Jefferies

Jefferies is hopeful that 2023 will mark a “trough year” and that business will back up from here, Chief Executive Richard Handler and President Brian Friedman say in a joint statement issued alongside the bank’s 4Q results. In the company’s investment-banking unit, “curtailed new capital markets issuance was compounded by a dampening of merger and acquisition activity among our corporate and sponsor clients,” the executives say. Revenue for the quarter fell 17% and earnings were cut in half.

CFRA, an independent research provider, has provided MT Newswires with the following research alert. Analysts at CFRA have summarized their opinion as follows: We raise our target price by $11 to $47 on forward P/E of 14.0x our 2024 EPS estimate, a slight discount to JEF’s five-year average (14.8x) as we see a healthy improvement in capital market activity in 2024, although still off record industry activity levels seen in 2021. We lower our 2023 EPS estimate by $0.07 to $1.15, raise 2024’s by $0.07 to $3.38, and start 2025’s at $4.36. While we expect Q4 earnings to remain weak, we forecast improvement across capital market activities in 2024, weighted towards the second half, as interest rates have likely peaked and odds of a soft landing have increased considerably. This should lead to higher CEO confidence, spurring increased M&A, IPO, and debt raising activity for corporations and investors who remained