12-month price target to $54 (from $39) which assumes BGC shares trade at ~14x and 7.0x our 2012 EPS and EV / EBITDA." Sterne Agee maintains Buy on BGC. At the time of posting, shares of BGC were trading at $42.61, down 0.61% from Wednesday's close.