Lincoln comfortable with US bailout cash: analysts

Lincoln National Corp., the Radnor annuities and life insurance company that sponsors the Eagles stadium, won't likely buy back the U.S. Treasury's $900 million Capital Purchase Plan preferred-stock insurance company until 2011, writes Sandler O'Neill Research analysts Edward Shields and Paul Newsome in a note to investors today, after meeting with Lincoln's bosses, ceo Dennis Glass and cfo Fred Crawford.

Sandler says Lincoln has enough cash to cover likely losses, and neither its reputation nor its operations have been hurt by the dividends ($4.6 million last quarter) that it's paying taxpayers or the embarrassments that can follow when you take the government's money. Lincoln has $700 million in cash on hand, and said this summer it will raise another $700 million by selling Lincoln's Philadelphia-based Delaware Group investments to Australia's Maquarie Group and Lincoln's British business to Sun Life.

While Lincoln's commercial real estate investments are still losing value, rating agencies (meeting with Lincoln this week) look like they're done with downgrades for now, though "improvements in ratings will be long in coming."

Customers are avoiding traditional stock-fund annuities, and "moving more toward fixed annuities and indexed annuities." The company has boosted some stock annuity prices. It may be looking to buy its way into the 403(b) local-government retirement-plan market, but probably won't try any big takeovers until it pays off Treasury. Shields and Newsome rate Lincoln a "Buy" and say the price, recently around $27, should rise a bit to $30 within the year.