Suncor Energy downgraded at Raymond James, Eight Capital after CEO ouster

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Suncor Energy (NYSE:SU) -2.7% in Monday's trading after CEO Mark Little's sudden departure on Friday following a fatal accident at the company's oil sands base plant in Alberta.

The company canceled its planned investor update about oil sands operations and safety that had been scheduled for this week.

The resignation sparked downgrades on the stock from Raymond James to Market Perform from Outperform and Eight Capital to Sell from Neutral.

Until Suncor's (SU) safety and operational issues are resolved, Ray Jay's Michael Shaw said investors should look to other Canadian large-cap and integrated producers for energy exposure, even though the company boasts several attractive characteristics, including unmatched downstream positioning, low decline assets, and a natural hedge against wider Canadian heavy differentials.

In cutting the stock to Sell, Eight Capital's Phil Skolnick said the latest accident "is not just the CEO's fault,” with the problem part of "the corporate culture where accidental deaths have plagued the company even prior to Mr. Little's tenure as CEO began."

But Bank of America maintained a Buy rating, saying Elliott Management's proposed increase in cash returns to 80% of free cash flow after dividends from 50% currently may now be more readily agreed by Suncor's (SU) board.

Citing meetings with Suncor (SU) management that "left us encouraged that the company has a tighter grip on the steps required to regain its status as a best-in-class oil sands operator," RBC Capital recently upgraded the stock to Outperform.

Comments

[jacksalmon]

I thought I just read somewhere a week, or so, ago, that SU's safety record was now vastly improved. Well, that didn't last long.

[cenc]

I also predict record losses this year, for all the people that listened to these guys and invested in ESG compliant unicorn farts over in the tech sector.

[Long Time Running]

Long SU, CNQ, CVE.

If you don't like SU at the moment, go ahead, buy the other two.

[retired@thebig50]

@Long Time Running Now the makes more sense !!

[Sleepless in Seattle]

@Long Time Running: Long CNQ, SU, and Ninepoints ETF. I'm looking into buying more Suncor now. Good luck to both of us.

[ChasingTuna]

@Long Time Running
Get the right CEO and the stock will jump 5 bucks

[JohnVB]

Average WTI was $108.8 for the Q2. So Suncor should have at least averaged $15 higher.

[JohnVB]

This downgrade makes no sense and it explains a 2% reaction. There was a push for Little to step down by Elliot before all of this went down. So we can see a possible improvement. By the time we get a new CEO that checks all the boxes the stock could move in advance of all that. So then there will be an upgrade. So sell low (now) and buy higher later (CEO). So I am staying put. This is how much I believe in the analyst. I have been holding on since last year so I have nothing better to do than collect a dividend while the story unfolds. Paid to wait. It would have been nice for them to raise the dividend again. This next quarter should be a blow out.

[Slade_01]

Can't wait to see the April - June results for upstream and refiners. They are all crushing it.

[Cheese Head]

@911Slade Agree but the great results are well televised and presumably baked into share price, I don't understand why E&Ps are trading at such super low multiples Reasons can be:

1) Producers are still a non-PC holding even though everyone uses the products.
2) Futures curve is still in backwardation / market believes oil/nat gas prices in future will be lower as believe global recession.
3) Market believes Opec has 2-3 mln bopd up their back sleeve that they will bring on with some arm twisting.
4) Market believe once Ukraine war is over prices will drop.
3) Market as a whole is down.

[Michael Shan]

@911Slade You know that's in the past right? Stock price will only reflect what's in the future. How high are oil prices expected to rise in the future with the current global inflation situation? (Hint: look at these tech stocks in the past few months.)

[Oxbow11]

@Michael Shan this is actually not correct- especially for energy stocks. We have no idea how much debt these companies paid off last quarter (probably enormous) we don't know how many shares they bought back (probably some) and we have no idea how much they will be increasing their dividend (probably continually increasing as debt is paid down) and there is possibility of special dividends. I have not seen one piece of data over last 6 months to suggest oil's "time" is over- people are calling energy over after a 30 percent pullback and oil is still at $104- so this is nothing like tech stocks because this is one of the few industries that is growing earnings right now- In fact- I saw a stat that second quarter earnings in entire market are supposed to increase 5 percent- and if you took energy out it would actually be -3%

[Oxbow11]

"Raymond James downgrading SU to sell to allow itself to buy more"- Can't wait for earnings!

[cenc]

@Oxbow11 Yea, that seems to be a theme among the big investment banks right now. They have these downgrades from their analysts that make no logical sense. We got oil stocks trading like oil is at $50 -60, and oil solidly above $90-100, with an increasing supply shortage everywhere; yet, somehow energy stocks are being downgraded as they make record profits.

[johnberchick]

Simple, just buy $cve.

[Fred. L.]

@johnberchick

I’m buying both on dips.