Bulls on the Northbrook, Illinois-based property and casualty insurer say that it is trading at just 1.4 times its September 30 book value - not much higher than it was in 1998, the publication said in its December 10 edition.
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Analysts see Allstate Corp <ALL.N>, the largest publicly traded home insurer in the United States, as an undervalued opportunity, based its low share price compared to its earnings, Barron's reported on Sunday.
Bulls on the Northbrook, Illinois-based property and casualty insurer say that it is trading at just 1.4 times its September 30 book value - not much higher than it was in 1998, the publication said in its December 10 edition.
Allstate, which closed at $52.46 on Friday on the New York Stock Exchange, could trade up to $65 or $70 in the next year, assuming no major decline in profits, a better environment for financial stocks, and no Hurricane Katrina-sized catastrophes, the paper said, citing analyst comments.
Hurricane Katrina, which hit New Orleans in 2005, and two other major storms that year cost the insurance industry nearly $70 billion, and Allstate itself $5 billion, according to company and industry statistics.
!ADVERTISEMENT!(Reporting by Ed Leefeldt, editing by Maureen Bavdek)
