BESI gets support from Wall Street: JPMorgan sees price rise to 342 euros

BE Semiconductor Industries (BESI) receives support from two large investment banks just before its investor day. JPMorgan raised its price target sharply to 342 euros on Monday and expects the Dutch chip company to come up with more ambitious growth targets this week. Barclays also became more positive, although the bank's new price target is still well below the current market price.

The BESI share is currently around 320 euros. JPMorgan is clearly more optimistic than the market, while Barclays is lagging behind.

JPMorgan Research increased the price target for BESI from 266 to 342 euros and thereby maintained the Considered Advice. According to the US bank, Thursday's investor day is likely to become a major catalyst for the stock.

Analysts expect BESI to increase its long-term goals. Especially in the field of hybrid bonding, a technology that is becoming increasingly important for advanced AI chips, JPMorgan sees room for further growth.

At last year's investor day, BESI presented three scenarios for the adoption of hybrid bonding and thermocompression bonding (TCB). According to JPMorgan, the market is now developing faster than the middle scenario outlined earlier.

Therefore, the bank increased its revenue expectations for 2027 and 2028 by 8.3 and 9.0 percent, respectively. Earnings forecasts also increased by about ten percent.

Barclays also became more positive about BESI on Monday. Analyst Simon Coles increased his price target from 185 to 270 euros and maintained the Balanced Advice.

The UK bank also expects BESI to increase its long-term targets during the investor day. This would mainly be the result of an accelerated adoption of hybrid bonding.

Still, Barclays remains more cautious than JPMorgan. The new price target of 270 euros is even well below the current stock market price of around 320 euros. This means that despite the substantial increase, Barclays still sees little upside potential for the share.

For 2028, the bank expects a turnover of almost 1.5 billion euros and a gross margin of 67 percent. By 2030, sales could reach more than 1.7 billion euros.

JPMorgan and Barclays' price target increases follow previous positive reports from last week.

Degroof Petercam raised the price target to 270 euros after it significantly raised expectations for the chip market. Berenberg also became more optimistic and increased the price target from 140 to 240 euros. Both banks pointed to the strong demand from AI applications and the favourable outlook for hybrid bonding.

Investors' attention is now shifting to Thursday, when BESI will provide more clarity on growth plans for the coming years during its investor day. Given the recent price target increases, a large part of the market already seems to be taking positive news into account.