Celanese More Reliant on Asia - Analyst Blog
Celanese Corporation (
CE) is a global hybrid chemical company based in Dallas. The company has a strong growth strategy with development in Asia as a key factor. The continent's contribution to profit is expected to go up from 30% to more than 50% by 2010. Celanese has leadership positions in oligopolistic markets that have solid fundamentals and prices in many key product lines are also increasing.
However, Celanese is likely to face slackening demand in 2008-2009 due to a global economic slowdown, combined with exceptionally high raw material and energy costs. This forced the company to withdraw its full-year 2008 earnings guidance. Thus, we rate the shares a Hold with a target of $10, which is 3.2x our 2008 estimate.
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