Evercore Partners Maintains Overweight, $63 PT on PNC Financial

Evercore Partners reiterates its Overweight rating and $63 target price on PNC Financial

on early reads of 4Q11 results that show "core" misses on higher expenses, but present in-line revenues and a positive outlook. Evercore Partners says, "PNC reported $0.85 which included several specials that net reduced earnings by $0.49/shr—thus, our initial view of “core” EPS is $1.33, which compares to our estimate of $1.41 and consensus of $1.37. Miss driven by higher expenses and slightly weaker core fees, while spread revenue and credit costs were better than expected.
Overall, mixed results given core miss though core revenue actually in line with expectations (higher spread offset lower fees) while core expenses heavy this qtr and asset quality continues to show improvement with lower NCOs, NPAs, and greater reserve release than anticipated." PNC closed at $61.24 per share on Tuesday.