IRA IDEA*- LYB
IF it's good enough for Steve Cohen....
LyondellBasell (LYB)
Next up we have LyondellBasell, a global power in the chemical industry. This international company is the world’s largest player in the polyethylene and polypropylene technology space, owning the largest share of technologies and patents in the niche and profiting from licensing production. LYB also has a world-industry leading position in the production of polyolefin technologies, and has a large footprint in the more mundane refining of plastics and chemicals.
This chemical company is facing a series of headwinds that bode ill for the near- to mid-term. Prices in the core segments of polyethylene and propylene are going down, while the natural gas the company uses for ethane feedstock is rising in cost.
But there are bright points for investors. While EPS, at $5.25, missed the estimate of $5.78, revenues hit $12.69 billion in 3Q21, coming in above the $11.99 billion forecast, and amounting to the largest haul in the last two years, while growing 87% year-over-year. The company reported record cash flows from operations, at $2.1 billion, and used that to return ~$500 million to shareholders through dividends and share repurchases.
The dividend is currently set at $1.13 per common share, for an annualized rate of $4.52 and a solid yield of ~5%. That yield is nearly triple the average dividend found among peer companies, or the return on Treasury bonds.
Cohen, for his part, was impressed enough by this stock to purchase 136,101 shares. That’s a holding now worth $12.6 million.
LyondellBasell shares have also caught the eye of JPMorgan analyst
Jeffrey Zekauskaswho likes the company’s position via shareholder return potential.
“Lyondell’s dividend yield is 5%, and its finances are remarkably strong: its net debt to EBITDA ratio is about 1.4x based on our estimates of year-end 2022 values. The company throws off 14-15% of its share price in free cash flow. We think that the dividend yield and the free cash flow yield should be supportive of the LYB share price. We think that the adverse trends are to a good degree already discounted into the Lyondell share price,” Zekauskas noted.
To this end, Zekauskas rates LYB shares an Overweight (i.e. Buy) and has a $118 price target implying an upside of ~27% in the next 12 months