Oppenheimer and Maxim Group. Both of these firms reiterated their buy ratings on the stock today with price targets of $6.25 and $8 respectively
LendingClub Corp
California-based LendingClub is an online peer-to-peer lending company. It was actually the first peer-to-peer lender to register its offerings as securities with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), and to offer loan trading on a secondary market. However, LC shares crashed in after-hours trading by over 20% as the company cut back its revenue and profit guidance for the full year. Shares had already dropped by 6.6% during the day on November 7.
The weak guidance comes despite assurances from LC CEO Scott Sanborn in August that the company was “back on the front foot.” He had told investors to expect revenue of $600 million with net loss of $65 million for the full year. Now however, Sanborn has changed his tune. Investors are now looking at a net loss of about $67m, on about $579m of revenues.
Nonetheless there is still a bright light out there for LC according to Oppenheimer and Maxim Group. Both of these firms reiterated their buy ratings on the stock today with price targets of $6.25 and $8 respectively. Considering the stock is now trading at under $4.5 this suggests big upside potential. Oppenheimer’s Jed Kelly is a five-star analyst with a strong track record on LC stock specifically. He says that shares have been “oversold” and calls the issues “transitory”. Plus he notes that the investor’s day next month serves as an immediate catalyst for the stock. On this day, December 7, management will reveal its 2018 guidance and long-term initiatives
“We believe strong borrower demand (applications +58% y/y) and a wider investor base can support profitable growth in 2018, and at 10x our ’18E EV/EBITDA, valuation is not stretched, in our view” says Kelly. Note that he does reduce his price target from $7.50 to $6.25 to account for the lower guidance, but ultimately, he concludes that “the risk/reward as very compelling at current levels.” He is hoping that the company’s differentiated business-model will help it create a “sticker investor base” that will help LC “drive higher profitability to support outer-year multiple expansion.”
From TipRanks we can see that LC has a cautiously optimistic Moderate Buy analyst consensus rating. This reflects the fact that in the last three months, the stock has received 4 buy ratings and 3 hold ratings from analysts. The average analyst price target of $7.13 now stands at considerable upside of 30% from the current share price
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