Andrew Kaplowitz, a top Citi analyst, raised the price target for Vertiv Holdings (VRT) stock to $149 from $130 and reaffirmed a Buy rating, expressing confidence in the data center infrastructure company’s prospects ahead of its second-quarter earnings. Kaplowitz adjusted price targets for the companies in the industrial conglomerate group as part of a Q2 earnings preview. He expects most of them to report strong results. VRT stock has risen more than 11% year-to-date and 44% over the past year, driven by optimism about artificial intelligence (AI)-led demand for the company’s offerings.
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Last week, Vertiv stock fell after Amazon’s (AMZN) cloud computing unit, Amazon Web Services (AWS), revealed its P6e-GB200 Ultra Servers equipped with liquid cooling infrastructure to support NVIDIA’s (NVDA) Grace Blackwell SuperChip. Following this news, Kaplowitz and other analysts contended that the selloff in VRT stock was overdone. Kaplowitz stated that it remains unclear to what extent AWS is producing liquid cooling components in-house versus partnering with suppliers. He reaffirmed that VRT remains well-positioned to be a primary beneficiary of the expected jump in liquid cooling.
Top Citi Analyst Is Bullish on VRT Stock
Kaplowitz’s revised price target is based on a higher 2026 Enterprise Value (EV)/adjusted EBITDA multiple of 24x, up from 21x. The 5-star analyst is confident that VRT is well-positioned for significant upside in the industrial market, driven by durable AI/data center-related growth. Kaplowitz added that comments from Citi’s Semiconductors & Components analyst reinforced his belief that the data center capex cycle remains resilient. Citi expects 35%, 15%, 20%, and 20% year-over-year data center capex growth for the top 5 cloud service providers, Amazon (AMZN), Meta Platforms (META), Alphabet (GOOGL), Microsoft (MSFT), and Oracle (ORCL), in 2025, 2026, 2027, and 2028, respectively.
Citi recently increased its total 2028 data center semiconductors AI total addressable market (TAM) estimate by 13% to $563 billion, noting higher-than-expected sovereign AI demand in line with VRT management’s commentary from their recent meetings.
Kaplowitz believes that the strength in recent orders provides strong visibility to near-term results. Over the longer term, the analyst expects VRT’s broad and differentiated product portfolio, solid customer relationships, and global service footprint to support its leading position in the critical data center infrastructure market.
Is VRT Stock a Buy, Sell, or Hold?
With 13 Buys and two Hold recommendations, Wall Street has a Strong Buy consensus rating on Vertiv Holdings stock. The average VRT stock price target of $129.33 indicates a modest upside of about 2% from current levels.
