Thomson Reuters Is A Buy; Look For Good News On The Topline This Year

Deutsche Bank rates Thomson Reuters Corp TRI a Buy, given its expectations that the company is well positioned for the back half of the year. The firm thinks the company will see improving top-line growth, helped by growth from the financial and risk segment, accounting for 55 percent of revenues, and improving margins.

Analyst Ato Garrett expects the top-line growth and improving margin to lead to earnings per share growth at Thomas Reuters next year. Specifically, the analyst expects the F&R revenue growth to benefit in the second half of 2017 from diminishing headwinds from pricing adjustments and less drag from declining Recoveries revenues.

"We expect TRI's 1Q17 investments in expanding its Know Your Customer (KYC) and Risk businesses to drive growth in 2018E as F&R increases its exposure to faster growing end markets and diversifies beyond the headcount dependent Desktop business," Deutsche Bank said.

Consequently, the firm expects the company's multiple to expand and reduce its discount versus peers.

Accordingly, the firm upgraded the shares of the company to Buy and raised its price target from $44 to $50.