Goldman Sachs: BLL And CCK May Initiate Buy Back Aggressively

Goldman says, “We upgrade shares of Ball BLL and Crown CCK to Buy and downgrade shares of Owens-Illinois OI and Pactiv PTV to Neutral. We believe BLL and CCK will outperform as US GDP growth slows, given their more defensive end-market exposure vs. peers, accelerating growth in emerging market beverage cans, and our expectation that BLL and CCK will aggressively buy back their stock.” “We believe BLL and CCK will be aggressive buyers of their stock over the next 18 months, given their robust free cash flow, underleveraged balance sheet, and focus on returning cash to shareholders,” the analysts mention. Goldman adds, “We upgrade BLL and CCK to buy, given (1) strong organic emerging market beverage can growth in 2010- 2012, (2) accelerating and aggressive share buy back potential, (3) upside to consensus 2011 EPS estimates, and (4) compelling valuation. …. We downgrade O-I stock to Neutral as we lower our 2010-2012 EPS forecasts on slower glass volume recovery than previously expected and we see less upside to our new O-I price target vs. peers. We downgrade PTV to Neutral on valuation, as the stock trades within 6% of our target price.” More Analyst Ratings here