Is CSL
(ASX: CSL) the best COVID-19 recovery stock?
What is CSL?
CSL is Australia’s largest healthcare company, specialising in biopharmaceuticals. Founded in the late 1900s as the Commonwealth Serum Laboratories, CSL was sold by the Australian Government to Australian investors via the share market in 1994 at $2.30 per share, at which time it doubled its size through an international acquisition. Today, CSL is a global leader in blood plasma vaccines (think: the flu) and antivenoms, providing relief for potentially life-threatening medical conditions.
What happened today?
CSL released an update to the market today.
Plasma collections are expected to keep being impacted, though collection centres have designated as essential critical infrastructure and there are FDA initiatives to release plasma earlier in the cycle.
In pleasing developments, in China the Wuhan facility operations have recommenced and there are additional efforts to continue to import the supply of albumin.
CSL is also part of a team that is trying to create a treatment for COVID-19 in partnership with Takeda.
CSL’s FY20 Guidance
CSL has around $1.1 billion of available liquidity which means it should be able to get through this comfortably.
The healthcare giant has reaffirmed its profit guidance for FY20 of US$2.11 billion to US$2.17 billion.
Is CSL a buy?
If you don’t think about any other share on the ASX, I think it’s good to be able to buy CSL at a cheaper price than before this started, with lower interest rates and with reaffirmed FY20 profit.
But opportunity cost is a thing. There are many shares that have been hurt harder during this process than CSL which could be better buys, like these tech shares:
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Disclosure: at the time of publishing, Jaz does not have a financial interest in any of the companies mentioned.
