Wednesday, February 10, 2010

A better way to play the advertising recovery

It is fast becoming fashionable to be long the imminent advertising recovery. Formerly must-avoid companies such as WPP, ITV, TF1, ProSieben are fast becoming consensus buys both on the buy-side and the sell side. Personally, I do not have a strong view as to the strength of the advertising recovery (there is likely to be some recovery seeing as global spend was down something like 7-8% last year). However, what I am a lot more confident about is that there is a much better way of playing the advertising recovery than through the above shares, providing one is willing to go some way down the market cap curve.

M&C Saatchi is a small aim listed advertising agency, that floated back in 2005. It was founded by the Saatchi brothers after they were kicked out of the former Saatchi & Saatchi in the 1990s following a shareholder revolt. The company has around £100m in sales, on which they made just under £14m of operating profit in 2008, although the true underlying operating profit is actually somewhat higher due to the start-up losses in some geographies. The company, unlike the behemoths (WPP, Omnicom, Publicis etc.) has an organic growth strategy, which means they actually start from scratch when they go into new markets rather than buying up existing players. This means they grow slow, but, over time, should generate decent shareholder returns provided they execute the strategy effectively (advertising agencies generate high returns on capital so if they can genuinely grow organically, that is good). Sixty per cent of the profit comes from the UK, where they actually produced a very respectable 16.5% margin in 2008. Margins in the other regions are lower (generally sub 10%) as these regions are growing and are less mature in terms of the cost base.

So why is this company interesting? Answer: it is extremely attractively valued.

Although this year sales and margins will be down (likely around 10% EBIT margin), on any kind of “normalised” valuation, the shares do look very cheap. For example, a conservative valuation approach might look something like this: Subtract 10% from 2008 sales = £94m, apply a 12% operating margin to this (which is 150 bps below the peak) and add back start up losses, set capex equal to depreciation and tax at 30%, all of which leaves approximately £10m of normalised earnings. If I then use a 12% discount rate (or 8.3X p/e) and add in the net cash I am still getting 20% upside to the shares (note this is after capitalising operating leases).

20% upside may not sound like that much, but actually when you consider how conservative the above assumptions are it is actually very attractive indeed. For example, most sell side analysts are already assuming WPP and Publicis return to more or less peak margins, and even on these assumptions they are still being valued at or over 10X p/e. Moreover, the revenue assumptions for these companies are also much more favourable. If I were to assume that M&C Saatchi could return to 2008 margins, hold revenues flat, and value this on 10X than 8.3X, then I would have almost 100% upside to fair value.

Now admittedly that is probably too optimistic, as historically the M&C Saatchi shares have been valued at a discount to peers such as WPP. But generally the discount has been a lot lower than it is currently (see chart). All in all, these shares look like good value to me, with easily 30-50% upside to intrinsic value. The main risk is the asset light nature of the business. It is not really possible to value a business such as this on the basis of its assets as they walk in and out of the door every day. Therefore, one is always vulnerable to key person losses which may well be followed by big account losses. But this is risk is easily compensated for by the attractive valuation in my view.

Wednesday, January 13, 2010

Long term equity indicator turns negative

The primary long term asset allocation indicator that I use for equities has recently gone negative for the first time since the crisis began. The cyclically adjusted p/e ratio averages the last ten years earnings in real terms and compares them to the current price. It is far superior to one year p/e ratios as it effectively smoothes out for economic cycles. Indeed, one year p/e ratios have been shown to have no predictive power at all with regard to future equity market returns.

I take the publicly available Robert Shiller data on the US market which shows real earnings and index levels going back to 1871. I then look at the real return for every individual one, two and ten year period and compare this with the cyclically adjusted p/e ratio at the start of the period. Obviously, the idea is that subsequent returns should be lower when the starting valuation is higher and vice versa.

What I have found by playing around with the data series is that looking at quartiles provides a fairly good indicator. For example, if I take every reading where the cyclically adjusted p/e ratio is in the bottom quartile, I find that the average subsequent real compound annual return (CAGR) is 10% for the following year, 9% for the following 2 year period and 6.6% for the following 10 year period. This is from a total of 387 observations (the data set is monthly). If, on the other hand, I take every reading where the cyclically adjusted p/e ratio is in the top quartile, I find that the average subsequent real CAGR is barely 0% for each of the one year, two year and ten year periods.

This tells me that, statistically speaking, I should be reducing equity holdings when the cyclically adjusted p/e moves into the top quartile. Unfortunately, according to the Shiller data, the ratio for US market has just in the past month moved back into the top quartile for the first time since the crisis began. So prospects for long term equity returns don’t look that rosy any more.

Friday, December 25, 2009

Forecasting obsessions

This article from the FT, and the research that it refers to to, nicely illustrates what I think is one of the biggest myths of investing:

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/21c20d22-effe-11de-833d-00144feab49a.html?nclick_check=1

The article refers to a study by academics claiming that analysts' forecasts have no effect on share prices. The authors analyse a load of share price moves following analyst forecast changes and could find no evidence that such changes had any effect on prices. Therefore, the authors conclude, star analysts and stock pickers add no value to investors.

Unfortunately the authors are completely missing the point. The conclusion that forecasts do not move share prices is not particularly surprising. Indeed value investors have long since largely considered accurate forecasting as not a very relevant input to valuation analysis (sometimes it can be interesting to know which way forecasts are going, but they tell you nothing about the underlying value drivers). It implies a degree of knowledge and accuracy that is simply not there. Furthermore, study after study has shown how pathetic analyst attempts at forecasting earnings actually are (e.g. James Montier's many studies). They are almost as bad as economists' attempts at forecasting GDP. Therefore why should we be surprised that the market takes no notice of forecasts?

The value added part of fundamental stock analysis comes by identifying genuinely undervalued securities, not by forecasting what next year's eps is going to be. To do this requires accurately valuing the company's assets, the earnings power and, where appropriate, any long term growth prospects. Once this process is completed the investor looks to buy at a discount to this value, providing margin of safety. Value investors rarely make any attempt to forecast earnings, expect perhaps for the purpose of scenario analysis.

That said, for all the misconceptions surrounding the forecast obsession, from a value investors perspective I hope the fetish prevails. The more analysts spend their time desperately trying to produce more accurate forecasts to base their valuations off, the more likely they are to miss more obvious value opportunities.

Sunday, November 15, 2009

Henry Boot

This is a property construction and land development group that operates mainly in the north of England. Being quite small (£140m mc) and family controlled, it tends to fall under the radar of most stock brokers and investment analysts (in fact there is only one house that covers the shares, and the are the house brokers).

The land development business is main reason why the shares are interesting (http://www.hallamland.co.uk/). The business model is to buy land cheaply, usually from from farmers under option or agency agreements, invest in getting the land through the planning system (can take 10-15 years), and then eventually selling it on, usually to one of the major UK housebuilders. The business has a long and good track record of doing this successfully. Current trading is depressed, both because of the economy, and also because the housebuilders themselves are not in a position to buy any new land.

However, the market does not appear to be properly valuing the land business. On the balance sheet, the only value assigned to the land development business is the inventory entry, which consists of the amount originally paid for the land (tiny in comparison to what is sold for) plus any capitalised planning costs that have gone into specific acreage that the company expects to gain planning permission on. As at the last balance sheet reporting date, this amounted to £54m. Over the three year period 2006-8, total land profits were over £70m. It also possible to verify that the £54m entry is extremely conservative by conducting a simple discounted cash flow model on the current land bank. I have used the following information and assumptions provided by the company: 1666 acres owned outright, 6500 acres under option (where the company has 15% ownership interest), 50% success rate, 50% usable land per acre (the rest is car parks, communual areas etc.), 10 units per acre, £40,000 site value per unit on sale. With a 30% tax rate this suggests a normalised profit to the company of £12.3m per annum. Spread this out over 15 years and discount at 10% to get a valuation of £94m. Alternatively, if I assume that all land sold is replaced with new inventory, and then value the cash flow on a perpuity basis (10% discount rate), the valuation rises to £112.

It is possible to verify that the market undervaluing the land business by deducting the value of all the compnay's other assets from the enterprise value and seeing what is left. Fortunately, the company's other assets are fairly straightforward and easy to value.

The other major asset is the property portfolio, which consists of a series of retail parks, warehouses etc mostly in the north of England. At the last reported balance sheet date, this was valued at £117.2m, following a year and a half of hefty rightdowns (-£20m in 2008 and -£24m in H1 2009). Additional to this, the company had just over £70m of property under construction which, when complete, would move to the propety investment portfolio. This is valued at cost, which means it might be reasomable to expect some writedown on completion, although I have been advised by the company that this is unlikely to be the case as they already have a large provision in the balance sheet (£11m). The other way of verifying that the propety portfolio is not overvalued is to look at the rent it generates. At the last reported valuation date, the gross rental yield was 9.3%, which is a lot higher than the major UK real estate majors. Although this would partly be expected given that these are lower grade properties in the north of England, it still suggests that the portfolio valuation is pretty reasonable.

The company has three other small assets. Firstly, there is a PFI contract to run the A69 for another 17 years. This is highly defensive, generating just over £2m in profit for the company per annum. Valuing this on a no-growth basis (i.e. 17 years discounted) suggests a value of £17m. In reality there is likely to be some growth suggesting a higher valuation may be fairer. Secondly, the company operates a plant hire business, mainly to the construction and housebuilding sectors. Unsurprisingly this business is on its knees right now. Profit will be negative this year, although cash flow will be positive as they are letting the fleet age by not investing. I value this business by taking a 25% haircut on the net assets, which gives a value of £9m. (note: historically the business has done £1-2m of profit). Finally there is a general construction business, which is also struggling right now. It has made money historically, but clearly the outlook is poor and there are very few assets associated with it (in fact net assets are probabyly negative due to the customer advances that are usually associated with this sort of contracting business). Therefore I give it a zero value.

On the liability side, I am taking the debt at face value at the last reporting date. I am adding £20m to the pension deficit, partly to be conservative, but also because there is a triennal review approaching.

Putting all this together we have:

Investment property and development = £190m
PFI asset = £19m
Banner plant = £9m
Net debt = -54m
Pension = -45m
Net to equity ex Hallam Land = 119m
Market capitalisation = 143m
Implied value of Hallam Land = 24m

From the above it is therefore possible to infer that the market is valuing the land business at merely £25m. As the above analysis has suggested, a conservative going-concern valuation for the land business is more like £95m. Adding this to the valuation suggests a fair value of £214m, or 166p per share or 50% upside.

Conclusion: I think this is enough to justify buying a position in the shares. However, although there is margin of safety here, it must also be conceded that there are factors that could cause loss of capital, in particul a double dip recession combined with a further leg down in the housing market. This would further depress the housebuilding industry and either impair or delay the realisation of value within the land business.

Monday, October 12, 2009

UkrProduct Group

I recently bought shares in this company at 17p. I think it could be a very lucrative investment.

What is it?
The company claims to be the leading branded dairy producer in the Ukraine with over 20% market share. Most of the revenue and profit comes from branded sales. They also have a skimmed milk business, which appears to be considerably lower margin and much more commoditised. The company’s stated strategy is to focus on the branded part of the business. They have historically recorded very respectable EBIT margins and ROCEs and CRFOIs in the 10-15% region. The company is AIM listed, with a current market cap of just under £8m. The balance sheet is strong with a net cash position as at the half year end in June.

Why I am buying it?
Valuation. The shares cropped up on both my deep value screen (shares trading below book value) and my more general Greenblatt screen (shares with high CFROIs on low valuations). This is a fairly unusual occurrence, as deep value ideas tend to be deep value for a reason – i.e. they are loss making or the margins/returns are heavily depressed.

This company trades on 2.6X historic EV/EBIT. However profits will be down this year due to the Ukrainian economy. In the first half, they generated £1.1m of EBIT, which was 11% lower than the same period last year. If I assume a similar level of EBIT in the second half then the valuation multiple would rise to a whopping 3.6X EV/EBIT. Cash flow has been even stronger due to a working capital inflow. Management actually expect an improvement in trading in the second half as the Ukrainian economy appears to have bottomed and they have launched a series of marketing initiatives for their major products.

In the UK the closest comparative company I can think of is Dairy Crest, which is valued at nearer to 9X EV/EBIT. If I put UkrProduct on even half that valuation I get over 40% upside. Interestingly the company has in the past traded on multiples considerably higher than this, suggesting that a valuation closer to Dairy Crest it is not unreasonable for the company’s assets.

Worth noting that a pure balance sheet valuation also suggests considerable upside. At the year end for 2008, the company was carrying £13.3m in inventories, receivables and cash. They also had property, plant and equipment valued at £10.5m. Of this, the depreciated Land and Buildings amounted to £5.3m (last re-valued in 2005), whilst the depreciated vehicle fleet was valued at £1.9m (they appear to own their own vehicles according to the conference call). Excluding all other assets, and subtracting total liabilities of £6.5m leaves an NAV of £14m, versus a current market cap of just under £8m. Therefore, assuming the reported numbers are correct, this investment has considerable margin of safety.

What are the risks?
Two main issues::

1) There are a number of company-specific issues affecting the company this year. Firstly, the depreciation of Hryvnia as the Ukrainian economy crashed has adversely affected the reported GBP numbers this year. Secondly, local producers of hard cheeses cut prices in order to stimulate demand. This has been negative for the company’s sales of processed cheese as consumers have switched from one to the other. Thirdly, Russia implemented a ban on diary imports from Belarus, which has had the effect of directing Belarusian dairy exports to Ukraine instead (particularly butter). To my mind, most of these are temporary issues which, at the very least, should not be expected to negatively impact profits further. The Hryvnia has stabilised, while the Ukrainian economy appears to have bottomed out. I have been unable to find much information on the Belarusian situation, although I cannot imagine that the Belarusian dairy export market is sufficiently large to destroy UkrProduct’s business.

2) The company is AIM listed and does not operate in the UK. Therefore, there is always a chance that it is one big scam. Against this I am encouraged by the company’s disclosure (numerous investor presentations, a results conference call etc.). The management team also own a lot of stock and appear to have a reputable business track record.

All in all, valuation (potential 3-4X upside) appears to more than offset the risk.

Friday, October 9, 2009

Topical question

What is this a chart of?

Two clues:
1) It is a chart of one asset or asset class relative to another
2) The start date is not random

Answer: Global equities total return, versus gold. The start date is the month that Nixon took US off the gold peg, August 1971. Interesting that at the market bottom in March, gold had actually matched the total return of equities over the entire period. Gold provides no income and has no real utility value. It is purely a store of value.

I still cannot figure out what this is telling me, and in particular why gold should suddenly start performing so well only recently. If it were inflation/monetary debasement fears then bond yields should have gone up by now, but they have not. If it were concerns over general financial stability then equities should have performed a lot worse. Yet the most recent rally has seen both gold and equities go up. I cannot explain gold; it remains a mystery to me.

Saturday, September 26, 2009