In a report released yesterday, Brian Bittner from Oppenheimer maintained a Buy rating on Darden (NYSE: DRI), with a price target of $130. The company’s shares closed yesterday at $104.05.
Bittner noted:
“Despite lowered investor sentiment toward casual dining stocks, our meetings with DRI make us more upbeat toward our Outperform rating, particularly after stock’s recent 14% pullback. Several drivers bolster our confidence in Street’s current SSS outlook and we believe EPS estimates carry a favorable risk/reward, a difficult dynamic to find in the space. While the Cheddar’s acquisition has come with near-term slippage, an attractive sales turnaround is in place headed by operating specialist Dave George. Interestingly, DRI will remain aggressive on its acquisition strategy and sits on a significant amount of dry powder. $130 price target.”
According to TipRanks.com, Bittner is a 5-star analyst with an average return of 11.0% and a 68.2% success rate. Bittner covers the Services sector, focusing on stocks such as Restaurant Brands International, Jack In The Box Inc, and Cheesecake Factory.
Currently, the analyst consensus on Darden is a Moderate Buy with an average price target of $122.43.
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Darden’s market cap is currently $12.91B and has a P/E ratio of 20.36. The company has a Price to Book ratio of 5.68.
Based on the recent corporate insider activity of 31 insiders, corporate insider sentiment is negative on the stock. Earlier this month, David C. George, the EVP & COO of DRI sold 55,671 shares for a total of $6,025,272.
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.
Darden Restaurants, Inc. engages in the provision of restaurant services. It operates through the following segments: Olive Garden, LongHorn Steakhouse, Fine Dining, and Other Business. The Olive Garden segment is the largest full-service dining Italian restaurant operator.
