Dear publicly traded asset managers,

There is a new analyst in town covering you, so you might want to get to know him. Brian Bedell, a VP with Deutsche Bank Securities, recently moved over to covering asset management from capital markets stocks. And so far he has good news for BlackRock and T. Rowe Price.

According to Seeking Alpha, Bedell recommends a buy on BlackRock (BLK) with a $358 price target (the stock closed at $297.02 yesterday). He said the firm is best-positioned among the large-cap asset managers and has three catalysts in the next year: rising organic growth, continued strong execution and the likelihood the company will not be judged a SIFI (systematically important financial institution) by regulators. As previously reported, the SEC is looking into BlackRock and Fidelity as being potentially "too big to fail" and how they can pose risks to the general financial system.

Bedell also recommends buying T. Rowe Price (TROW) with a $93 price target, where catalysts include inflection to improved inflows after a rough 2013, continued traction in target date funds and continued margin improvement. T. Rowe shares ended trading at $79.24 yesterday.

On Invesco, Bedell is less rosy. Rating the stock as only a "hold" with a $39 price target, where he says "the risk of elevated outflows in Europe could weigh on the shares and provide a better entry point." Invesco (IVZ) closed at $34.50 yesterday. Stay tuned for some of his other recs.

According to his LinkedIn profile, Bedell is coming back to asset management coverage after a 12-year hiatus. He began his career as a VP at Salomon Smith Barney in 1998, where he covered asset manager stocks for about five years. After that, he was a senior director at Merrill Lynch for six years and then a managing director at ISI Group for four years prior to joining Deutsche Bank. He also covered capital markets stocks at both Merrill and ISI. 

Edited by: Anastasia Donde


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