Encore Capital Gets a Buy Rating from Oppenheimer

Oppenheimer analyst Ben Chittenden maintained a Buy rating on Encore Capital (NASDAQ: ECPG) yesterday and set a price target of $55. The company’s shares closed yesterday at $45.20.

Chittenden observed:

“Our underlying thesis on ECPG has been that the supply of charged-off consumer credit card debt is set to increase, profitability should begin to improve, and investors would see continued EPS growth ahead of consensus. The fundamentals in 1Q18 continued to move in that direction. Pricing for new purchases continues to improve in the US; with all the economics of Cabot, ECPG should continue to benefit from European collections accelerating as well, leading to raised 2018 EPS guidance. While 1Q18 adj. EPS of $0.98 was a touch below our/consensus estimates of $1.00/$1.04, this was largely on increased pull-forward of expenses to build out the infrastructure to handle additional capacity. Revenue was in line, and cash collections accelerated. This is what we think investors should focus on.”

According to TipRanks.com, Chittenden is a 3-star analyst with an average return of 1.2% and a 54.7% success rate. Chittenden covers the Financial sector, focusing on stocks such as Discover Financial Services, Credit Acceptance Corp, and Capital One Financial.

Encore Capital has an analyst consensus of Moderate Buy, with a price target consensus of $52.

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The company has a one-year high of $52 and a one-year low of $34.85. Currently, Encore Capital has an average volume of 213.6K.

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Encore Capital Group, Inc. provides debt management and recovery solutions for consumers and property owners across a broad range of financial assets. It operates through the Portfolio Purchasing and Recovery segment.