This is not investment advice and is general in nature. Do your own research before taking any positions in the securities listed below. You should consider your financial situation and goals before making investment decisions.
This article covers $GWA, $JDO, $AUB, $RIC, $MAF, $OBL, $WTC and $RFG. The purpose is to zoom in on particular points of the results, not to go through them in their entirety
$GWA – Not the world's best business but cash conversion was always going to get better than FY22
Still concentrated on Reece: Despite the iconic names that GWA provide (Caroma, Dorf etc) they are very exposed to certain distribution channels
23% of their sales are Reece
60% from 4 clients
Whilst the commentary from Reece does not appear to be aggressively destocking FY22 was certainly peak inventory levels
Cycling better cash: As somewhat shown in the inventory levels, prior year cash conversion was not great. Cash conversion went from 52% to 113% this year - a great thing for dividend players
New/cheaper product TBC: GWA moved into lower-priced items. Whilst I do not think this is adverse for brand/margin, I think it's early days as to whether this will drive growth going forward
Conclusion - Strategically you are better with Reece who has the power in this relationship. However, short term, I must commend how much cash GWA is spinning off and their valuation is far less demanding than Reece's
$JDO – Levered to CRE (bad), TFF roll-off (bad) and 5% ROE (bad)
Short-cutted growth via CRE: $JDO has mentioned 40% of losses come from CRE lending, however, their behaviour directly conflicts this mantra:
JDO loan book = 23% CRE vs 7-8% for Big 4
Whilst they look to unwind this as a % of total loans; management focused on justifying that these loans are not CBD office or construction stage assets
Timing with update: Whilst they benefitted from the TFF staying in place for longer, emotively it is not ideal that Pepper/Liberty/other non-banks were bearish about the outlook 6-months ago and $JDO only just flagged lower NIM
TD attraction being tested: $JDO has flagged that they can still grow deposits without sitting at the top for deposit rates. It remains to be seen if they can do so
Conclusion - With shrinking NIM, c.5% ROE and a chunky valuation, I would consider the $JDO result just a touch better than $IRE's
$AUB - Tyser's organic growth & debt paydown are totally deliverable
Noting the juicy multiples that $AUB and $SDF trade, I still listened to their results.
Hard - Tysers continuing to cycle growth: In 2022, Tysers returns were a major concern. However in 2023, I see this as follows:
Tysers earn EBIT margin 5% lower than AU peers (26% vs. 31%)
AU has seen 7-9% growth in premium costs, anecdotally UK could deliver the same
Based on a high H1'23 result - growth of 14-17% is plausible because a large % of H1'23 came from organic growth.
Medium - AU Agency growth: On the earnings call, management said Strata and General Commercial did well – whilst Specialty was lagging. On balance - high single-digit growth is plausible
Easy part - deleveraging: They currently have $500m of Group Debt, costing them BBSW + >4% margin. An easy win is to cut the dividend and pay down this debt
Conclusion - Whilst I maintain that $AUB multiple is lofty, the pay-down of debt with strong organic Tysers result has maintained my interest in the stock. I will likely average into this one.
$RIC - A well-managed cyclical. Just don't forget it's a cyclical
If you had followed Twiggy into $RIC, you would have made 2x from 2021. Now c.$700m business, I am sure the Graincorp team rue the day they did not follow up with their $235m bid in 2018.
Despite their recent run, it is important to remember $RIC is cyclical in nature (as shown from their P&L below)
Short-term
Pricing this business short-term is relatively simple:
Growth - Normalisation of Tallow price has a $(3)m impact in FY24
3% NPAT margin
Capex
Maintenance capex is $10 - 15m
Growth capex <$15m (given they spent big in FY23)
WC = $30-$50m (noting it was a lean yr for NWC)
Divestments/LTIP = Limited, given these featured in 2022 and 2023 respectively
Long term
Holding this longer term is a punt on whether the "food shortage" theme will stay around for long. I would envisage that sales prices, not mill volumes, will be the biggest driver for that punt.
Conclusion - I am on the sidelines for this one. Still, I found these results quite useful in quantifying the short-term performance of $RIC
$MAF- Redcape is less important. Curious to know more about Blue Elephant...
I look at $MAF as a few moving parts. However, for $MAF that is the best way:
Migration FUM (Various): They are pairing back their exposure to migration FUM. Whilst I consider it unlikely the gov will mess with these visas I would put this in the same bucket as $MMS/$SIQ - there is higher reg risk than you think
31% Today - Their Exposure to Migration FUM
18% by 2026 - Growing to $15bn (with nil Migration FUM)
Hospitality ($1.8bn) Despite the ire around Redcape freezing redemptions, this does happen in these unlisted funds. In terms of the economics of Redcape, I consider the following:
PF -They have booked PF for 6 years at 16% IRR. I see a much smaller PF going forward (noting it is 20% over 10%)
AUM - Despite the reported "7% cap rate", I consider valuation decline will be managed by $MAF and the banks (noting it is heavily geared)
RE ($2.6bn): The way I view this are:
Liquidity pools for their assets in SA and ACT are weaker
Cap rates will blow out more for secondary locations
They face some tenants issues (e.g. Scotts Refrigeration)
However, despite the fact I don't per se consider these to be great assets - they have done well out of secondary assets in the cycle. Plus if they $MAF can buy another "Armada"-style FUM platform it will be a win
Credit ($3.3bn): Breaking it up into its individual parts, noting Finsure will likely be less important in the future
Finsure - low-margin aggregator that has impressively now got 15% mkt share. Whilst I do not consider this to be the major P&L driver of their future, I think develops their credit skillset & is relatively low-risk
MA Bank - whilst interesting, this is early days. I think they will more likely take share from low-quality players instead of
Blue Elephant - Given the size of the US credit market, I think it would be foolish to not attempt to break into this market with a 'relatively' small acquisition. However, I considered the optimistic nature of management talking about the US was concerning because
The acquired book value of Blue Elephant was nil; they paid A$13.1m (including contingent consideration) and 100% was recognised in Goodwill
I understand the Manager will be capital light, however, I thought there would be some embedded earnings/carry in the A$275m of FUM
Limited details about the contingent consideration totalling US$3.7 million (AU$5.6 million)
This business has been in operation for 10yrs and grown to A$275m doing micro-deals, can $MAF scale it to the $Bn of FUM they are hoping
Conclusion - I need to see additional flows into Blue Elephant and diversification away from HNW migration before I pile in. So I am on pause for now (albeit noting a 18x multiple is not demanding)
$OBL - Market wants cash, not huge embedded PFs
I have not analysed these results to the same extent of the other companies but I think it needs to be said
$OBLis a really impressive fund manager who is moving to a more "capital light" business model
Currently, their realisation of legacy assets is TOO slow
HC 1 LLC & Omni Bridgeway (Fund 1) received $75m in proceeds
Excluding the cash outflows were $110m
They currently have $150m of cash in the bank (i.e. <12mnths assuming static gearing)
Conclusion - I do not want management to spout out IEV/EPV figures for now. They need to focus on the cash runway for now
$WTC - Obviously they are incredible. My reservations are around developer onboarding and NA Road/Intermodal Acquisitions
Now a $23.9bn company, this is covered in a huge amount of detail, so I will keep this brief
Negative things
In the last 12 months, $WTC headcount has grown from 2k to 3k FTE. Within this, approximately 800 of 1,000 new staff are software developers. When you read Glassdoor the reviews are not glowing in terms of their cloud implementation and tech stack. I think this will lead to teething pains.
Acquisitions are diluting their EBITDA margin and Richard White's comments on the results suggest - Cargowise did not adequately service road transport. However, he was vague as to how Envase/Blume will deliver comparable 50% margin. To expand on what has been acquired:
Envase acquired for US$230m in Jan 23 is a provider of transport management system software for intermodal trucking and landside logistics in North America. Envase's solutions automate and provide visibility for the movement of containers across all aspects of import and export haulage operations from port and rail terminals to destination.
Blume was acquired for US$414m in Feb 2023 is a provider of a solution facilitating intermodal rail in North America. They manage intermodal containers and chassis on behalf of 6 of the 7 Class 1 US railroads, ocean carriers and other intermodal equipment providers, including global freight forwarders and BCOs.
As you can see these 2 x acquisitions strategically make sense to their stack but I do not know on economics
Positive things
Morgan Stanley did a note around the impact of CargoWise on DSV and the key takeaways were:
DSV employees use c.70% of the time (vs. most tech which is 70%)
Getting M&A synergies is hugely more possible with Cargowise
After their results they signed FedEx's global rollout and this will likely help the used case for large legacy customers to transition global
Conclusion - I genuinely do not have an "edge" on Wisetech. My very simple thesis is, priced at 19x 2024 Revenue, the business execution needs to be perfect. I consider the likely difficulties with onboarding >800 developers, extracting higher margin from Envase and Blume and moving customers beyond just the Cargowise suite to be difficult.
I do not consider a "few bad Glassdoor reviews" to be a dealbreaker. However, I do know that they are not running best in class tech which I believe warrants some execution risk
$RFG - If restructuring is done, they are crazy cheap. But no one believes that restructuring is done
1. Do we trust restructuring is over: Stealing this summary from twitter, you can see they have been 'restructuring' since 2019. Some of these factors are once off (e.g. Cafe2U impairment, ACCC fines & restructuring legal costs) - but you could forgive me for being dubious that restructuring costs are over
2. How do the divisions perform:
Whilst there are A LOT of possible drivers for future earnings for this business (e.g. UberEats Rack'Em sales, Pizza revamp, DK roll-out, Baker shortage etc etc) I do not think the business will grow more than 6-8% because the auditors approved that for their forecast
3. Most of the muddiness should not be there in FY24 Looking at the below comparison of FY22 to 23,
I like to think P&L will be as follows:
EBITDA grows 6%
Restructuring = AASB15 & 16 impact
Run-rate impairment = $(5)m
ACCC costs = Nil
Amort & Finance = Static
So this blunt approach would imply making $9-10m of PBT in FY24 (with likely minimal tax payable). So this would imply a 12x multiple today.which is not a BARGAIN. Of course, if there's no further impairment/restructuring it is a different story but I cannot assume that
Conclusion - The whole thesis for buying this is nil impairment, nil restructuring and nil ACCC costs. Otherwise at 12x forward earnings - it is still overpriced. I do not think P/NTA is relevant for this business (given their impairment track record). The only big positive I see is that they have enough $ to avoid an imminent fundraise.
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