ViacomCBS Rallies on Double Upgrade as Consolidation Eyed By Investing.com

By Christiana Sciaudone

Investing.com — ViacomCBS (NASDAQ:VIAC) rose more than 4% after getting a double upgrade from Bank of America (NYSE:BAC) on expected consolidation.

Analyst Jessica Reif Ehrlich upgraded the stock to buy from a sell-equivalent following the Discovery (NASDAQ:DISCA) merger with WarnerMedia announced earlier this week to create a giant in streaming that will rival Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN), Disney and Netflix (NASDAQ:NFLX).

“We believe the recently announced transaction between DISCA and Warner Media will spur further media consolidation as industry participants seek increased scale,” the analyst wrote in a note, according to StreetInsider. “In our view, VIAC’s deep breadth of content (library of 140K+ TV episodes and 3600+ films across sports, movies, comedy, news, children etc.) has value as an entire entity or if sold in individual parts.”

The analyst raised the price target to $53 from $38.

The firm had previously set a sell-equivalent on the stock on concerns over how it would manage the transition to streaming, but a merger would bring capital and scale needed to fuel spending on content, technology and customer acquisition, she said.

Shares of ViacomCBS are down about 60% since March after the company priced a $3 billion stock sale, and Archegos Capital Management was forced to liquidate shares of the company.