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Take your eye off iconic copier maker Xerox ( XRX ) for too long — heck, Xerox stock had done little more than fall since December 2014 — and you would have missed its run-up to Tuesday’s eight-month high at 11.39, up 34% since touching a nearly three-year low in January at 8.48. Xerox stock closed Friday at 11.16, flat for the session. Credit Suisse analyst Kulbinder Garcha doesn’t see much upside potential, giving Xerox a 12-month price target of 11 and a neutral rating in a research note issued Friday. He does see more first-quarter earnings in Xerox, modeling 1 cent more adjusted EPS than Wall Street’s 23-cent consensus, which would be up 10% from the year-earlier quarter. Xerox is scheduled to release Q1 earnings before Monday’s open. But Garcha sees slightly smaller sales than the $4.24 billion consensus of analysts polled by Thomson Reuters. That Q1 consensus would be a 5.1% decline from 2015’s Q1 sales and Xerox’s 17th consecutive quarter of shrinking year-on-year revenue, albeit slower shrinkage than the 8% decline in Q4 and 10% contraction in Q3. The rise in Xerox stock may be tied to anticipation over its imminent split into two companies: the legacy copier/printer/office machine business and the business-process outsourcing (BPO) spinoff. Based on $18 billion in 2015 sales, down 8% from 2014, the business-machine side would wind up with about $11 billion a year in sales, and the outsourcing spinoff about $7 billion, Xerox CEO Ursula Burns said when she announced the split on Jan. 29, concurrent with the Q4 earnings release. Inspired by activist investor Carl Icahn, Burns said the breakup would unlock value in both companies. Icahn would get three seats on the new BPO board, while Xerox would get six. BPO sales, grouped currently as services under Xerox, is a “show me story,” Credit Suisse’s Garcha said. “Management is trying to transition the business away from low-margin to more value-added business,” he wrote in a research note. “However, we think management has to show consistent improvement and deliver on results to regain investor confidence.” Garcha anticipates a Q1 decline of 5.4% to $2.4 billion in services revenue. As for the so-called “document technology” core hardware, software and document management businesses, Garcha estimates that about $1.6 billion of Xerox’s annual cost of goods sold are “yen-denominated,” coming from the Fuji Xerox joint venture (75% owned by Fujifilm ( FUJIY )). With the yen up about 9% year to date, foreign exchange “will impact margins,” but less than was earlier expected, Garcha said. For Q1, Garcha forecasts document tech segment revenue fell 12% to $1.6 billion. Not all of Xerox outsourcing will be part of the BPO spinoff. Document outsourcing, which fell 2% to $852 million in Q4 revenue, will stay with the larger portion of the split, a Xerox spokesman told IBD. Effective April 1, Xerox borrowed $1 billion unsecured from a consortium of seven banks to be repaid within a year or upon execution of the spinoff, whichever comes first. Xerox says the spinoff should be complete before year-end. With a market cap of $11.3 billion, Xerox is the fourth-largest member of IBD’s Computer-Hardware/Peripherals industry group, following Canon ( CAJ ), the newly reorganized HP Inc. ( HPQ ), and Fujifilm. Xerox carries a middling 66 IBD Compositing Rating. Its formidable BPO rivals, Cognizant Technology Solutions ( CTSH ) and Infosys ( INFY ) rate better, with CRs of 75 and 80, respectively. Scalper1 News
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