CANEXUS CORP 6.5 PCT DEBS T.CUS.DB.D

Everyone Loves Kherson

[Calgaryrider]

New-ish to the board.  Been reading a lot.
Everyone ragging on Kherson and his potential past follies (which I can't corroborate) are ignoring the fact that he was right about management dumping stock at a fishy time. 
He should've been on here gloating.

Anyways, what happened today is that someone used a back-out clause.
In theory, every take-or-pay contract has these, but at a cost, so there is likely some kind of remedial short-term compensation coming back to CUS for breaking this agreement.  There is likely no meat for a lawsuit....it was a clear that a back-out clause was enacted based on Management's comments.

This back-out is clearly because the spread between Wester Canadian vs. WTI, which has effectively (and agressively) been eliminated in the last few months.  It's cheaper for their customer to not use Canexus (and pay a commercial penalties/release fee) than it is to use them.

This is likely NOT specific to the company that bailed.
My point is, if one commercial entity figured out it's cheaper to NOT use NATO, it is not going to take much time for the other customer(s) to figure it out.

To me this back-out indicates that the current CUS business model (i.e. the rates that they charge) are no longer competitive with other avenues to get W. Canadian to market.  That is huge trouble in that erodes the prices they can charge to move a barrel and, thus, erodes the value of the entire NATO asset.....and significantly.  If it was marginal, a customer wouldn't pull out unless they are substantially bearish about the long-term prices of WCS (or oil) in general.

The point of the story is that this may have been a $700M asset 2 months ago, but is now maybe half that.....and could be worthless if the spread remains non-existent and WTI continues to drop.

Quite the development.
I'm amazed the price didn't drop more today, actually.  It's a clear sign that the viability of the  the rates they charge are not sustainable at current levels.
Ouch.

Another perspective is that it may be cheaper for a customer to purchase NATO straight up rather than pay the fees that we established in their contract.  This is simple math. 

Thus, my belief is that in the next two weeks we will see 1 of 2 things:
1) Other customers drop out, or
2) A low-ball offer for CUS, in which a company would use the NATO assets as a hedging tool that they can also use as a tax break if things continue to tank.

The latter may provide some relief for shareholders, but not much.

In my opinion: 
- Considering Debt as well, NATO is effectively worth ~$1 today.
- The $3.85 share price is the value of the chemical assets.

The longer a deal takes, the lower this price will go down. 
The dividend (or lack thereof) is now fully factored in too.