By Sam Boughedda
TransUnion (NYSE:TRU) shares were upgraded to Overweight from Equal Weight, with its price target raised to $88 from $70 per share by Wells Fargo analysts in a note Friday.
The analysts told investors that even after a 17% year-to-date bounce, significant LTM underperformance still "provides an attractive entry point for a company with valuable data/info assets and decisioning tools at the center of secular themes including expanding credit assessment, ID verification/resolution, and fraud mitigation."
They added that they recognize the near-term macro outlook is "murky" with inflation, higher interest rates, and potential recession ahead, but they see that as largely priced in.
"We expect evidence of a more resilient model (i.e., organic revenue and EBITDA growth) to be a positive catalyst for the shares," the analysts wrote.
"We forecast LSD organic revenue growth in 2023, accelerating to upper-SDs in 2024, with margin expansion both years helped by acquisition synergies. We expect growth to support improving free cash flow, allowing TRU to reduce net leverage to an estimated 3.3x by year-end 2023, which should help quell some concerns there," they added.
TransUnion shares jumped 2.6% Friday.