Lazard Maintains LSI Hold (LSI)

Lazard Capital maintained its LSI (NYSE: LSI) Hold rating in a research report published today on the heels of LSI's announcement to sell its external storage systems business to NetApp (NASDAQ: NTAP)

In the report, Lazard states, "We view the deal positively. LSI has had a hard time convincing investors to value its systems biz, given lower GM (35%) and higher opex. LSI can now focus on the higher GM semi business (54%) and concentrate its efforts on expanding share in the networking, server RAID, and HDD mkts. We agree that over time the semi mkt should grow faster than the external storage mkt, especially given the tenuous position LSI had due to the competitive dynamics and vertical integration by OEMs."

Shares of LSI were trading at $6.34 in pre-market trading at the time of posting, up 3.43% from Wednesday's market close.