Buy - Price 48.58 on Sept. 29 by Hilliard Lyons Abbott has agreed to acquire the pharmaceutical unit of Solvay Group (ticker: SOLB.Belgium) for $6.6 billion in cash.…[The purchase] would add more than $3 billion in annual revenue, increasing ABT's pharmaceutical sales base by 18%. About 75% of Solvay's sales are outside U.S., with exposure to faster-growing emerging markets. Overlapping therapeutic areas include cardiovascular-disease, neuroscience, and gastrointestinal products.… Management believes the deal could add 10 cents to 2010 earnings per share, and more than 20 cents by '12.…Our 55 target uses a price/earnings multiple closer to the Standard & Poor's 500, applied to our '10 EPS estimate of $4.20. Market cap: $75 billion.

Outperform - Price 53.86 by Cowen and Company Xerox 's (XRX) offer to acquire ACS could create a global $10 billion business process outsourcing/document-management vendor generating double-digit adjusted EPS growth….ACS' implied valuation is materially below Perot Systems ' (PER), and based on [Monday's] closing price, underestimates ACS. We…highlight the company's strong franchise, high recurring revenue base and booking momentum combined with the possibility of accelerating organic growth in second-half fiscal-year '10. The combination will create a global leader in document and business process management, with a $22 billion run rate, a $17 billion recurring-revenue run rate and a $10 billion services run rate….At the original implied price ($63.11 a share), ACS' implied valuation seems very reasonable (especially vis-à-vis Perot's takeout bid by Dell), valued at 14 times calendar-year 2010 EPS, 6.8 times enterprise value/earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, and 13.9 times EV/free cash flow. Market cap: $5.3 billion.

Buy - Price 46.18 on Sept. 29 by Janney Montgomery Scott We're increasing our 12-month fair-value estimate [on this payment-processor] to 50, from 48. We believe the forward multiple will expand due to accretive acquisitions over the next twelve months, efficiency improvements from platform consolidations, and investors' seeking to hedge exposure to interchange regulation. GPN generates consistent 18% returns on invested capital, and has a balance sheet that can support additional debt, [as well as] $5.28 a share of cash on hand. Our fair-value estimate represents 20 times forward estimates; the stock is trading at 17.9 times. Market cap: $3.7 billion.

Buy - Price 27.33 on Sept. 29 by Benchmark Recently, IRM opened four records centers exclusively for storing and imaging government documents.… Each National Archives and Records Administration facility… stores more than one million cubic feet of federal hard-copy information and provides quick access to the information via onsite imaging capabilities.…We believe new federal facilities are likely to increase IRM's reach in the federal-government-related sector.. New NARA regulations [as of] Oct. 1 require government agencies and contractors to upgrade.…We are maintaining our Buy rating, 35 target and earnings estimates of $1.04 for '09 and $1.16 for '10. Market cap: $5.6 billion.

Market Perform - Price 26.92 on Sept. 29 by JMP Securities We're upgrading from Market Underperform to Market Perform, and raising our fiscal-year '09E-EPS from $1.07 to $1.17 (consensus is 97 cents), and our FY10 EPS estimate from $1.40 to $1.50 (consensus is $1.23). …fundamentals in the fixed-income markets have remained strong…the pace and stickiness of the recovery in credit markets has been faster than expected…allow[ing] Jefferies to report higher-than-expected revenues….The main drivers… include a continued, robust fixed-income sales and trading environment…narrowing of high-yield credit spreads…and a more robust underwriting calendar. Jefferies trades at 17.9 times our revised '10 EPS forecast (versus peers' 18.5 times), 1.8 times our 12-month stated book-value forecast. While JEF appears [to be]…trading at a fair-to-full valuation, with [rising] EPS numbers, we see little to push the shares lower. Market cap: $5.5 billion.

Outperform - Price 21.91 on Sept. 29 by Robert W. Baird & Co. PSSI sells flu vaccine under a fee-for-service agreement with Novartis. We believe flu…[and lower] commodity-pricing trends are very favorable to PSSI; we're raising our…P/E and EV/Ebitda valuation inputs to 18 times (previously 16.5 times) and 10.5 times (previously 9.4 times). We see room for upside to our estimates…the shares [are] trading at a discount to CY09 relative averages. Market cap: $1.3 billion.