Total Produce – A Fresh Perspective

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activist investors, Balmoral International Land Holdings, Carl McCann, empire-building, Fyffes, Greencore Group, intrinsic value, Irish shares, Irish value investing, private equity funds, share buyback, TOT, Total Produce, Warren Buffett

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Total Produce (TOT:ID, TOT:LN) was one of my very first blog write-ups, back in Nov-2011 at EUR 0.39. [And I’ve written about it a number of times since]. Less than two years later, we’ve enjoyed a nice double on the stock – which is now trading within spitting distance of my original EUR 0.882 fair value target. This warrants a fresh perspective… But looking back, now I remember – even then, I offered up a very specific perspective:

So we’re talking a business that really runs itself, just what I like! Particularly as I don’t have great respect for management (except if you compare them say to Greencore Group (GNC:ID) management – whose shareholders may finally be put out of their misery with a potential bid, rumoured to be coming from Dubilier Clayton & Rice). Carl McCann is Chairman, while his brother David’s in the Chairman seat over at TOT’s ‘sister’ company Fyffes (FFY:ID), and neither is really a patch on their father Neil McCann (I was sad to hear he passed away recently) who joined Fyffes in 1948. I think of the crazy worldoffruit.com online effort in the v late 90s (which ‘…received a very positive reaction from within the produce industry and looks set to dramatically change the way in which fresh fruit and vegetables are traded across the globe…’), the lack of earnings growth in the past few years, the ludicrous de-merger of Fyffes, Total Produce & Blackrock (now Balmoral Int’l Land Holdings, whose shares subsequently collapsed & are now delisted), etc.

I also look at the excessive B/S Cash of EUR 89.6 mio, and I’m bemused (and slightly alarmed) to remember a colleague telling me many years ago his impression that having large amounts of Cash on hand appeared to give management the warm and fuzzies, and they appeared to enjoy playing the banks off against each other for deposits (and perhaps even some jolly currency switching). All very well, I confess I’ve been through all that myself professionally, but always felt frustrated at having giant hoards of Cash on hand to invest – in an ideal world, I knew the best thing for shareholders and Return on Equity was to have zero Cash and just come in each day and draw down/pay down on a Debt/CP facility. With TOT, of course, the obvious answer to this Cash is frequent execution of small/medium sized acquisitions across Europe (similar to what DCC (DCC:LN) has done for years in its Energy business) – considering the nature/scope of potential business acquisitions, I think there’s a marvelous opportunity here to hoover up cos and double their operating margins v quickly through cost elimination and economies of scale.

Then of course there’s the silent but deadly fart in the room…finally figuring out it’s time to swallow their pride and reverse the Total Produce/Fyffes break-up – a nil-premium merger is the obvious way to achieve this and I imagine could easily yield 2-3 years of decent EPS growth even if the underlying business remained unchanged. But kudos to management for the 22 mio share buyback last year…! I was impressed, can you please repeat?

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Total Produce & FBD – Results

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Capespan, Combined Operating Ratio, EHEC scare, EPS guidance, FBD Holdings, Total Produce

Total Produce (TOT:ID or LN):

I think yesterday was the first time I’ve posted as a ‘hostage to fortune‘, buying and posting just ahead of a company’s annual results! So where do we stand now?

I was unfortunately expecting to be disappointed by the level of disclosure on certain items: No mention of the dissolution of their Indian JV with Tata – but revenues weren’t significant, and profits were obviously non-existent, and I far prefer they concentrate on a consolidation strategy in Europe, so who cares…

Total Produce – Seeing Green!

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Capespan, Fyffes, stock fungibility, technical analysis, Total Produce

[Reference here, here and here]

Total Produce (TOT:ID or LN) is releasing 2011 Preliminary Results @ 7am tomorrow, Tuesday March 6th. Consensus 2011 EPS appears to be around EUR 0.071, bang on my own estimate. This out-turn would put TOT on a 6.3 P/E – far too cheap for such a defensive stock with plenty of firepower for acquisition led growth!

In fact, one of the cheapest companies they could buy is…themselves! With Fyffes (FFY:ID or LN) buying back 32.2 mio shares in Sep-Nov last year, I was v disappointed to see no such announcement from Total Produce. Especially with such a cheap share price, and when you note they’d EUR 89.6 mio of cash lying idle when they reported their interims. I hope to see some comment/plans in this regard tomorrow – failing that, management definitely needs to justify themselves with a more aggressive future acquisition strategy…

Total Produce – Eat More Fruit!

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Capespan, Net Interest/EBITA, Price/Sales, Total Produce, value investing

Total Produce (TOT:ID)

• Mkt Price:  EUR 0.38
• Mkt Cap:  EUR 125.4 mio
• Net Int/EBITA%:  8.7%
• P/E:  5.3
• P/S:  0.05
• Yield:  4.7%      

With two recent deal announcements, I decided to take another look at my TOT valuation, following on from here and here.

Total Produce – So, What You Buy Down The Market?

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Bidvest, Capespan, IFG Group, Net Interest/EBITA, pdosullivan, Price/Sales, PSG Group, share buyback, Total Produce, Zeder

Total Produce (TOT:ID)

• Mkt Price:  EUR 0.39
• Mkt Cap:  EUR 128.7 mio
• Net Int/EBITA%:  9.0%
• P/E:  5.6
• P/S:  0.05
• Div Yield:  4.6%      

Time to update my recent Total Produce post. First, a shout out to Philip at pdosullivan who emailed me to highlight Total’s increased stake in Capespan Group Ltd. There are some good follow-up comments here also. A good spot – I looked some years back, and somehow concluded Total’s shareholding was in a Capespan sub. rather than the parent company?! Based on this, I mistakenly decided not to revisit this as a component of my TOT investment analysis. Then again, the lack of transparency and disclosure from Total regarding this shareholding is rather infuriating.

Total Produce (TOT:ID) – A Fruity Delight?

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Balmoral International Land, DCC, Fyffes, Greencore, Margin of Safety, Net Interest/EBITA, pdosullivan, Total Produce, value investing, valuestockinquisition

Total Produce (TOT:ID)

Mkt Price:  EUR 0.39

Mkt Cap:  EUR 128.7 mio

Net Interest/EBITA%:  9.0%

P/E Ratio:  5.6

P/S Ratio:  0.05

Dividend Yield:  4.6%      

Fair Value:  EUR 0.882

Upside Potential:  126%

Total Produce is Europe’s premier fresh produce provider. Growing, sourcing, importing, packaging, distributing and marketing over 200 lines of fresh fruits, vegetables and flowers, the Total Produce group distributes some 250 million cartons of fresh produce annually to the retail, wholesale, foodservice and processing sectors across 19 countries in Europe.

A Decade In The Making…a 10-Bagger & a 26.0% pa Investment Track Record

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Alphabet, annual review, benchmarking, buy and hold, COVID, crypto, Donegal Investment Group, GARP investing, growth vs. value, KR1, multi-bagger, portfolio allocation, portfolio performance, track record, Universe Group, VinaCapital Vietnam Opportunity Fund

Looking back, I must admit I never imagined reaching this kind of anniversary…but yeah, the Wexboy blog turned 10 years-old earlier this month! A journey that kicked off with this Sirius Real Estate buy (at an astonishing 0.31 P/B!) in Nov-2011. Which was obviously a stock-picking tour de force – noting SRE‘s been a 7-BAGGER+ since. Well, except I somehow managed to distract/scare myself out of the position two years later…for a mere double-digit gain! And maybe that’s where this post should abruptly end, because:

The one BIG lesson most investors still need to learn is how to HODL!

But let me be clear up-front – this is not intended to be some lessons-learned victory-lap post. As investors, we never really know what’s coming down the road…next year could be a celebration, or a total humiliation. And we all make dumb mistakes, we repeat them, we live with them & we finally move on – great investors just make less mistakes. And we can’t afford to get disheartened, or to rest on our laurels – great investors (should) never stop learning & adapting ’til the day they finally exit this great game. To assume/pretend otherwise is to tempt the gods, which makes investing such a uniquely weird mix of confidence…and humility.

That said, this year & last year have been an accelerated learning experience for me – as is presumably true for all investors (& everyone we know). And yes, I know I’ve promised to write about this – and hopefully share some positive learnings & useful advice – particularly in light of my actual FY-2020 & YTD-2021 performance. But I gotta admit, I keep putting it off…because now I desperately want & need it to be a final epitaph for this (Zero-) COVID hell we’re still stuck in. [Despite most of the world getting vaxxed since!?] So yeah, that’s obviously something I gotta work on…

But meanwhile, I’m thrilled I’ve actually managed to deliver that unique & rarest of beasts…a public/auditable 10-year investment track record via the blog (& my Twitter account). I obviously don’t disclose the actual euros/cents of my portfolio, albeit my long-abandoned career & my family’s security/future clearly rely on it – which means return of principal is just as important to me as return on principal, in true family-office style – but readers & followers have always been able to assess my level of conviction/risk tolerance via my specific % allocation in (disclosed) stocks, and via (essentially real-time) tracking of my (rare) incremental buys/sells in those stocks.

And in return, I’m far more interested right now in seeing readers draw (& even share) their own conclusions – privately, or publicly – from my stock-picking & investment track record to date. To facilitate that, here’s my annual returns…complete with links to my annual performance review & actual stock-picks/investment write-ups for each year.

Cpl Resources…A Most Talented Company!

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Anne Heraty, compounder, Covalen, Cpl, Cpl Resources plc, CPL:ID, CPS:LN, DQ5, flexible talent, growth stock, recruitment sector, recurring revenue, TaaS, talent platform, Talent-as-a-Service

Cpl Resources plc (CPL:ID) (CPS:LN, sterling quote) (DQ5, its actual ISE/Euronext ticker) is Ireland’s leading recruitment firm – founded 30 years ago by CEO Anne Heraty, it’s been listed since its 1999 IPO. It provides talent & workforce solutions, via 13,000+ recruiters/contractors/temporary staff in 47 offices across 9 countries, focused primarily on Ireland, the UK, and Central & Eastern Europe. It operates via distinct specialist brands in sectors including technology, healthcare, pharmaceutical & life sciences, engineering, light industrial, finance & accounting,  human resources & office administration, and sales. It boasts a broad range of clients from global multinationals to startups to local SMEs, and operates across the full talent spectrum from permanent, contract & temporary recruitment to the provision of managed workforce solutions & strategic talent advisory services.

In its FY-2019 annual report (NB: FY ended Jun-2019), Cpl reported record results & the launch of Covalen, its new managed solutions brand. Revenue increased 8% year-on-year to €565 million, with gross profit (i.e. net fee income) up 16% to €96 million, delivering 30% growth in adjusted operating profit (to €26 million) & exceptional 37% growth in diluted EPS to 77.2 cents a share. This is reflected in an annual dividend up 41% & a balance sheet boasting over €40 million in net cash. Cpl Resources now trades at €7.05 a share…a €193 million market cap, an enterprise value of €153 million & a 9.1 P/E multiple!

Wow…soooo, what’s the catch?!

2016 – The Great Irish Share Valuation Project (Part II)

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Circle Oil, CRH, Escher Group Holdings, First Derivatives, Galantas Gold Corp, IMC Exploration Group, Irish shares, Irish Stock Exchange, Irish value investing, ISEQ, iShares MSCI Ireland Capped ETF, Keywords Studios, TGISVP, The Great Irish Share Valuation Project, Total Produce, Tullow Oil

Continued from here:

Company:   First Derivatives   (FDP:LN)

Last TGISVP Post:   Here

Market Cap:   GBP 494 Million

Price:   GBP 2,038p

My last write-up was bang in the middle of a sickening price reversal. While FDP got nearly sliced in half at the time, my price target’s been massively adrift ever since. Clearly, I was wrong to speculate FDP’s consulting business* might eventually grind to a halt – as banks continue to retrench, we’re actually seeing an increasing reliance on IT outsourcing, while reduced head-count & market evolution demanded ever greater technology capacity & automation. [*Let’s not forget consulting (64% of revenue) remains FDP’s primary business, and its margins are far less scale-able than software]. And revenue’s continued to forge ahead, at an average 28% pa in the last three years, assisted by FDP’s serial acquisition strategy (three new acquisitions & a consolidation of Kx Systems in the last 18 months, or so). Earnings growth trailed though, as FDP essentially bought revenue/technology (rather than profits…with new Big Data & IoT opportunities also being touted) & the share count’s been diluted almost 25% in the last couple of years. [Even on a revenue basis, those acquisitions look damn expensive – averaging over 7 times sales, vs. a 4.2 P/S multiple for FDP]. But FY-2016 was clearly a real gang-busters year, boasting 41% revenue & 33% EPS growth.

However, we’re still seeing a huge disconnect between EBITDA & operating free cash flow margins (Op FCF: Operating cash flow, less net PPE/intangible expenditure). But presuming software is the ultimate driver of the business, EBITDA will become increasingly relevant: A decent compromise for now is to use an adjusted margin, averaging the latest 19.9% EBITDA margin & Op FCF margin of 7.2% (noting a prior year margin of just 2.6%) – a 13.6% adjusted margin deserves a 1.33 Price/Sales ratio. And noting FDP’s financial strength (with net debt of just £15 million), we can adjust for (surplus) cash & also add a debt adjustment. [Based on this adjusted margin, I calculate another £23 million in debt (at an assumed 5% rate, for acquisitions etc.) would still limit finance expense to 15% of adjusted margin – as usual, let’s apply a 50% haircut, just to be conservative]. Of course, we also need to value FDP as a growth stock: While earnings growth has accelerated to 33%, we should still recognise the huge/ongoing disconnect vs. cash flow (& reported earnings, which are now about 40% lower than adjusted diluted earnings) – limiting ourselves to a 20.0 Price/Earnings ratio, based on adjusted diluted EPS, seems only prudent (or maybe even generous):

2016 – The Great Irish Share Valuation Project (Part I)

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Aryzta, Celtic Phoenix, Formation Group, Fyffes, Hibernia REIT, Independent News & Media, Irish shares, Irish Stock Exchange, Irish value investing, ISEQ, Kerry Group, Kingspan Group, Mainstay Medical International, Origin Enterprises, TGISVP, The Great Irish Share Valuation Project, WisdomTree ETF

Um, apologies, the blog’s been quiet since early last month – though I’ve certainly been keeping up with readers via Twitter…Good Lord, I’m now up to 25K+ tweets!? Actually, I’ve been more than usually focused on stocks both old & new in my portfolio. Which seem to be increasingly bifurcated between special situation stocks where I continue to engage with/push management to enhance and realise shareholder value, and growth stocks (at the right price) where I can sit back & watch smart management compound shareholder value over time.

Hmmm, put it like that & growth stocks seem like the far more compelling choice..!? Though in reality, each presents their own unique risks/opportunities. And for me, somewhat perversely, one tends to inspire the other…dealing with recalcitrant management can inspire me to seek out smartly managed growth stocks, but actually seeing it done right, such companies also highlight the compelling value lurking out there just waiting to be tapped (sometimes, literally, overnight) if only management would come to their senses (or a third party steps in & does it for ’em).

Anyway, a little break’s a good thing – and we’re all feeling much better now, with most markets recovering their Jan/Feb losses this month. Hopefully, this new-found momentum will continue (at least ’til the usual ‘Sell in May & go away’ debate!), as markets generally remain flat/down over the past year – it’s been a tough period for nearly all concerned (spare a thought for those poor billionaire hedge fund managers!), clearly exacerbated by oil’s elevated volatility & influence.

And as promised, a good time to kick-off The Great Irish Share Valuation Project, with the ISEQ on a breather for the past year (down 0.6%) (but still over 40% off its all-time high, as set nearly a decade ago now), and the Celtic Phoenix offering more opportunity than ever… Long-time readers will be familiar with TGISVP (here’s my kick-off posts from 2012, 2013 & 2014), where I attempt to analyse & value every listed Irish stock out there (and usually piss off some tired & emotional shareholders in the process). The great thing about the Irish market is its size…one of the few globally (with about 70-80 stocks, in total) which actually presents investors with the opportunity to really get down & dirty with every single stock. And it’s a real stock pickers’ market, as I’ve previously highlighted:

‘And it’s worth noting brokers often segment the Irish market into very different sector/exposures. And so, accordingly, it tends to attract pretty dissimilar investor constituencies, who may only focus on: i) a handful of the largest caps, regardless of valuation & exposure, ii) stocks which (may) offer cheap/alternative access to overseas growth (a surprisingly large number of Irish companies are UK/Europe/globally focused), iii) stocks offering domestic exposure (notably, economic pure-plays are actually pretty rare), iv) a listed commercial & residential property sector that’s only emerged in the past couple of years, and finally (& perhaps most notoriously) v) a (junior) resource stock sector that’s been decimated in the last few years.‘