When will the CSL Limited (ASX: CSL) share price reclaim its glory days and rise to its old all-time highs around $330 a share?
It's a good question, to be sure. CSL used to be one of the most exciting blue chip shares on the S&P/ASX 200 Index (ASX: XJO). It gave investors mind-blowing returns for years, rising by more than 20% in 2017, 2018, 2019 and for the first two months of 2020. That helped propel CSL from a mid-tier ASX company to the largest company on the entire Australian share market in just those few years, a mantle it held for a few months last year until Commonwealth Bank of Australia (ASX: CBA) eventually reclaimed the crown.
But a post-COVID world hasn't been too kind to CSL. This ASX 200 healthcare giant last topped out at around $337 a share back in February 2020 – a level we have yet to see reclaimed by CSL. As it stands today, CSL is trading at $310.84 a share, up 1.1% so far. At this share price, CSL is still around 7.6% off of its all-time high, meaning the shares have gone backwards over the past 18 months or so.
So can CSL shares regain their former glory?
Can CSL shares hit their all-time high again?
Well, one expert investor thinks so. Livewire Markets recently asked 7 fund managers to pick a share that they would be happy to buy and hold forever. Ben Clark, of TMS Capital, picked… you guessed it, CSL. Clarke says this is because CSL is a clear market leader in its space, a position he believes the company will hold on to for years to come thanks to its mentality of "aggressively reinvesting to continue to build scale and efficiency".
Clark points out that CSL only has two competitors globally and says "due to the unique industry structure and scale required, I find it hard to see there being a fourth in my lifetime":
Never say never but it's hard to see how it could be disrupted by advancements in technology, blood plasma and its various components are the building blocks of life and the key components of many treatments…
CSL for many years has been investing aggressively into R&D and has a formidable pipeline of products at various stages of development pushing through it… Some won't make it to market, but a future blockbuster drug could definitely be in there and new revenue streams will undoubtedly flow.
So there you have it, an unambiguous and enthusiastic endorsement of CSL as a worthy lifetime 'buy and hold'.
That inherently implies that CSL will indeed see and exceed its all-time highs of around $337 a share at some point in the future. If Clarke's endorsement measures up to its lofty aspirations, this might not take too long either.
At the current CSL share price, this ASX 200 healthcare blue chip has a market capitalisation of $141.6 billion, with a price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio of 43.8 and a dividend yield of 0.95%.
