A roundup of some of the North American equities making moves in both directions today
On the rise
Enbridge Inc. (ENB-T) was higher after announcing after the bell on Monday it has agreed to sell its minority stake in Noverco Inc to Trencap LP for $1.14-billion in cash.
Noverco indirectly owns Énergir LP, a distributor of natural gas.
Enbridge currently owns 38.9 per cent of Noverco while Trencap, a consortium led by pension fund manager Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec (CDPQ), owns the rest 61.1 per cent.
RBC Capital Markets acted as financial adviser to Enbridge on the deal, which is expected to close by early 2022.
Enbridge said sale proceeds will initially be used to repay short-term debt.
Pembina Pipeline Corp. (PPL-T) was narrowly higher after it said on Tuesday it would buy a 50-per-cent stake in Canada’s proposed Cedar LNG Project to develop the floating liquefied natural gas facility in British Columbia in partnership with indigenous group, The Haisla Nation.
Pembina expects to invest about $90-million into Cedar LNG over the next 24 months, including costs to acquire its interest in the project as well as development costs prior to the final investment decision (FID).
The company, which will acquire the equity interests in Cedar LNG from PTE Cedar LP and Delfin Midstream Inc, will operate the project going forward. Haisla will own the remaining 50-per-cent stake.
Cedar LNG, which will have LNG liquefaction capacity of about three million tonnes per annum, lies within the traditional territory of the Haisla Nation and aims to provide liquefied natural gas to Asia-Pacific markets.
The estimated gross project cost of Cedar LNG is $2.4-billion, and the FID is expected in 2023.
The investment comes as investors have been pushing for clean energy alternatives to combat climate change. Demand for super-cooled LNG has surged in recent years as large, energy-consuming nations including China and India wean themselves off dirtier coal.
Demand is expected to keep hitting fresh highs, but three North American projects have stopped development in the past few months, as customers remain hesitant to sign long-term purchase agreements needed for financing
Shares of Boeing Co. (BA-N) gained after Southwest Airlines (LUV-N) said on Tuesday it had ordered 34 new 737 MAX 7 aircraft to receive in 2022, as the U.S. airline prepares for a vaccine-driven recovery in travel demand.
The move brings the carrier’s total orders for the MAX 7 to 234.
Bookings for U.S. airlines are expected to rebound this year on the back of speedy COVID-19 vaccinations and easing restrictions after the pandemic caused one of the industry’s worst downturns in 2020.
Southwest said it expected revenue to continue to improve in June, driven mainly by leisure travel.
It also tightened its second-quarter average core cash burn forecast to between US$1-million and US$2-million per day, compared with the previous range of US$1-million to US$3-million per day.
San Francisco-based cloud computing services provider Fastly Inc. (FSLY-N) was higher despite being linked to a widespread hour-long outage of thousands of government, news and social media websites across the globe on Tuesday..
High traffic sites including Reddit, Amazon, CNN, Paypal, Spotify, Al Jazeera Media Network and the New York Times were out of commission, according to outage tracking website Downdetector.com. They came back up after outages that ranged from a few minutes to around an hour.
Fastly, one of the world’s most widely-used cloud based content delivery network providers, said “the issue has been identified and a fix has been applied. Customers may experience increased origin load as global services return.”
The company, which went public in 2019 and has a market capitalization of more than US$5-billion, is far smaller than peers like Amazon’s AWS. It helps websites move content using less-congested routes, enabling them to reach consumers faster.
On the decline
Crescent Point Energy Corp. (CPG-T) closed flat after announcing the sale of its remaining non-core southeast Saskatchewan conventional assets for $93-million in cash proceeds on Monday after the bell.
“Overall, we view the event as positive, though unsurprising, with the acquirer having press released the acquisition on May 13th, and the assets having been publicly marketed for a considerable length of time,” said ATB Capital Markets analyst Patrick O’Rourke.
See also: Tuesday’s analyst upgrades and downgrades
A day after its shares soared 38 per cent, closing at their highest level in over six years, Biogen Inc. (BIIB-Q) was lower after saying it expects to begin shipping its newly approved Alzheimer’s drug Aduhelm in about two weeks and that over 900 infusion centers are ready to implement the treatment to patients.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Monday approved Aduhelm as the first treatment to target a likely underlying cause of Alzheimer’s disease - sticky deposits of a protein called amyloid beta.
The drug, which is given as an intravenous infusion, is likely needed to be given at specialty infusion centers.
Biogen Chief Executive Michel Vounatsos said the sites include clinical trials centers with currently confirmed amyloid beta positive patients, as well as other sites with the necessary infrastructure to diagnose and treat patients.
Tesla Inc. (TSLA-Q) was lower despite selling 33,463 China-made electric cars in May, including exports, a 29-per-cent jump from April, according to data from the China Passenger Car Association (CPCA) on Tuesday.
China’s new electric vehicle sales surged 177 per cent to 185,000 cars in May from a year earlier, CPCA said. Overall passenger vehicle sales, however, rose just 1.1 per cent to 1.66 million cars.
Tesla’s China sales - accounting for nearly a third of its total sales - is closely watched as a sign of the U.S. company’s health in its second biggest market, where the company has invested heavily and often changed its own marketing playbook to attract customers.
Tesla, which makes its Model 3 sedans and Model Y sport-utility vehicles in Shanghai, exported 11,527 China-made vehicles in May.
In April, it sold 25,845 China-made cars, down from 35,478 in March.
With files from staff and wires