Credit Suisse eliminates Aviva from Europe Focus List

Recent underperformance led analysts at Credit Suisse to remove Aviva from their Europe Focus List, but they expected the stock's price to close the gap versus its peers over the next few years.

The decision to remove the stock from that list was triggered by the shares' breach of the 'stop loss' of 10.0% relative to its sector, R.Burden said in a research note sent to clients.

However, he expected the company to be able to continue strengthening its balance sheet thanks to steadily improving cash remittances from key subsidiaries to the group.

Capital synergies from the Friends Life integration and further capital release from potential disposals of peripheral businesses such as its french banc-assurance joint-venture with SocGen or the group's Spanish operations.

As a result, management would have the opportunity to either drive growth by enhancing its core operations or return additional capital to shareholders, above and beyond the expected dividend.

That should see the valuation gap between Aviva and its rivals L&G and RSA close over the next few years as management continues to demonstrate execution on capital management.

Burden stayed at 'outperform' on shares of Aviva, sticking to his 620p target price too.

Shares of Aviva were then changing hands on about eight times the broker's forecast for its operating earnings per share in 2017, versus approximately 10 times EPS for L&G and 11.5 times over at RSA.