Bernstein said it’s bullish on electric power infrastructure company Quanta Services “in a full embrace of the energy transition.” “PWR owns the picks and shovels that will be used to make the energy transition a reality,” analyst Chad Dillard wrote in a Monday note. The firm maintained its outperform rating on shares. It also kept its price target of $198 per share, implying 13.8% upside from Friday’s close. Dillard estimated transitioning the entire U.S. economy to electric power will require $2 trillion of power grid spending. PWR 1M mountain Quanta Services hit a 52-week high on Tuesday. “PWR solves the two biggest bottlenecks of the energy transition: 1) Building out the electric grid and renewable power; and 2) Providing the skilled labor needed to do all the construction,” he wrote. “The market underestimates the step-function change in revenue growth that this transition will bring: from +10% to +15%.” Quanta’s advantage in labor will further drive share gains and consolidation, he said. “Labor will be a huge bottleneck and [Quanta] controls it. To see this transition through, the US needs another 40K linemen and there is a mismatch between where the labor is and the construction will be. PWR has more labor than the next 3 competitors combined, and can mobilize and deploy labor better than anyone else,” said Dillard. Quanta’s business is also positioned to benefit from the Inflation Reduction Act spending, which is driving an increase in solar and wind farm construction, Dillard added. Shares were trading more than 3% higher Tuesday afternoon, and briefly hit a 52-week high of $179.85. The stock has rallied more than 25% in 2023. — CNBC’s Michael Bloom contributed to this report.
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