Piper downgrades Celanese to Underweight on high degree of uncertainty

Piper Sandler last night downgraded Celanese (CE) to Underweight from Neutral with a price target of $98, down from $150. When a company’s near-term focus is solely on debt reduction, other business and corporate functions tend to suffer from resource deficiencies, the analyst tells investors in a research note. The firm sees a high degree of uncertainty around the timing of recovery in Celanese’s key end markets, especially autos, construction and major industrial end markets. It believes visibility is poor over the next couple of quarters for any substantive recovery, which translates to challenges to the company making progress on its debt reduction goals as EBIT growth may be limited.