For Sun Life Financial Inc., changes include:
* CIBC World Markets’ Paul Holden to $70 from $69 with a “neutral” rating. The average is $71.31.
“Overall earnings were in line with expectations, with the U.S. segment reporting stronger-than-expected results and MFS slightly missing its mark,” said Mr. Holden. “Softer results at MFS always seem to be a limiting factor for the stock, but SLF is once again looking particularly good on regulatory capital. It has the acquisition hammer, when and where it will use it are unknowns. We increase our price target ... on a higher multiple (we have increased target multiples across the group). We maintain our Neutral rating as we don’t see a lot of upside to consensus EPS or valuation multiples, but do recognize capital deployment as a potential catalyst.”
* Scotia Capital’s Meny Grauman to $74 from $76 with a “sector outperform” rating.
“In many ways these results were a proto-typical quarter for Sun Life with solid clean results free of any significant complication despite a material steepening in the yield curve,” said Mr. Grauman.