Raymond James believes that shares of Blue Owl Capital could recover their year-to-date pullback. Analyst Wilma Burdis double upgraded the alternative investment manager to strong buy from market perform. She also set a target price of $20, which signals upside of 20%. “OWL trades at a forward P/E multiple of ~17x versus its 3-year average of ~19x and 20-30x for peers with fee-related earnings (FRE) business models,” Burdis wrote. “We think today’s low valuation is driven by a few factors which we expect to abate in the near term.” However, the analyst believes that Owl Capital’s redemption risk is manageable as the company appears likely to honor all requests, which would help remove an overhang on the stock. OWL YTD mountain OWL YTD chart “OWL’s funds maintain plenty of liquidity to meet multiple quarters of redemption requests,” she wrote, adding that she does not expect these elevated redemptions to have a material impact on management fees or assets under management. Meanwhile, the company’s fundraising has prevailed despite volatility. Burdis noted that from Oct. 1 to Dec. 1, Owl closed an estimated $4.3 billion of aggregate capital across its evergreen non-traded products. This was up from $3.4 billion in its previous quarter. The analyst added that negative headlines on private credit and a recently failed merger of its two private credit funds “appear overstated,” as Owl Capital’s credit metrics seemingly remain solid. Overall, Raymond James believes that it will continue to have credit metrics that are “superior to industry averages.” Shares rose more than 2% following the rating change. Blue Owl has stumbled 28% this year.
