Holiday Season Keeps Hasbro On The Buy List

Goldman Sachs has published a research report on Hasbro, Inc. (NASDAQ: HAS) after a robust holiday season heading into 2011 that showed entertainment tie-ins helped to drive industry sales.

In the report, Goldman writes "We reiterate our Conviction List Buy on HAS shares, as we expect HAS EPS growth to accelerate in 2011/2012 after an entertainment-light year in 2010. There are eight movies coming out of the next two years based either on HAS brands or for brands in which HAS holds the master toy license. We are well ahead of the Street at $3.50 in 2011 EPS vs. $3.21 consensus. The primary drivers are (1) the third Transformers movie, (2) the Hub TV network and (3) continued share repurchases. We believe valuation concerns, after the 50% run-up in 2010, are overdone, as the stock is actually less expensive than MAT on our above-consensus forward estimates (Exhibit 1). We revise our 2010/2011/2012 EPS estimates to $2.73/3.50/4.10 from $2.70/3.55/4.11 to reflect modestly higher 2010 holiday sales, offset by the translation impact of a stronger USD in 2011."

Goldman maintains its Buy rating and $62 price target.

Hasbro closed Friday at $47.18.