BofA Securities on Monday reinstated research coverage of UL Solutions Inc (NYSE: ULS), assigning a Buy rating and setting a price objective of $86. That target equates to about a 21% gain versus the quoted share price of $70.71 at the time, although InvestingPro data noted the stock was trading above its assessed Fair Value.
UL Solutions is described by BofA as a long-established leader in global safety sciences, with a history stretching back roughly 130 years and the familiar UL mark appearing on billions of new products annually. The company’s business model centers on testing, inspection and certification services across regulated end markets. Financially, UL Solutions reports about $3 billion of annual revenue and gross profit margins approaching 49%.
BofA analyst Curtis Nagle emphasized that the company’s service set depends on trust, scale and regulatory compliance, which the bank views as creating a protective competitive moat. The analyst framed UL Solutions as a multi-year beneficiary of sizable thematic shifts - notably the electrification of everything - and pointed to a recent trailing-12-month return on equity of 33% as evidence of operational strength.
Management is actively expanding lab capacity and introducing additional testing and certification services. BofA sees these investments as supporting a long tail of organic growth, underpinning the bank’s positive stance. The firm also noted it had covered the stock previously before suspending research on it.
Recent company news included the rollout of a testing and certification program for plug-in solar systems, designed to support safer adoption of that technology across the United States. The initiative is built around UL 3700, a standard that specifies criteria for these systems.
On the capital markets side, underwriters in a secondary deal fully exercised an option to purchase an additional 1,875,000 shares, which were sold at $78.00 apiece. The company did not sell any shares in that offering and received no proceeds from the sale.
Analyst coverage beyond BofA is mixed. Baird upgraded UL Solutions to Outperform and set a $97 target, characterizing recent share-price weakness as an investor opportunity. By contrast, UBS trimmed its target to $85 from $96 while keeping a Neutral rating; UBS expects the company to deliver solid fourth-quarter results, forecasting growth and margins that outpace consensus estimates.
Investors therefore face a range of perspectives: BofA’s Buy and Baird’s Outperform sit alongside UBS’s more cautious neutral stance and the InvestingPro assessment that the stock is trading above fair value. Corporate developments such as the plug-in solar testing program and the fully exercised underwriter option add operational and capital-markets context to the analyst views.