S&P Equity Initiates Coverage on Shares of Talbot's at 'Avoid' (** out of *****) NEW YORK, Nov. 10 /PRNewswire/ -- Standard & Poor's apparel and footwear equity
analyst initiated coverage on shares of Talbot's Inc. at "Avoid" (** out of
*****) at $30.90 per share. A leading provider of independent investment
research, ratings and indices, Standard & Poor's made this announcement through
Standard & Poor's MarketScope, its real-time market intelligence service.
"Last week's announcement of an 8% October same-store sales decline along with
lowered third-quarter earnings guidance is not the end of bad news at Talbot's,
in our view," says Marie Driscoll, CFA, Apparel and Footwear Analyst, Standard &
Poor's Equity Research Services. "We believe negative traffic and full-price
selling trends reflect staid merchandise and will take a few quarters to
correct. Trading at 16 times and 15 times our fiscal-year 2004 (January) and
fiscal year 2005 earnings per share (EPS) estimates of $1.90 and $2.09,
respectively, versus Talbot's average historical forward price/earnings ratio
(P/E) of 16, and lacking a near-term catalyst, we would avoid the shares. Our
12-month target price is $31, which is 15 times our fiscal year 2005 estimate,"
concludes Driscoll.
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Poor's Ratings Services, which may in the course of its operations obtain access
to confidential information.
Standard & Poor's analytic services are performed as entirely separate
activities in order to preserve the independence of each analytic process. In
this regard, STARS, which are published by Standard & Poor's Equity Research
Services, operates independently from, and has no access to information obtained
by Standard & Poor's Rating Services, which may in the course of its operations
obtain access to confidential information. DATASOURCE: Standard & Poor's CONTACT: John J. Piecuch Communications Manager (+1) 212-438-1102 Web site: http://www.standardandpoors.com/
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