Shell’s Canadian Natural sale removes cloud weighing on shares

Bloomberg

Royal Dutch Shell Plc’s plan to sell its $3.3 billion stake in Canadian Natural Resources Ltd. put a dent in the oil-sands producer’s shares, but there’s a silver lining.
The impending sale removes a cloud that had loomed over Canadian Natural since Shell took the shares as part of a $7.25 billion deal last year and signalled it would dispose of them eventually. Now fund managers who shied away from the stock even as the company posted strong earnings may sell some of their other oil-sands holdings to pick up the newly available Canadian Natural shares, according to GMP FirstEnergy analyst Michael Dunn.
“Getting this share sale behind it should be nothing but good for the stock going forward, as the threat of this event was no doubt influencing Canadian Natural Resources’ relative ownership size in the funds of many a portfolio manager,” Dunn said in a note. He recommends buying the shares.
Canadian Natural has trailed its peers since the purchase of the Athabasca assets from Shell was announced in March of last year, rising 4.6 percent. Meanwhile rival Suncor Energy Inc. gained 22 percent, Husky Energy Inc. climbed 17 percent and MEG Energy Inc. advanced 13 percent.
Shell’s sale, priced at $34.10 (C$44.20) apiece for the American shares, would be Canada’s third-largest in the past decade.