L Brands Shares Downgraded To Neutral At Credit Suisse

Credit Suisse’s Christian Buss downgraded the rating for L Brands Inc (NYSE: LB) from Outperform to Neutral, while reducing the price target from $103 to $90. He mentioned that plans to grow square footage added risk against the backdrop of the structural ecommerce shift.

“We are increasingly cautious on traditional specialty retailers with outsized store footprints,” analyst Christian Buss wrote. L Brands has 3,005 owned stores, of which around 90 percent are in the US. The company has plans of growing its square footage by about 4 percent y/y in 2016.

The estimates for FY16 comp, revenue and EPS have been maintained at 4.1 percent, $12,859M and $4.16, respectively. The estimates for FY17 comp, revenue, and EPS have been reduced from 4 percent to 3.0 percent, from $13,560M to $13,454M and from $4.60 to $4.55, respectively.