Barclays analyst Kannan Venkateshwar upgraded Disney to Overweight from Equal Weight and raised his price target for the shares to $130 from $105. The shares closed yesterday down 91c to $116.18. The stock is likely to become a “core holding” again, Venkateshwar tells investors in a research note partially titled “The Force Awakens.”
While almost everything about Disney’s over-the-top story is conjecture and success is not a given, the company has the “key mix of assets to be successful and the opportunity from this pivot could be substantial,” contends the analyst.
He believes Disney’s investor day could prove to be a catalyst to frame the scale of the OTT opportunity and help the company build a credible terminal value “story”‘ around the stock. And the analyst thinks current media multiples are more about terminal value optionality than near-term core trends. “In this respect, there are a few other names with a credible terminal value story other than Disney,” writes Venkateshwar.
