Brean Capital Sees 130% Upside For Western Digital, At Street High

Western Digital Corp WDC reported preliminary June quarter results, with revenue and EPS ahead of expectations, while also announcing a CFO change. Brean Capital’s Ananda Baruah maintained a Buy rating for the company, with a price target of $97. “We remain extremely bullish,” the analyst said, adding that the price target reflected 130 percent upside.

Western Digital reported preliminary June quarter revenue at $3.46B and EPS at $0.72, higher than the Street estimates of $3.41B and $0.68, respectively. Expected gross margin of 31 percent came in-line with the guidance.

“The positive preliminary results echo our view that Jun Q TAM could be tracking closer to 98M - 100M vs. guidance of 95M as we believe that primarily PC notebook drives are a tad stronger than anticipated, with cloud drives helping by a smidge as well,” analyst Ananda Baruah wrote.

CFO Change Intended To Be Strategic

Western Digital named Marc Long as its new CFO. Mr. Long has been the Chief Strategy Officer at the company for the past three years and would continue to serve that role, while also assuming the duties of CFO.

“During his career at WDC, Mr. Long has had strategic input on WDC’s growth strategy and corporate development, including a lead role in conceiving, executing, and completing the SNDK acquisition and several other acquisitions. Additionally, Mr. Long was involved in strategic investment initiatives targeting the broader storage industry and other related markets of WDC’s,” Baruah mentioned.

The analyst believes that the decision to name Mr. Long as CFO is likely to have resulted from Western Digital’s desire to “inject increased strategy acumen” into that role as well as the finance department, “given the current dynamism in the memory industry's evolution (HDD & SSD).”