Shares jump from $52.25 US to $55.18 US in a day
Shares in newly formed Canadian fertilizer giant Nutrien Ltd. rose on its second day of trading Wednesday after CIBC assigned it an “outperformer” rating and set a 12-month price target of $62 US.
The bank — which had been restricted from comment because it had acted as an adviser to Calgary-based Agrium Inc. leading up to its merger with Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan Inc. — said in a report from analyst Jacob Bout that Nutrien has likely been “sandbagging” its estimate of $500 million US in cost-saving synergies from the deal.
The research note says there is possibly $100 million US in incremental savings that will be realized if the new company doubles its retail footprint — growing to grab a third of the U.S. market compared with about 19 per cent now — and more if it successfully rationalizes its wholesale operations.
The report says it could realize $125 million US in additional cost savings by reorganizing its potash assets. Along with about $5 billion US in proceeds from selling equity investments, the savings should allow the company to return cash to investors through share buybacks and dividends.
The shares, which started out at $52.25 US on Tuesday in New York, rose to $55.18 US by 2 p.m. ET on Wednesday on the New York Stock Exchange.
According to Thomson Reuters, Laurentian Bank Securities and Bernstein rate Nutrien “buy” and “outperform,” respectively, while BMO assigned it a “market perform” rating.
