CFR Pharmaceuticals Jumps After IM Trust Raises Target Price

CFR Pharmaceuticals SA (CFR), Chile’s largest drug developer, had the biggest gain in almost a month after brokerage firm IM Trust SA raised its target price on the stock and said an acquisition last year may boost sales.

The stock jumped 1.2 percent to 125.50 pesos at 1:28 p.m. in Santiago trading. Earlier it rose as much as 3.2 percent, the biggest increase on an intraday basis since Jan. 7. The benchmark Ipsa index rose 0.1 percent.

Santiago-based CFR’s purchase in December of Laboratorio Franco Colombiano Lafrancol SAS, the largest laboratory in Colombia, may mean higher sales and revenue growth, according to IM Trust analyst Javier Gunther.

“We liked that the investment was for a large and consolidated company in a strategic country, instead of many small companies with the difficulties of consolidations that it would have implied,” Gunther wrote today in a report.

CFR probably will make more acquisitions, Gunther said in the report. Santiago-based IM Trust raised its target price to 142 pesos from 136 pesos while maintaining the stock’s rating at buy.

To contact the reporter on this story: Danielle Verbrigghe in New York at dverbrigghe@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: David Papadopoulos at papadopoulos@bloomberg.net