CSFB Today
FIRST EDITION
VeriSign, Inc. (VRSN, $75.00, Strong Buy) Target (12 Months): $200
We Reiterate Our Strong Buy Rating Off Of Our Belief In Verisign's Ability To
Exploit Numerous Market
VeriSign hosted an insightful analyst day yesterday offering detailed metrics
that should allow investors to better understand VeriSign's business going
forward.
Management announced that it was seeking to restructure ownership of the NSOL
registrar to ensure that the NSOL Registry would be granted an automatic four-
year extension on its monopoly of .com, .org, and .net directories. With the
government's May deadline, we expected this development, however management
is providing little insight or guidance on the end outcome of this process.
As a result we believe that near-term uncertainty has increased.
The biggest issue VRSN faces today is the renewal of roughly 20 million
domain names over the next four quarters. Investors will not gain resolution
on this issue until March at the earliest.
We reiterate our Strong Buy rating off of our belief in VeriSign's ability to
exploit numerous market opportunities (PKI, payment services, web identity,
ENUM, cable modem, and wireless). However, we recognize that near-term
uncertainty exists surrounding the restructuring of the Registrar ownership
and the on-going domain name renewal rate.
Annual
EPS
12/02E $1.03
12/01E 0.58
12/00A 0.37A |
