Celestica Inc. is a buy despite CFO departure, says Canaccord Genuity

The departure of its CFO isn’t changing Canaccord Genuity analyst Robert Young’s opinion that Celestica Inc. (Celestica Stock Quote, Chart, News: TSX, NYSE:CLS) is undervalued.

This morning, Celestica announced that CFO Darren Myers will leave the company to pursue another opportunity. While the company looks for a permanent replacement, Mandeep Chawla, senior vice-president, finance, will assume the role on an interim basis.

“I want to thank Darren for his significant contributions to Celestica’s success over the course of his career, including the last 4-1/2 years as our chief financial officer,” said CEO Rob Mionis. “Under Darren’s leadership, Celestica has made strong progress on its transformational journey to drive sustained profitable growth. I wish him continued success.”

Young says that while Myers was a valuable member of Celestica’s management team, he thinks the company will go forward without missing a beat.

“It is our view that Darren Myers has been an effective CFO and is likely to have left the company in a strong position,” says the analyst. “We don’t see anything behind his departure other than personal reasons. Celestica is a complex and multinational company but one with strong financial controls and systems that are not dependent on a single role. We may see some concern on delays to the acquisition strategy, despite Celestica having built and staffed a strong business development function. While we expect this abrupt news to be a modest headwind for the stock, our view on Celestica remains unchanged. It is a challenging market for tech hardware with less-than-perfect visibility remaining a headwind, but Celestica has been executing well. We have improved confidence in the growth profile and see opportunities for margins to move towards the high end of the company’s operating margin target range. We view the current valuation discount to peers an opportunity for investors.”

In a research update to clients today, Young maintained his “Buy” recommendation and one-year price target of (U.S.) $16.25 on Celestica.