UPDATE: Cantor & Fitzgerald Initiates Buy, $18 PT on Warner Chilcott

Cantor & Fitzgerald initiates its coverage on Warner Chilcott

with a Buy rating and a price target of $18 ahead of a potential acquisition deal. Cantor & Fitzgerald notes, "For this stock to work, we believe management needs to execute a large accretive transaction in the near future to get ahead of expected generic competition to Actonel and Loestrin 24 in 2014. With the recent stockpiling of cash at the end of 2011, we think this deal is likely in 2012. Based on the stock behavior during the P&G drug acquisition of 2009, we would expect share prices to surge with the deal announcement only to flatten out later. We therefore believe there may be some urgency in owning WCRX while the stock is cheap ahead of the potential deal." WCRX closed at $17.22 a share on Thursday.