2014 – The Great Irish Share Valuation Project (Part III)

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Allied Irish Banks, Clontarf Energy, Fastnet Oil & Gas, ICON, Irish shares, Irish Stock Exchange, Irish value investing, ISEQ, Kerry Group, portfolio performance, Providence Resources, Ryanair Holdings, TGISVP, The Great Irish Share Valuation Project, Total Produce

Continued from here:

Company:   Kerry Group

Prior Post(s):   2012 & 2013

Ticker:   KYG:ID

Price:   EUR 51.60

So, here I am again – eyeballing Kerry’s valuation, and searching for supporting evidence in its accounts. But it’s nowhere to be found… Now I think about it, maybe all the big Irish food/agri companies will end up looking wildly over-valued to my jaundiced eye? This investor homage perplexes me – surely someone recalls how little respect these companies commanded in the past?! Well, perhaps they were different beasts then – but I don’t believe they’ve (fully) delivered on what they promised, when they embarked on this multi-year process of portfolio rationalization & re-configuration. And I certainly don’t believe they’ve grown into their current valuations either.

Then again, maybe I shouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth! Now Donegal Investment Group (DCP:ID) has ditched its dairy business, and is looking to shed non-core assets & move up the value chain, surely it’s on the verge of a similar multiple? Hmmm, so what’s a 20 P/E worth to DCP?! 🙂

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2014 – The Great Irish Share Valuation Project (Part II)

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Circle Oil, Dalradian Resources, IFG Group, Irish shares, Irish Stock Exchange, Irish value investing, ISEQ, Merrion Pharmaceuticals, Ovoca Gold, portfolio performance, Prime Active Capital, REACT Energy, TGISVP, The Great Irish Share Valuation Project, UTV Media

Continued from here. As usual, I encourage you also click on the 2012 & 2013 links for each company, to add some valuable colour/background. Now, let’s jump right in:

Company:   Circle Oil

Prior Post(s):   2012 & 2013

Ticker:   COP:LN

Price:   GBP 20.625p

Look at Circle Oil’s latest interims, what’s not to like? Revenue up 20%, EBITDA up 34%, and cash generated from operations (after working capital changes) up 69%. And if you annualize net profit, Circle’s trading on a 6.6 P/E! But it’s not as simple as that… Focusing on a P/E ratio’s a rather pointless (& misleading) exercise when it comes to junior resource companies. [Well, most don’t have any ‘E’ anyway!] Even if they’re fortunate enough to be producers, they’re often melting ice-cubes – i.e. they’re exploiting a (sometimes rapidly) depleting reserve base. Basically, they haven’t diversified enough, spent enough, and/or mastered the art of reserve replacement. That’s how the majors play the game, of course – but for the juniors, it’s much more of a lucky (& lumpy) game. This is one of the main issues Circle faces right now.

[Well, two other big issues: i) About 27% of its shareholder base remains a potential stock over-hang – Libya Oil Holdings owns 18%, while Kaupthing Bank owns 9% – not surprisingly, both stakes are essentially ‘frozen’! And: ii) Investors are still leery of the fact a majority of Circle’s production is in Egypt. Maybe a little unfairly, as the company doesn’t appear to have suffered any disruption/interference to date. But it does suffer from another long-standing Egyptian problem…getting paid! Fortunately, the situation’s stabilized somewhat, but Circle continues to have more than 6 mths of trade receivables outstanding].

At the current production rate, Circle’s only got about 6-7 yrs of reserves left. That’s not something you can tag with a P/E ratio! And despite a $42 M pa exploration/capex spend, it hasn’t managed to put new reserves on the board recently. OK, I’m probably being a little harsh here – despite this spend, the company’s actually generating positive free cash flow. Far better than most junior resource companies out there…OK, we all know 9 out of 10 juniors are rubbish anyway! Because of this reserve depletion, and COP’s current (relatively small) market cap, I’ll continue to value it on an asset basis.

As of mid-2013, net 2P reserves were down to 16.3 M boe. No allocation between proved & probable is provided, so let’s assume a 50:50 split & my usual $10 & $5 per boe (respective) in-the-ground valuations. There’s $30.6 M of cash on hand, and let’s include net trade receivables of 20.2 M. [That’s being kind – Egyptian receivables will likely remain a semi-permanent & illiquid asset]. We then offset 11.6 M of bank debt, and a 30 M convertible loan. [This may ultimately become equity, but the share price continues to trade below the loan’s conversion prices]. That gives us:

2014 – The Great Irish Share Valuation Project (Part I)

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Abbey plc, Aminex, Andor Technology, Connemara Mining Company, DCC, Irish shares, Irish Stock Exchange, Irish value investing, ISEQ, portfolio performance, Smurfit Kappa Group, TGISVP, The Great Irish Share Valuation Project, UDG Healthcare, US Oil & Gas

Thanks, I’ve received some great feedback & encouragement from readers in the past couple of weeks…so why not, let’s rock this TGISVP bitch all over again! Despite the exclusive focus on Irish stocks, I’m also hoping to see a lot of international readers checking in (& commenting) on these posts. For two good reasons, I hope:

i) Regardless of my individual price targets, many readers have highlighted their appreciation of the wide variety of valuation techniques & perspectives I’ve employed here across a broad spectrum of companies. I’ll try to place even more emphasis on the valuation process this year, so hopefully this project will prove interesting to a far wider readership.

ii) I mean, have you noticed the Irish market – it’s bloody on fire! The ISEQ was up +17.1% in 2012, and nearly doubled that return in 2013 (+33.6%) – um, like wow! And to top it all, my TGISVP portfolios actually out-performed the index, across the board in 2012 & on average in 2013. Uhoh, I think I’m scaring the value investors away…

However, it’s worth remembering I’ve been bullish on Irish stocks for a couple of years now – but a lot of investors really only started to pay attention last year. And much of the overseas interest to date, for example, has been primarily focused on (distressed) property & loans – rather than equities. So, arguably, we may only be reaching a point now where sentiment & interest in the Irish market’s fully blossoming. It’s also worth highlighting the rather unique economic & fiscal abyss the market’s rallying out of – in fact, the ISEQ remains 55% below its May-2007 highs.

Now, I hasten to add – I’m not actually making a specific ISEQ call here. I usually don’t think about indices in that manner (& often find the main indices too expensive anyway). I prefer to get comfortable with the current macro backdrop – as opposed to making macro predictions. [A fool’s game – noting current growth forecasts, and historical error ranges, all those highly-paid forecasters are really telling you is that developed market growth may be positive…or, um, negative!] Presuming a market passes enough macro hurdles, I’ll usually ignore the index & simply focus on stock-picking. Exactly as I’ll be doing here – though it will surely prove tempting to draw some overall market conclusion(s) near the end of the valuation stage (of this project).