Celanese Corporation
CE
successfully completed the earlier-announced divestment of its 45% equity investment in the Polyplastics joint venture to Daicel Corporation in an all-cash deal worth $1.575 billion.
The company stated that it plans to deploy the proceeds from the transaction to higher value-generating opportunities, including earlier announced increase in share repurchases, investments in organic growth and other uses of cash that are in sync with its disciplined capital deployment strategy.
Celanese is committed to invest in its Engineered Materials base business, which is growing rapidly across the globe in the last 10 years independent of Polyplastics. The divestment of Polyplastics enables Celanese to adopt a more contemporary approach to independently drive future growth, pursue high-return expansion opportunities and advance application development with customers.
Celanese also stated that it is well-positioned to continue its growth trajectory as it boosts investment in new product development in growth segments and key geographies. It will continue investment in product expansion in growing demand applications such as 5G, medical/pharma, advanced mobility and sustainable materials. The company also intends to expand its production capacity in Asia to address the rapidly growing demand in the region.
Celanese’s shares have lost 2.6% in the past year compared with the
industry
’s 2% decline.
Zacks Rank & Key Picks
Celanese currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).
Some better-ranked stocks in the basic materials space are Brenntag AG
BNTGY
, Comstock Mining, Inc.
LODE
and Equinox Gold Corp.
EQX
, each carrying a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). You can see
the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 (Strong Buy) Rank stocks here
.
Brenntag has an expected earnings growth rate of 2.9% for 2020. The company’s shares have surged 35.3% in the past year.
Comstock Mining has an expected earnings growth rate of 370% for 2020. Its shares have returned 132.5% in the past year.
Equinox has an expected earnings growth rate of 137.9% for 2020. The company’s shares have gained 130.1% in the past year.
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