After It Hits 52-Week Low, Credit Suisse Upgrades Sirius XM for Big Upside

June 10, 2019 by Jon C. Ogg

Many investors have grown tired of Wall Street analyst reports that keep telling them to Buy a stock that has gone up and then selling the stock after it has gone way down. This age-old ritual in some ways may be unavoidable due to the nature of sentiment and market action. What about when analysts upgrade a stock shortly after has hit a 52-week low?

Credit Suisse has raised its rating on Sirius XM Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ: SIRI) to Outperform from Neutral while maintaining a $7 target price.

As for when the last time Credit Suisse made a formal ratings change, the firm downgraded Sirius XM to Neutral from Outperform back on September 25, 2018, when shares were at $6.22 ahead of that call. While its first Outperform rating may have come with a small stop loss for some investors, this also averted more pain as the shares were last seen at $5.31 ahead of this latest upgrade. And Sirius XM hit a 52-week low of $5.23 as recently as June 3, 2019.

Credit Suisse’s Brian Russo and team see positive operating trends with the Pandora acquisition behind it. The team expects about a million net subscriber additions in 2019, despite a 3% decline in seasonally adjusted rates, along with stable account churn and about 2% growth in revenue per user.

As far as potential upside to the consensus, 2019 consensus EBITDA has fallen by about 5%, and free cash flow expectations have come down by about 8% since October. Russo further noted that Sirius XM management has a long track record of beating guidance.

Credit Suisse also added in another $79 million in revenues for 2019 after incorporating Pandora’s gains into the model. It raised the EBITDA estimate by about $89 million to $2.39 billion and raised its free cash flow by $8 million to $1.612 billion. Expected revenue in 2020 was raised by $119 million to $8.18 billion, and it added $169 million for EBITDA to end at $2.612 billion. It raised its 2020 free cash flow estimate by $191 million to $1.92 billion.

As far as an attractive entry point and updating its numbers, Russo said:

Since announcing the Pandora acquisition in September, Sirius XM shares have fallen 15% versus the S&P 500 down 2%. At current prices, Sirius XM trades at approximately 15 times estimated 2019 free cash flow per share, its lowest valuation on this metric over the past 2 years (and versus about 17 times its 2-year average… Our target remains $7.00, based on 18-times our 2019 expected EBITDA.

While Russo highlighted that the risks include a further slowdown in U.S. auto sales, streaming competition, Pandora trends deteriorating versus expectations and content costs, the firm has an upside scenario (Blue Sky) of $7.50 and a downside scenario (Grey Sky) of $4.50.

Shares of Sirius XM were last seen trading up 1.7% at $5.40, with a 52-week high of $7.70 and a Refinitiv consensus target price of $6.81.

Credit Suisse’s upside target price is calling for nearly 32% upside from Friday’s closing bell. Most Dow Jones industrial average and S&P 500 targets are given 8% to 10% upside with new Buy/Outperform ratings at this stage in the 10-year old bull market.


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