UPDATE: Brean Capital Reiterates Buy Rating, Raises PT on Electronic Arts on Meetings with New CFO

In a report published Friday, Brean Capital reiterated its Buy rating on Electronic Arts

, and raised its price target from $18.00 to $22.00. Brean Capital noted, “Meetings with new CFO give us greater confidence in potential upside for EA. We spent the day yesterday with EA's new CFO Blake Jorgensen and came away very impressed. Not only does Mr. Jorgenson seem like the type of CFO who is not willing to accept missing his numbers, and who will bring a level of financial discipline to EA it has sorely been lacking; we think he articulated a sound plan for driving operating margins to close to 20% by F2016 from 10% in F2013. We developed the impression that 1) the recent guide down after F3Q13 positioned EA to meet, or beat, its F2013 outlook (caveat, we are watching execution issues with SimCity closely), 2) EA is well positioned to navigate the upcoming console transition and drive upside to F2014 consensus expectations, and 3) the potential for margin expansion over the next couple of years should support continued EPS growth at a level which would warrant the multiple expansion the stock has seen in recently and drive material upside to current share prices. Shares of EA have surpassed our $18 price target, and we have been wrestling with what to do. Given our favorable impression of Mr. Jorgenson, we are raising our price target on EA to $22 from $18 (15.0x CY2013 EPS of $1.46, up from 12.5x) and reiterating our buy rating. We intend to follow up next week with stronger analytical support for this conclusion.” Electronic Arts closed on Thursday at $18.71.