Raymond James Upgrade Raymond James analyst Frederic Bastien raised his target prices for the Infrastructure & Construction (I&C) and property services providers in his coverage universe on Wednesday.
In a research note reviewing 2020 and looking ahead to this year, Mr. Bastien said: “With trade protectionism giving way to a global fight against a common viral enemy, it paid to stay long the large, defensive and globally diversified stocks we cover. Our best performers for 2019 — long-term compounders Brookfield Renewable, FirstService and WSP Global — took top honours again in 2020 alongside IBI Group. The Street was initially unfriendly to our smaller cap or more geographically concentrated names, but started warming up to them as vaccine progress spread optimism for an economic recovery. Assuming today’s soaring COVID-19 cases do not kibosh this momentum, we expect this ‘rotation’ to continue running its course in 2021.”
His changes were:
- Aecon Group Inc. (ARE-T, “strong buy”) to $23 from $22. Average: $20.21.
- Bird Construction Inc. (BDT-T, “strong buy”) to $12.50 from $11. Average: $10.67.
- Brookfield Infrastructure Partners L.P. (BIP-N/BIP.UN-T, “outperform”) to US$65 from US$60. Average: US$54.23.
- IBI Group Inc., “outperform”) to $11 from $9. Average: $10.14.
- SNC-Lavalin Group Inc. (SNC-T, “market perform”) to $25 from $23. Average: $32.54.
- Stantec Inc. (STN-T, “outperform”) to $54 from $47. Average: $48.68.
- WSP Global Inc. (WSP-T, “outperform”) to $140 from $125. Average: $128.38.
“Our favourite small-cap ideas are Bird Construction and Black Diamond Group, which are both entering the year fresh off transformative acquisitions and solid operating results,” said Mr. Bastien.