Best Chemical Stocks To Invest In 2015

Best Chemical Stocks To Invest In 2015: Air Products and Chemicals Inc. (APD)

Air Products and Chemicals, Inc. provides atmospheric gases, process and specialty gases, performance materials, equipment, and services worldwide. The company?s Merchant Gases segment sells atmospheric gases, such as oxygen, nitrogen, and argon; process gases, including hydrogen and helium; and medical and specialty gases for the metal, glass, chemical processing, food processing, healthcare, steel, general manufacturing, and petroleum and natural gas industries. This segment also offers respiratory therapies, home medical equipment, and infusion services primarily in Europe. Its Tonnage Gases segment provides hydrogen, carbon monoxide, nitrogen, oxygen, and syngas to the energy production and refining, chemical, and metallurgical industries; and produces dinitrotoluene used in the manufacture of a precursor of polyurethane foam. The company?s Electronics and Performance Materials segment offers nitrogen trifluoride, silane, arsine, phosphine, white ammonia, silicon tetra fluoride, carbon tetrafluoride, hexafluoromethane, critical etch gases, and tungsten hexafluoride; and tonnage gases, specialty chemicals, and services and equipment for the manufacture of silicon and compound semiconductors, thin film transistor liquid crystal displays, and photovoltaic devices. This segment also provides performance materials for a range of products, including coatings, inks, adhesives, civil engineering, personal care, institutional and industrial cleaning, mining, oil refining, and polyurethanes. Its Equipment and Energy segment designs and manufactures cryogenic equipment for air separation, hydrocarbon recovery and purification, natural gas liquefaction, and helium distribution; and offers plant design, engineering, procurement, and construction management services for the chemical and petrochemical manufacturing, oil and gas recovery an! d processing, and steel and primary metals processing industries. The company was founded in 1940 and is based in Al l entown, Pennsylvania.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Tom Rojas and Maria Armental var popups = dojo.query(".socialByline .popC"); ]

  Air Products & Chemicals Inc.(APD) said its fiscal third-quarter profit rose 8.9% on stronger revenue, boosted by higher volumes across all business segments. The company also narrowed its earnings outlook for the fiscal year. Shares were inactive premarket.

• [By Garrett Cook]

  Air Products & Chemicals (NYSE: APD) shares were also up, gaining 7.17 percent to $130.32 after the company named Rockwood's Seifi Ghasemi as its new chairman, president and CEO.

• [By Ben Levisohn]

  Air Products & Chemicals’ (APD) gain is Rockwood Holdings’ (ROC) loss after Air Products hired away Rockwood’s CEO Seifi Ghasemi to run the chemical company.

  REUTERS

  Oppenheimer’s Edward Yang and Luis Amadeo explain why poaching Ghasemi from Rockwood is good news for Air Products & Chemicals:

  Mr. Ghasemi led Rockwood Holdings through its divestiture of seven “non-strategic” businesses (Advanced Ceramics, Clay Additives, TiO2 and four other) for a total enterprise value of ~$3.9B. While his experience in industrial gases was the key consideration, his hiring could signal that Air Products & Chemicals may be open to divestitures, which have been anticipated by activist investors.

  Although Air Products & Chemicals has not expressed intentions to divest any of its businesses, investors have periodically questioned whether or not Air Products & Chemicals should sell its volatile Electronics business (~17% of sales), which is more cyclical than its core industrial gases business.

  As a reminder, Air Products & Chemicals was in the low $90s when activist Bill Ackman told investors in July 20! 13 that h! e had taken a major position in a large-cap, investment-grade US corporation. Since then Air Products & Chemicals has closed its valuation gap with Praxair (PX), although restructuring has been limited so far.

  The one problem: Air Products & Chemicals valuation. “[Air Products & Chemicals] has generally been at a discount to [Praxair] in the last five years due to its mix and more volatile performance, but closed the gap last year on activist involvement and potential restructuring,” Yang and Amadeo note. Air Products & Chemicals trades at 21 times 2015 earnings, in line with Airgas’s (ARG) P/E ratio of 21.5 but well above Praxair’s 18.5 times.

  Shares of Air Products & Chemicals have jumped 6.8% to $129.97 at 12:03 p.m. tod

source from Top Stocks For 2015:http://www.topstocksblog.com/best-chemical-stocks-to-invest-in-2015.html