From the Westergaard site:
>>Wall Street Research
Lehman Brothers / Jeff Kessler
Sutro & Co. / Jerry Fleming
12 mo. price targets are $18 and $20 respectively
November 18, 1997: Salomon Brothers Initiates Coverage with a "BUY" Recommendation
Subtitled, "The Future Is at Your Fingertip"
Support from a firm like Salomon Brothers is exactly what IDX needs to break out after
trading in the $9 - $11 range over the past several months. Even with all of the recent good
news related to corporate partners (Sylvan, NEC) and customer orders (INS, major banks),
IDX has needed new support from Wall Street from a major firm. Importantly, this
recommendation is the first wirehouse report on IDX not related to a corporate finance
relationship (Lehman Brothers initiated coverage after their IDX underwriting in early 1996)
The Highlights and Numbers:
- Salomon recognizes IDX as the industry leader in optical fingerprint imaging and
identification with "unmatched" diverse business lines
- Law Enforcement: "The FBI will likely mandate electronic fingerprint transmission
with the next three years, driving live-scan market penetration into thousands of
police stations"
- Commericial: "New applications including e-commerce, network access (Oracle)
and banking (ATMs) will remove the need for passwords, PINs and Ids" (this is the
holy grail we have previously discussed)
- Untapped Services Market: "Identix is well positioned to address the services
markets of government, child care, finance and gaming with its IAS acquisition and
recent Sylvan joint venture"
- Revenues are estimated to grow by 40% annually for the next four years
- Margins are estimated to improve from 37% in 97 to 43% in 2001
- FY98 earnings: $0.20 from $0.02 in FY97; FY99 estimated at $0.38
- Salomon's 12- 18 month target stock prices are $13 - $19 and DO NOT include the
potential new business from Sylvan Learning Systems and NEC.
WBN analyst closing comment: Nice work What took you guys so long?<< |
