UPDATE: Piper Jaffray Upgrades Agrium to Overweight on Distribution Improvements

Piper Jaffray raised its rating on Agrium

from Neutral to Overweight and increased its price target from $110 to $122. Piper Jaffray noted, "We are upgrading AGU shares to Overweight and lifting our price target from $110 to $122 as we believe the prospect of operational improvements within Agrium's crop input distribution business have the potential to drive sustainable earnings growth through FY14 and significant working capital reductions, which in turn could be used for additional share buybacks. While activist shareholder JANA Partner's proposals have been met with stiff resistance from Agrium management, we believe that significant shareholder value creation may come from surfacing some of the issues raised by JANA." Agrium closed at $102.02 on Friday.