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.
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How will the new tariffs impact CSL shares?
It seems Bell Potter shares the confidence expressed by 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 into 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, as nearly all big pharma companies have done.
Price target reduction
Although Bell Potter doesn't view these new tariffs as a threat to CSL's revenue, the broker reduced its price target.
The broker has maintained a hold recommendation on the company and updated its price target to $155 (previously $175).
From today's opening price of approximately $142, this indicates a potential upside of 9%.
The broker said that 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.
