The Globe and Mail reports in its Thursday edition that National Bank analyst Rupert Merer is sticking with his "outperform" recommendation for GFL Environmental. The Globe's David Leeder writes that Mr. Merer trimmed his share target by a loonie to $54. Analysts on average target the shares at $50.17. Mr. Merer has lowered his third quarter expectations for GFL to reflect seasonality and one-time items stemming from asset divestitures. However, he sees GFL as "well positioned to outperform" as it continues to deleverage and sees the benefits from cash-flow growth. Mr. Merer says in a note: "GFL could benefit from strong pricing (up more than 8 per cent year-over-year) as it plays catch-up with inflation, but see lower volume growth following shedding of unprofitable operations. For fiscal 2023, GFL is guiding to $7.4-billion in revenue, $2-billion of adj. EBITDA and $705-million of adj. FCF. ... GFL remains committed to lower leverage and targets less than 4 times net debt/EBITDA for 2023E, from 4.2 times in Q2 (peers 2.7 times). We believe it could achieve this goal by Q4E, but leverage in Q3E could be up quarter-over-quarter with the timing of cash flows and expenses related to the asset divestitures in Q2."
© 2024 Canjex Publishing Ltd. All rights reserved.