Singer's Elliott targets Canada's Suncor Energy for shakeup

Activist investor Elliott Investment Management is taking aim at Canadian oil producer Suncor Energy Inc., calling for the company to add five new directors and conduct a review of management and its assets.

Activist investor Elliott Investment Management LP is taking aim at Canadian oil producer Suncor Energy Inc., calling for the company to add five new directors and conduct a review of management and its assets. 

Elliott, founded by Paul Singer, said it owns a 3.4 per cent economic stake in Suncor. The Calgary-based company is the worst-performing large oil sands producer in Canada since the beginning of 2021. 

“Suncor now finds itself plagued by repeated operational challenges and safety issues,” Elliott Partner John Pike and Portfolio Manager Mike Tomkins wrote in a letter to the company, which notes “missed production goals, high costs, and, tragically, a number of employee fatalities and other safety incidents.”

Suncor rose 6.4 per cent in early trading Thursday after Elliott’s letter was released, to $44.84 at 9:34 a.m. in Toronto. 

Suncor should review whether it can unlock the value of assets outside the oil sands business, including its retail network of gas stations, Elliott said. The “full upside” of a restructuring plan would put Suncor’s share price at $68, an increase of more than 50 per cent from Wednesday’s close, the firm said in a presentation. 

While the stock has returned 107 per cent since the beginning of last year, those gains have been dwarfed by Canadian Natural Resources Ltd.’s 170 per cent in the same period. Cenovus Energy Inc. has returned 200 per cent and Imperial Oil Ltd. 168 per cent.