B.Riley FBR Reiterates Their Buy Rating on Amerisafe (AMSF)


In a report released yesterday, Randy Binner from B.Riley FBR reiterated a Buy rating on Amerisafe (AMSF), with a price target of $70. The company’s shares closed yesterday at $58.86.

Binner noted:

“AMERISAFE (AMSF) reported 1Q19 operating EPS of $0.91 versus the B. Riley FBR/consensus estimates of $0.79/$0.78. The beat versus our model mainly was the result of better-than- anticipated prior-year development, somewhat offset by higher expenses. Favorable reserve development of $12.0M contributed $0.51/share to EPS versus our estimate of $8.0M, or $0.34/ share. Top line was again negative for the quarter (-4.4% Y/Y) as the company missed our forecast of NPW and NPE due to lower voluntary business premiums. This will likely be a focus on the earning call tomorrow, May 2, as pricing competition seems to be on the rise given good loss results for the workers’ comp. space overall. The 1Q19 loss pick came in line with our estimate at 72.5%, higher than 2018 pick of 71.5%.”

According to TipRanks.com, Binner is a 5-star analyst with an average return of 14.0% and a 66.9% success rate. Binner covers the Financial sector, focusing on stocks such as Health Insurance Innovations, Victory Capital Holdings Inc, and National General Holdings.

Currently, the analyst consensus on Amerisafe is a Moderate Buy with an average price target of $70.

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Amerisafe’s market cap is currently $1.13B and has a P/E ratio of 15.84. The company has a Price to Book ratio of 2.77.

Based on the recent corporate insider activity of 19 insiders, corporate insider sentiment is positive on the stock. This means that over the past quarter there has been an increase of insiders buying their shares of AMSF in relation to earlier this year.

TipRanks has tracked 36,000 company insiders and found that a few of them are better than others when it comes to timing their transactions. See which 3 stocks are most likely to make moves following their insider activities.

AMERISAFE, Inc. is a holding company, which engages the provision of workers’ compensation insurance focused on small to mid-sized employers. It focuses on the businesses in construction, trucking, logging and lumber, manufacturing and agriculture. The company was founded by Millard E. Morris in 1985 and is headquartered in DeRidder, LA.

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