Eni S.p.A. (E)

[Timothy Smith]

$E - Bullish on growth:

Consensus earnings estimates for both FY2013 and FY2014 have moved up substantially over the last month.

The company has agreed to sell a 28.6% stake in Eni East Africa to China National Petroleum Corp. for $4.21B. Eni will retain a 50% stake in the fields.

It also just announced plans to increase its dividend by around 4% as it believes "The company will achieve industry-leading upstream growth rates in 2013".

With the announced dividend increase the stock yields near 6%.

The company is one of the most important players in the continent of Africa. It gets over 50% of its production there currently and Mozambique is the biggest gas find in its history. As Africa becomes a more important contributor to world energy supplies, Eni should benefit.

The stock is cheap at around 9x this year's projected earnings and under 6x operating cash flow.

The median price target on the shares is $54 a share and it has easily surpassed earnings expectations the last two quarters.