Higher Nickel Price Saving Sheritt from Activist Shareholder

Bloomberg reported that higher nickel prices are helping Sheritt International Corp. (TSX:S) ward off an attack from activist shareholder George Armoyan.

Armoyan is trying to convince other investors to replace three of Sheritt’s directors with himself and two others, but, according to Taylor Asset Management Inc.’s David Taylor, “[t]he nickel price has taken the urgency out of his story.”

As quoted in the market news:

‘I think for George, the worst thing that could have happened was nickel prices went up,’ David Taylor, the Toronto- based chief investment officer of Taylor Asset Management Inc., said by telephone last week. ‘He would have had a much better chance if this stock was still hovering around three bucks.’

Sherritt, which closed yesterday at C$4.64 in Toronto, has advanced 25 percent this year on an Indonesian ban on nickel-ore exports. The threat of wider economic sanctions on Russia for President Vladimir Putin’s annexation of Crimea and skepticism of his efforts to defuse tensions in eastern Ukraine also lifted the price of the stainless-steel ingredient. Nickel generated 50 percent of Sherritt’s first-quarter sales, the company said yesterday in its earnings statement.

Click here to read the full Bloomberg report.