Barclays upgrades Shire to overweight, highlights valuation

LONDON (ShareCast) - (ShareCast News) - Shire chief Flemming Ornskov is still keen on pursuing inorganic growth, which analysts at Barclays believe caps downside risks in the shares. As regards the company's approach for Baxalta - which has stalled - the broker said a transaction makes sense under $55 per share, with the potential for it to be earnings accretive by between 0% to 28%.

Furthermore, Shire's Lifitegrast ophthalmic solution offers 880p per share of upside from $3bn in peak sales.

Valuation is another argument in favour of the stock. Trading at a price-to-earnings multiple of 16 and price-earnings-growth multiple of 0.9, but nearly double the growth of its EU peers (15% versus 8%), offering an attractive risk-reward profile and with their estimates 6% ahead of consensus the broker upgrades the shares to overweight with a target price 5700p.