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.

Market Musings 27/8/2012

(Disclaimer: I am a shareholder in AIB, Bank of Ireland and PTSB) Since my last update I was pleased to see that deposits at Ireland’s covered banks (AIB, Bank of Ireland, PTSB) were +10% year-on-year in July 2012. This is a helpful vote of confidence in the system, given that it suggests that overseas deposits (given the sclerotic domestic economic situation) are returning to the Irish financials.

 

Speaking of Ireland Inc, there has been an intense focus in recent days around the possible introduction of a property tax. Ronan Lyons, who is the most authoritative voice on the Irish property sector, has written a good piece outlining the different considerations around such a measure. I agree with him in principle that we should have such a tax, particularly given that too much of our tax revenues are dependent on flows instead of stock. I say ‘in principle’ because I have difficulty in seeing how Irish people can shoulder yet another tax at this time – we currently have a situation where more than 1 in 5 mortgages are in trouble, while more than 1 in 7 people in the labour force are out of work. Throw in the effects of rising taxes over the past few budgets and falling incomes and I think we could be facing a scenario of mass evasion / people (in many cases justifiably) pleading inability to pay similar to the household charge debacle from earlier this year. Some have argued that a modified ‘property tax’ taking into account incomes should be introduced, but that would in practice only amount to yet another income tax, which will act as a disincentive to work (given the already elevated marginal tax on incomes in Ireland).

 

In the energy sector, I was unsurprised to see a surge in applications for UK North Sea licences following the British government’s reversal of its previous anti-investment stance, which I had been critical of. I hope to do some work on the firms focused on the UK continental shelf (Xcite Energy in particular seems to have a lot of fans) over the coming weeks.

 

In the pharma space, there was an interesting article in The Irish Independent around the prospects for a sale of Elan Corporation that’s worth checking out.

 

(Disclaimer: I am a shareholder in Ryanair plc) In the airline sector, the Irish government made the astonishing revelation that it has yet to formally discuss a sale of its stake in Aer Lingus to Etihad. Considering that a sale of State assets has been agreed with the Troika as part of Ireland’s “bail-out” and Etihad having recently signaled that it may also bid for part of Ryanair’s stake, I would have imagined that Dublin wouldn’t have been slow out of the blocks to have proper talks with the Middle Eastern carrier. This is especially so given that Etihad can effectively only buy either the government’s stake or most of Ryanair’s holding, because even though as a non-EU carrier it can, in theory, buy up to 49% of Aer Lingus, in practice Irish stock exchange rules which say you have to bid for the whole company if you go above 29.9% rules this out for the time being at least (there are some ways of circumventing this, but they would likely prove cumbersome to execute in the short-term).

 

Finally, I was sorry to read that Calum has closed his blog. There is a dearth of high quality blogs in the UK and Ireland covering the stock market and the demise of yet another one is a great shame.

Market Musings 27/7/2012

Blogging has been extremely light as I’m in the final stages of an internship as part of my MBA studies. However, newsflow has been anything but light! So, this blog represents a catch-up on what has caught my eye whenever I’ve been able to find the time to track what’s been happening in the markets this week.

 

(Disclaimer: I am a shareholder in Allied Irish Banks plc and PTSB plc) There was a lot of news out of the Irish financials this week. AIB released its interim results this morning. Overall, AIB has made good progress on deleveraging and deposits, but more work is needed on margins and costs. To take those in turn, I was encouraged to see that the LDR has improved by 13 percentage points to 125% since the start of the year, helped by €3bn of deposit inflows and non-core loanbook disposals. However, the net interest margin has worsened to 1.24% (pre-ELG) from the 1.36% seen in H12011. Hence, it was no surprise to hear management guide that it will raise mortgage rates in the autumn. As things stand, AIB is currently loss-making before even taking provisions into account, and the group will have to address this through a combination of rate hikes and cost take-out measures. Elsewhere,  PTSB revealed further details on its restructuring plans, but given its limited new lending ability and shrinking presence in the market I can’t see it being anything other than a marginal player for quite some time to come.

 

In the energy sector Providence Resources released an exciting update in which it revealed that there may be up to 1.6bn barrels of oil at its Barryroe Field, offshore Cork. Obviously it’s early days yet with this discovery, but it’s a stock that merits taking a look at. Once I’ve completed my internship it’s on my list of stocks to look at in more detail. Elsewhere, its Irish peer Tullow Oil released H1 results that contained few surprises given the level of detail provided in its recent trading update.

 

(Disclaimer: I am a shareholder in Marston’s plc) UK pub group Marston’s released a solid trading update, which revealed a satisfactory performance despite the recent wet weather.

 

Sticking with food and beverage stocks, Glanbia announced the $60m acquisition of a US beverage firm, which looks a perfect fit for its nutrition operations. This is another example of Glanbia’s successful forward integration strategy, which looks well placed to deliver strong returns over time.

 

Another Irish firm on the M&A prowl was United Drug, which acquired a German headquartered contract sales outsourcing firm for €35m, which will fit well within its existing Sales, Marketing & Medical division. An EV/Sales multiple of 0.23x is undemanding for a firm like this, so it looks a good deal to me.

 

(Disclaimer: I am a shareholder in Ryanair plc) Low-cost carrier Easyjet upped its PBT guidance, despite euro weakness, to a range of 280-300m. Prior to that the consensus was £272m. I assume the read-through from this for Ryanair, which reports numbers on Monday, is positive given that the euro weakness is near-term bullish for it (it generates a third of revenues from the UK, while it hedges its fuel and related USD exposures).

 

In the construction space, UK builders merchant group Travis Perkins’ interim results revealed a slowing performance in Q2. Management doesn’t see growth returning until 2014, so it’s not a sector I see a pressing need to gain exposure to anytime soon.

 

(Disclaimer: I am a shareholder in France Telecom plc) There was a lot of news in the telecoms sector. Spain’s Telefonica followed the lead of KPN and cut its dividend. France Telecom released its interim results, in which the firm reiterated its full-year cashflow targets, which is somewhat reassuring. France Telecom is a stock I’ve been negative on for some time and which I am looking to exit in the near future due to its inflexible cost base, intense competitive pressures in its home market and my fear that it will cut its dividend.

 

In the media space UTV announced that it has broadened its partnership with the English Football Association to broadcast rights around the FA Cup, Charity Shield and selected England internationals.

 

Ireland’s Central Statistics Office released its latest data on Irish house prices, which provide few grounds for optimism. While a lot of the recent media commentary has focused on monthly moves, I prefer to look at prices on an annual basis, given that month-on-month moves can be distorted by the small number of transactions happening in the market at this time. The latest data show that Irish house prices declined by 14.4% year-on-year in June 2012. This is a fall of a greater magnitude than what we saw in June 2011 (-12.9% yoy) and June 2010 (-12.4% yoy). The picture in Dublin is even worse (prices -16.4% yoy in June 2012) which is particularly concerning given that the capital will lead the eventual recovery in Irish house prices (due to much tighter supply and it being the economic heart of the country). Overall, I reaffirm my view from last month, namely that I don’t see any obvious catalyst for a sustained improvement in Irish property prices in the near term.

Market Musings 21/7/2012

Since my last update the latest corporate developments have been mostly about Irish companies looking to either move in or move out of other countries. Let’s examine what’s been going on.

 

(Disclaimer: I am a shareholder in Independent News & Media plc) INM confirmed that it has received “informal and unsolicited expressions of interest” for its South African business. With the group’s main lender having reportedly categorised INM as one of its “most challenged corporate relationships“, divestments to strengthen its balance sheet appear to be a must. At the end of 2011 INM had net debt of €427m. If INM were to offload South Africa and its APN stake for €350m (based on media reports on South Africa could fetch and the current market value of APN), this would cut net debt to circa €75m. Add in the €125m current market cap INM is on and it would have an enterprise value of €200m against which the firm would have All-Ireland assets which produced sales and operating profits of €363m and €46m respectively in 2011, which was clearly a tough year for the media sector here. While you would have to adjust the above profits for INM’s group overhead costs, it seems to me that the market is applying a very low multiple to its Island of Ireland division. Divesting its overseas units should draw attention to this and potentially lead to a dramatic re-rating for INM.

 

DCC issued a solid trading update on Friday, which revealed that its Q1 performance was “ahead of budget”. However, management is sticking to its previous full-year earnings guidance, which is reasonable given how heavily skewed its profits are towards the second half of its financial year. To me there was little in the release to change the narrative around the company – DCC’s proposition to investors is a strong balance sheet and a good mix of assets, yielding consistently high returns, trading on an undemanding multiple.

 

(Disclaimer: I am a shareholder in CRH plc) Press reports suggest that CRH may be considering a €1bn+ deal in India. The cement assets in question have a combined capacity of 9.8m tonnes and they would more than treble CRH’s presence in the market if acquired. We’ll have to wait and see if there’s more to this story.

 

(Disclaimer: I am a shareholder in Marston’s plc) TMF’s Tony Luckett wrote an interesting piece on the UK pub sector – only the strong will survive. In it he cites research from CAMRA,  suggesting that the pace of pub closures in the UK may be leveling off. This is an encouraging claim, and it’s something that I’ll keep an eye on to see if the trend continues to improve.

 

(Disclaimer: I am a shareholder in AIB, PTSB and RBS) The Irish banking sector was in focus in recent days. PTSB gave a non-update on its restructuring plans, which contained nothing that wasn’t already in the public domain. My view on PTSB remains that, unless it can heroically engineer a large-scale recapitalisation to pave the way for a step-up in its lending capacity, it is very likely to remain a marginal player in the Irish banking market. I struggle to see why it wasn’t shunted into AIB. Today’s press asks if RBS’ Ulster Bank is gearing up to leave Ireland – I would think this extremely unlikely given the difficulties that would be involved, particularly in terms of time and costs – the problems of moral hazard, deposit flight, extricating the bank out of lengthy contracts, redundancies and so on would make this a very messy process (think of the hassle Lloyds has had with BOSI). I suspect that while Ireland is going to be down the pecking order in terms of capital allocation from RBS’ head office over the coming years, the much lower competition relative to before in the banking sector here means that margins on new lending should be quite attractive whenever the domestic economy and the financial system are restored to vigour. As the third biggest bank in Ireland, RBS should find itself well placed to exploit this future opportunity.

 

In the insurance sector FBD Holdings appointed UK firm Shore Capital as its new joint broker following the sad demise of Bloxham. This is a curious move given that FBD’s core operations are all in Ireland – might FBD be considering a push into Britain?

 

And finally – I was interested to read that 48 tonnes of silver bullion were recovered from a shipwreck off the west coast of Ireland.

Market Musings 16/7/2012

Since my last update there have been quite a few developments around the banking sector. The Irish banks’ reliance on monetary authorities for funding rose marginally in June, but it remains 32% below peak (€187bn in February 2011) levels. Elsewhere, UBS put together an interesting table showing credit and deposit trends across Europe – the deleveraging process for households in Ireland is especially acute relative to other EU member states, while the deposit trends are disappointing, especially given the competitive rates the banks are offering to savers. On that note, with deposit rates looking set to continue to fall as the Irish banks work towards rebuilding their net interest margins, I wonder if this might lead to more deposits moving out of the country over time. Time will tell.

 

(Disclaimer: I am a shareholder in Bank of Ireland, AIB and Permanent TSB) Speaking of Irish banks, I had a look at the liquidity of their shares after noticing a few comments about abnormal price moves. Bank of Ireland has a free float of 85%, compared to the circa 0.2% of AIB and PTSB that is outside of State ownership, so it was no surprise to see that the average daily volume of shares traded in Dublin in Bank of Ireland (33m) is 44 times that of AIB (750k) and 98x PTSB (337k). Considering that, based on where PTSB’s share price closed on Friday (2.5c) the average daily volume traded in that stock is worth less than €10,000 you would want to be careful not to read too much into any daily movements in its share price. The same applies for AIB, where on the same criteria less than €50k worth of stock is traded each day in Dublin.

 

(Disclaimer: I am a shareholder in RBS plc) Elsewhere in the financial space RBS’ planned IPO of Direct Line was the subject of significant media coverage in recent days. Press reports over the weekend suggested that leading private equity firms are circling around RBS’s insurance operation, which generated operating profits of £454m on revenues of £4,072m last year. I think a trade or private equity sale of this business, which is valued at £3-4bn, would be in shareholders’ best interest – particularly given that, with 11 investment banks lined up to advise RBS on an IPO, the fees involved would be substantial if it goes down the listing route.

 

(Disclaimer: I am a shareholder in Independent News & Media plc) Switching to media, TCH announced that it is considering restructuring its debt. The group operates national and local newspapers along with several local radio stations and its quoted competitors include Independent News & Media, UTV Media and Johnston Press. Should any restructuring move lead to closures of underperforming assets there will presumably be opportunities for those three, along with TCH’s unquoted peers, to gain market share.

 

(Disclaimer: I am a shareholder in BP plc)  In the energy space, I am concerned by a report that an Argentinian province is threatening to revoke a licence held by BP’s joint venture, Pan American Energy. The asset in question is Argentina’s largest oil field, while the recent nationalisation of Repsol’s business in that country shows that Argentine politicians are not above taking actions that will ultimately prove ruinous to FDI inflows.

 

Investors Chronicle’s John Ficenec wrote a good piece on the recruitment sector. I’ve been tempted by some of the cheap valuations in the sector of late but am torn by the macroeconomic headwinds. Of course, if there’s any hint of these abating the sector should significantly re-rate, but timing that entry point is easier said than done!

 

(Disclaimer: I am a shareholder in Total Produce plc) In the food sector I note a report saying Total Produce has made a bolt-on acquisition in France. There’s no official word from the company, but assuming the report is accurate I’m guessing the business should add 1% to TOT’s topline with a slightly lower effect (due to: (i) finance costs; (ii) France having a 33.3% corporate tax rate, versus TOT’s current 19.3% effective rate; and (iii) synergy benefits will presumably be lower than they would be in areas where TOT has a more substantial presence) on earnings.

 

Finally, with the US Presidential election only a few months away, I was interested by the results I got on this questionnaire that matches your political views to those of the candidates – supposedly I’m 93% in-tune with Gary Johnson and 88% with Ron Paul! Why don’t you take the questionnaire and see where you stand.