Topic: How To Invest

Pat: Could you please comment on Canexus as a buy, sell or hold, considering also the implications of the recent departure of its CEO? Thanks.

Article Excerpt

Canexus Corp., $5.25, symbol CUS on Toronto (Shares outstanding: 180.8 million; Market cap: $936.3 million; www.canexus.ca), produces sodium-chlorate and chlor-alkali products, largely for the pulp and paper and water-treatment industries. The company’s six plants—four in Canada and two at one site in Brazil—aim to use nearby low-cost electricity sources and transportation facilities to cut their production and delivery expenses. Canexus also provides “transloading” services (transfers of oil and gas by-products, such as butane, from railcars or pipelines to trucks) at its terminal in Bruderheim, Alberta. Canexus was formerly a division of Nexen. It began trading as an income trust on August 18, 2005, at $10 per unit. It converted to a conventional corporation in July 2011. In the three months ended March 31, 2014, Canexus’s revenue fell 4.1%, to $139.8 million from $145.7 million a year earlier. Cash flow per share dropped to $0.08 from $0.19. The declines were mostly due to lower prices of chlor-alkali products. Canexus’s long-term debt of $532.1 million is a..