CSL Ltd (ASX: CSL) shares have been hotly covered this year as the healthcare giant has tumbled to multi-year lows.
Despite this fall, many experts have tipped a recovery for CSL shares.
At the time of writing, CSL shares are hovering close to 52-week lows, closing yesterday at $142.18.
Fresh headwinds have hit the company this week as President Trump announced new 100% tariffs on Australian pharmaceuticals.
CSL said in a statement on Tuesday that it had taken note of the new tariff announcement. However the company said that it was not anticipating a large impact.
Following this news, the team at Bell Potter released updated guidance on CSL shares.
Image source: Getty Images
How will the new tariffs impact CSL shares?
It seems Bell Potter shares the confidence expressed from CSL management. The broker also believes that the new tariffs won't have a large impact on business.
We agree with CSL's initial assessment that the majority of its products are unlikely to be subjected to recently announced US pharmaceutical tariffs. Specifically, plasmaderived therapies (~63% of CSL revenue) appear to be explicitly excluded and CSL's flu vaccine sales (~14% of group) in the US are largely from UK manufacturing facilities, where a 10% tariff (and potentially shifting to 0%) is in place.
The broker said further concessions are also being made to companies that enter onshoring and/or pricing agreements with the US government.
Based on this, it continues to view the threats of tariffs as a ploy to increase US sovereign drug manufacturing and would not be surprised to see CSL enter into an official pricing/onshoring agreement after the recent $1.5b Illinois expansion, like nearly all big pharma companies have done.
Price target reduction
Despite the fact that Bell Potter doesn't view these new tariffs as a threat to CSL revenue, the broker did reduce its price target for CSL shares.
The broker has maintained a hold recommendation on the company, along with an updated price target of $155.00 (previously $175.00).
From today's opening price of approximately $142.00, this indicates a potential upside of 9%.
The broker said while CSL doesn't face the same extent of generic/biosimilar competition as these biopharma peers, it does have a lower growth outlook.
Considering the low-growth outlook in the near-term, risk to FY26 guidance, and our below-consensus FY27 forecasts, we maintain our HOLD recommendation notwithstanding the historically low trading multiple. We don't think CSL is out of the woods just yet. PT is lowered to $155.
