Virtus Investment initiated with an Underweight at Barclays

Barclays initiated coverage of Virtus Investment with an Underweight rating and $206 price target. Relative to the rest of its coverage, the firm sees the traditional asset managers “facing the most meaningful industry-wide headwinds. The analyst views Virtus as a sub-scale asset manager with little exposure to key growth areas. While the company has been able to grow via acquisitions and is generally a healthy cash flow generator, buyback capacity is generally somewhat constrained by market cap relative to some others, the analyst tells investors in a research note.