Market Musings 29/8/2012

It has been another busy day on the results front in Ireland.

 

To start things off, Paddy Power released strong H1 results, with earnings rising 25%. This was despite start-up losses of €6.3m for four new online ventures and some adverse sports results. Net revenue increased in all five divisions (Online, Online Australia, Irish Retail, UK Retail and Telephone) by between 13 and 47%, which is an impressive performance. Also impressive is its branding efforts – in the year to date Paddy Power has increased its Facebook fans by 445% to 251k, Twitter followers by 308% to 133k and YouTube views by 186% to 13m. This gives the group an expanded audience to market its online offering to. As noted above, Paddy Power is investing heavily in improving its offering, particularly on the online side, while it is expanding into new markets. This increased investment is presumably why we aren’t seeing an upgrade to full year earnings guidance today from management despite the strong momentum evident across the group, however, as this investment enhances the longer-term profit outlook for the group investors shouldn’t be particularly concerned about it.

 

Grafton also released its interim results this morning. Reported revenues climbed 5%, but self-help measures on the cost side meant that operating profits increased by just over 19%. In addition, the group’s cash flow generation was impressive – Grafton generated operating cash flow of €55m, well ahead of its €30m in operating profits, as it reduced investment in working capital by €13.5m – a particularly impressive achievement given the increase in revenue. Net debt has reduced by €25m in the year to date to just €201m. There were significant variations in terms of the performance of Grafton’s main operating units. In the UK, revenues and operating profits rose 4% and 12% in constant currency terms, despite a tough market backdrop. In its small Belgian business, which accounts for circa 1.5% of group revenues, profits were flat despite a big increase (albeit off a small base) in sales. In Ireland, conditions remain very challenging – despite many of its competitors having reduced their presence in the market, Grafton’s merchanting revenues were -9% in H1 2012 while retailing revenue fell by 12% in the same period. Cost reduction measures helped to soften the impact on the bottom line. In all, the key message from these results for me is that Grafton is doing all the right things on the cash generation and cost fronts, but the benefits of this are being tempered by difficult end-markets.

 

Switching to food, Glanbia made two announcements this morning. The first being its interim results, which revealed a strong performance on the nutrition side allied to favourable currency effects (reporting earnings were +8.4%, but just +1.3% in constant currency terms). Management has hiked its full year (constant currency) earnings growth outlook from the previous 5-7% range to 8-10%. The second announcement relates to the restructuring of its Dairy Ireland business. Assuming it gets cleared by the various stakeholders, there may be a near-term share price overhang as the Co-op (Glanbia’s biggest shareholder) sells a total of 6% of its stock, while there may be further downward pressure as the Co-op distributes a further 7% of the company to farmers, some of whom may sell their shares. However, in the longer term the market should reward the improved liquidity, free-float and stability of earnings arising from this restructuring of Glanbia’s Irish dairy business.

 

In the financial sector, KBC reduced its 1 year Irish deposit rate by 30bps. This is positive news for banks operating in Ireland as it should help making the task of rebuilding net interest margins across the sector a little easier.

 

(Disclaimer: I am a shareholder in PTSB plc) Speaking of Irish banks’ margins, interim results this morning from PTSB reveal a sharp decline in the NIM since the start of the year. In 2011 PTSB’s net interest margin was 92bps, but this has fallen to 76bps in H1 2012, due mainly to higher deposit costs. Total customer accounts and deposits have increased by €2.2bn in the year to date, with the majority of this due to corporate deposits (the vast majority, if you exclude the customer balances received following the acquisition of Northern Rock’s Irish deposit book), which is a welcome development. PTSB’s LDR fell to 190% at end-June from 227% at end-2011, so still unsustainably high but moving in the right direction at least. Asset quality deteriorated further since the start of the year, with 14.1% of mortgages in arrears of greater than 90 days at the end of June (12.0% at end-2011). The weighted average loan-to-value across PTSB’s mortgage book is 113%, with Irish owner-occupied at 115% and Irish buy-to-let at 137% (UK owner-occupied is 86% while UK BTL is 87%), which points to further pain ahead for the bank. In terms of self-help measures, operating expenses at PTSB were flat year-on-year at €136m, but even a significant reduction in this would be a drop in the ocean compared to the challenges in the loan book. One potential source of optimism is its excess capital – the total capital ratio was 21.5% at the end of June, well above the Central Bank’s minimum target of 10.5%. However, while the excess funds, at €2.2bn, are more than twice the group’s market capitalisation, further impairment charges will eat into this.