KeyBanc Downgrades Sanderson Farms (SAFM) to Hold; Citing Recent Rise in Corn Prices

October 19, 2009 7:52 AM EDT

KeyBanc downgrades Sanderson Farms (Nasdaq: SAFM) from Buy to Hold.

KeyBanc analyst says, "We are downgrading our rating on Sanderson Farms to HOLD and reducing our 4Q09 EPS estimate by $0.16 to $1.22 and FY10 EPS estimate by $1.10 to $3.49 owing largely to the recent rise in corn prices. While we expected continued chicken demand weakness and declining breast meat prices as a result of the weak U.S. economy in our note following SAFM's 3Q09 call (August 25), we also believed corn prices could fall by $0.40-0.60/bu in the months to come owing to a historically large corn crop. We thought such a decline in corn prices could lead to EPS upside in FY10. While the crop has been as large as we expected, corn prices have nonetheless moved up by about $0.50/bu since the end of August owing to higher speculative buying. Consequently, we are increasing our corn price assumption for FY10 to $4.00 (from $3.63), which decreases our FY10 gross margin estimate by 160 bps to 10.4% and our EPS estimate by $0.91.

"We would like to point out that we think SAFM is the best-managed U.S. chicken producer, and if/when industry fundamentals improve and SAFM's valuation does not adequately reflect that improvement, we would be inclined to become more constructive."

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Sanderson Farms, Inc., an integrated poultry processing company, engages in the production, processing, marketing, and distribution of fresh, frozen, processed, and prepared chicken products in the United States.


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