Sterne Agee Gives Buy Rating to Hartford Financial Services

In a report released earlier today, Sterne Agee gave a Buy rating to The Hartford Financial Services Group, Inc.

and set a price target of $27. Sterne Agee went on to say in the report “As stated above, we expect HIG will announce various debt offerings this morning with aggregate principal amount to be raised of about $2.1b. Upon the pricing of the new debt offerings, we will formally update our estimates. But we would estimate our current 2013E EPS of $3.80 will move higher by approximately $0.07-$0.10, all else equal. In our view, HIG shares should move higher today by 2-3% reflecting the expected accretion to both EPS and fully diluted BVPS resulting from the announcement.” The Hartford Financial Services Group, Inc. closed Friday at $21.08.