Piper Jaffray Maintains Underweight on Lamar Advertising (LAMR)

Piper Jaffray is out with its report today on Lamar Advertising LAMR, maintaining Underweight. In a note to clients, Piper Jaffray writes, "Our Underweight rating has been predicated on the belief that a modest ad recovery would not be enough to offset higher operating expenses after massive cost reduction efforts in 2009, and accordingly operating leverage would be difficult to achieve. We see Lamar's recent results suggesting they are close to hitting their stalling speed. Valuation is looking increasingly rich for LAMR at 11.8x 2011 EV/EBITDA." Piper Jaffray maintains a $25 PT on LAMR. Shares of LAMR closed Monday at $32.78, up 0.09% from Thursday's close.