Brean Murray Carret & Co. Report On Share Repurchase For ANR

Brean Murray Carret & Co. is maintaining its Buy rating and its $63 price target on Alpha Natural Resources (NYSE: ANR) in light of a large repurchase authorization granted to the company.

According to Brean Murray Carret & Co., “Yesterday after close, Alpha Natural Resources announced a new $600 million share repurchase authorization, which is good through 2014. This new authorization is in addition to Alpha's existing $125 million repurchase authorization from May 2010 (under which $17 million remains available for repurchases). At its current stock price, the new authorization would allow the company to repurchase roughly 21 million shares, or over 9% of its total shares outstanding. Overall, we believe that this announcement should help provide support for the stock in this uncertain market. While the authorization is not as large as some investors may have been hoping for, a 9% reduction in Alpha's total shares outstanding would still be quite significant to earnings. We continue to believe that Alpha is extremely attractive at current levels.”

ANR closed yesterday at $28.36.