Barclays Maintains an 'Overweight' on Franklin Resources (BEN); FY4Q Initial Thoughts

Barclays maintains an 'Overweight' on Franklin Resources (NYSE: BEN) price target of $158.00.

Barclays analyst says, "Over the past week, BEN had underperformed (BEN up 0.6% vs. the SPX's 2.7% rise) and was trading at a discount to the group going into its earnings release (CY2012 P/E of 10x vs. group at 12x). This morning, shares of BEN are up roughly 7.0%, outperforming the SPX's 2.5% rise. Overall, we believe BEN posted respectable earnings results, particularly when considering the discipline around comp expense, and slightly better-than-expected flows. And while EPS was a headline miss against consensus, we believe investors are likely looking past the noise of the seed portfolio mark-to-market and its impact on the tax rate."

"Among flow highlights, flows were better than expected at $3.1bn, vs. our $1.6bn forecast, primarily due to global bonds flows of $11bn coming in better than our $8bn forecast. Lastly, equity outflows were slightly higher than we were expecting."

For more ratings news on Franklin Resources click here and for the rating history of Franklin Resources click here.

Shares of Franklin Resources closed at $108.24 yesterday.

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