The Globe and Mail reports in its Friday, Dec. 6, edition that National Bank Financial analyst Gabriel Dechaine has reaffirmed his "outperform" recommendation for Royal Bank of Canada. The Globe's David Leeder writes in the Eye On Equities column that Mr. Dechaine gave his share target a $7 boost to $188. Analysts on average target the shares at $176.89. Mr. Dechaine says in a note: "Royal Bank of Canada has achieved $224-million, or 30 per cent of planned HSBC Canada expense synergies, ahead of this year's 25-per-cent achievement target. To date, the bulk of cost savings has yielded from HSBC's personal banking operations, which represented half of the business (i.e., in terms of loans). The bank is expecting to achieve 80 per cent of planned synergies by Q4/25. As expense synergies are delivered, revenue synergies are becoming a bigger focus. RBC emphasized cross-sell into the HSBC personal banking customer base, the introduction of new capabilities such as foreign currency accounts, and the expansion of trade finance lending. While we believe RBC will be able to execute on these strategies, they will be difficult to measure using existing disclosures (and, hence, to value appropriately)."