KBW Maintains Market Perform On Horace Mann Educators After Earnings

KBW is maintaining its Market Perform rating and $17.50 price target on shares of Horace Mann Educators HMN after it reported earnings. In a note to clients, KBW writes, "HMN announced losses from April and May catastrophes of $45-50 mm pre-tax ($0.70-0.78/sh) or 3.2-3.6% of 1Q11 equity. Losses were largely driven by five multi-day cat events in April and tornado and storm activity that affected Missouri and parts of Minnesota in May. As a result of these events, management reduced 2011 guidance to $1.10-1.30 from $1.75-1.95. We are lowering 2Q11/2011 EPS and our PT to $17.50, but maintain a Market Perform rating." Shares of HMN gained 8 cents yesterday to close at $15.24, a gain of 0.5%.