UPDATE: Sterne Agee Raises PT to $25 on East West Bancorp, Maintains Buy

Sterne Agee reiterates its Buy rating on East West Bancorp

as it sees the company to provide a good story in the current environment. Sterne Agee says, "We continue to recommend EWBC, as we still believe relative to the banking space outperformance for the shares is likely as a higher valuation ensues from less consternation about the NIM as run-off of covered assets occurs. We are maintaining our above consensus estimates for FY12/13 of $1.80 and $2.02 per share, respectively, noting additional modest upside could occur if organic loan growth continues to exceed expectations. We are increasing our PT to $25, based on 12.5x our FY13E." EWBC closed at $22.02 a share on Friday.