Cenovus EnergyCVE.TOCOMMENTApr 07, 2017Stock price when the opinion was issued
As of Aug 14, 2026. Market Open.
It is the cheapest large cap quality company in North America. They have been shooting the lights out with the highest quality assets in Canada. Also they have been able to exit non-performing refineries and at the same time increasing exposure to better ones while turning them around. Margins are up 200 to 300% year over year in the last quarter and he thinks this will persist. They are getting refinery exposure and best of breed highest quality oil sands assets. The time for the oil sands is now. They have one of the cheapest multiples of large cap stocks in North America. . Also they are paying down debt to very conservative levels and returning 75% of free cash flow to shareholders mostly in the form of share buybacks. He thinks that number will go to 100% next year.
In summary it has an excellent balance sheet and management team as well as decades and decades of inventory. He sees 50 to 60% upside.
Buy 18 Hold 1 Sell1
Lightened up a bit after the runup. Price of oil will come down, but the bigger question is where will it level out? A hard one to gauge, but his sense is that it will take longer to get supplies out. (He's not a big believer in the pending agreement yet.)
In general oil isn't going back to where it was, and these stocks will be pretty good buys. One of the best oil-levered plays. MEG purchase was brilliant.
Set-it-and-forget-it way to get exposure to bullish oil thesis. New floor for oil is $80, and higher in years to come. Downstream exposure (refineries), with margins at record highs. Top decile oilsands assets. Another record quarter. Really likes management. Yield is 2.09%.
(Analysts’ price target is $43.47)
This company did 2 things. They added a ton of debt, which didn’t go well. (They were at $6.3 billion of debt at the end of December.) They added $10 billion of debt with their financing. They are now at $16 billion in debt. Their equity component was $11.6 billion and is now $18 billion with the equity issue that they did, plus the stock they gave to do the deal with Conoco. The problem is, BV is $13.91. Stock was trading at $16-$17 in January. The issue broke $16 and now is coming down. The low in Q1 of 2016 was $12.60, and he thinks it will go below BV at the end of Q4. The negatives are the balance sheets and that they are now going back to create Pan-Canadian. If the price gets down to $12-$13, he may start to do some work on it, because at that point it will be very cheap.