The Globe and Mail reports in its Thursday, Jan. 25, edition that Desjardins Securities analyst Doug Young sees both Intact Financial and Definity Financial as "well-positioned to grow organically and inorganically, and both have been acquisitive as of late." The Globe's David Leeder writes in the Eye On Equities column that Mr. Young says in a note: "We expect benign weather in Canada to benefit results for both companies; however, severe windstorms in the UK put some pressure on Intact's results. 2023 has been a tough comp year vs 2022, and especially 2021, on an underwriting basis as economies reopened, inflationary pressures persisted and the frequency of CAT events increased. Higher investment income (due to higher interest rates) was a nice offset, but will this continue in 2024? We are expecting a material increase in operating EPS for both companies in 2024 (mostly because we expect the elevated CAT losses in 2023 to not repeat at the same levels) and will be watching both managements' outlook for 2024/25 across their different business lines." Mr. Young maintained a "buy" rating and $230 share target for Intact and a "hold" call and $40 share target for Definity. The averages on the Street are $224.73 and $43.55.