Findel |
Encouraging sales progress at Express |
Interim results |
Retail |
7 December 2016 |
Share price performance
Business description
Next events
Analysts
Findel is a research client of Edison Investment Research Limited |
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Findel’s largest business, Express Gifts, posted strong revenue growth in H1 and has sustained the trend into H2. Currency headwinds will cause a pause in profit growth in FY18e but plans to continue building the customer base and revenues are encouraging for the medium term. Education, now showing signs of improvement, will continue to rely on self-help in a challenging market.
Year end |
Revenue (£m) |
PBT* |
EPS* |
DPS |
P/E |
Yield |
03/15 |
406.9 |
27.7 |
25.8 |
0.0 |
7.3 |
0.0 |
03/16 |
410.6 |
24.8 |
23.0 |
0.0 |
8.2 |
0.0 |
03/17e |
452.0 |
26.0 |
24.9 |
0.0 |
7.6 |
0.0 |
03/18e |
490.5 |
28.6 |
27.3 |
0.0 |
6.9 |
0.0 |
Note: *PBT and EPS are normalised, excluding exceptional items and share-based payments.
Encouraging first half
Express increased its customer base and product sales by 12% like-for-like in H1 and increased EBIT by £0.35m. Education suffered a 5.4% like-for-like sales decline and a £2.1m EBIT decline but showed an improving sales trend in Q2. The business successfully completed its warehouse consolidation project. Core net debt reduced by £1.1m to 94.5m.
Revised estimates
H1 trends have continued into H2 and Findel reports it is on track to deliver consensus FY17e PBT of c £26m. However, Express will see little change in profit in FY18e as rapidly growing revenues merely offset currency headwinds. Education remains on target to deliver an incremental £2-3m EBIT following its warehouse consolidation. Our FY17e PBT estimate is barely changed but we have reduced our FY18e PBT estimate from £31.2m to £28.6m.
Valuation: Headroom remains
Findel trades on an undemanding FY17e P/E of 8x. In part we believe this reflects the high level of borrowings (total net debt: £226.7m) that the group carries. The EV/EBITDA ratios for FY17e and FY18e are 8.9x and 8.5x, respectively. However, it is important to stress that much of that debt funds Express’s high-quality consumer receivables book; the element that does not cover that book amounts to less than 1x EBITDA. We have again valued Findel using a sum-of-the-parts analysis (see our August update note for background information). On our revised estimates, we generate a small increase in valuation from 240p to 252p. The FY17e and FY18e P/E ratios at 252p would be 10.1x and 9.2x, respectively.
Interim results
This being a 53-week year for Findel, H1 contained 27 weeks. Adjusting for that, Findel estimates that the 11.3% reported group revenue growth would be 6.5% on a like-for-like basis. Express Gifts grew strongly, while Education registered an improving sales trend. Findel generated a further small reduction in core net debt (excluding finance leases) during the half.
Express Gifts
On a reported basis, Express increased product sales by 18.7%. However, after eliminating week one, the like-for-like growth was 12%. Financial services expanded by 11.3% on a like-for-like basis. Increased marketing spend on TV and online has had the desired effect of increasing the customer base by 12%. Express recruited 114k new customers in H1, beating its full-year target of 100k new customers. It also increased sales to its established customer base by 9%, with both order frequency and average transaction value increasing. Of course, there is more behind this success than simply a TV campaign. Express has launched a new website with improved functionality. It has improved customer service through enhanced in-house call centre facilities and it has improved inventory availability. It has also loosened the over-tight credit controls that dampened performance last year. As intended, this has seen the bad debt ratio increase to 7.4% in H1, a level closer to the 8% that management regards as optimal for its business. The potential in expanding the customer and sales bases is clear. Nevertheless, investment is being controlled: Express increased EBIT by £0.35m to £5.25m in H1.
Education
Education’s reported revenue declined 4.2% y-o-y. However, after adjusting for the extra week and the timing of receipts under the Sainsbury’s ‘Active Kids’ scheme, the like-for-like decline was 5.4%. However, this was on an improving trend, with the Q2 like-for-like decline measured at 3%. Indeed, the Classroom and Specialist brands delivered sales and market share growth in Q2. However, School brands suffered a 10% H1 sales decline. Hence, Education suffered a £2.1m reduction in H1 EBIT to £1.6m. The environment for Education remains little changed. School budgets remain constrained, with payroll-related expenses swallowing an increasing element of funding. Findel estimates that the market in which Education operates declined by 8% in H1. We see no signs that the demand picture is likely to improve in the near term. The industry will need to consolidate. Findel has acquired a couple of very small businesses and will look opportunistically at others. Meanwhile, it has completed its major logistics and systems restructuring and remains confident that that project will deliver a £2-3m EBIT uplift in FY18e.
Exceptional items
Findel noted in its 2016 annual report that it had provided £14.4m for customer redress and refunds in respect of flawed financial services products, based upon estimates and assumptions that were subject to change. Following a pilot-scale contact programme for affected customers, a revised scheme of redress has now been agreed with the FCA, triggering an additional provision of £3.3m, which remains subject to change based upon experience. Findel incurred £0.7m of advisory costs as a result of its various discussions with Sports Direct. It recorded a credit of £0.1m for a receipt from Kleeneze that was previously written off as unrecoverable.
To exclude them from underlying profit, we have recorded the £1.4m positive ‘mark to market’ movements on forex positions within exceptional items.
Financing
Total net debt at the end of September 2016 was £226.7m (September 2015: £217.6m) with securitisation borrowings £8.3m higher at £130.3m (2015: £122.0m) due to Express Gifts’ strong receivables growth and new finance leases totalling £1.9m relating to the warehouse consolidation project for Findel Education. Express has increased its securitisation facility by £10m to £155m to accommodate growth in sales and receivables. Findel excludes finance leases as well as the securitisation borrowings from its measure of core net debt, which fell from £95.6m in September 2015 to £94.5m at the end of this half-year. Despite the higher borrowings, finance costs reduced by £0.5m to £4.6m.
Outlook
So far in H2, Express is trading in line with its H1 like-for-like trends. In Black Friday week, it enjoyed a 28% y-o-y increase in online visitors and a 36% increase in orders. It will therefore continue to invest in growing the customer base and sales volumes. Within Education, Classroom and Specialist brands continue to grow revenues but School brands continue to suffer revenue declines.
Estimates
Findel has indicated that it remains on target to deliver consensus FY17e PBT of c £26m. We have therefore made only minor changes to our FY17 estimates. However, management has also highlighted its plans to continue investing in Express to drive revenues and offset currency pressures in FY18e. At this stage, it expects the net effect to be a standstill in profit within Express in FY18e. However, the return on the investment in systems and logistics within Education should still allow an advance in group PBT. We summarise the changes to our estimates, reflecting the most recent guidance, in Exhibit 1.
Exhibit 1: Estimate changes
EPS (p) |
PBT (£m) |
EBITDA (£m) |
|||||||
Old |
New |
% chg. |
Old |
New |
% chg. |
Old |
New |
% chg. |
|
03/17e |
25.0 |
24.9 |
-0.1% |
25.9 |
26.0 |
0.2% |
43.7 |
45.0 |
3.0% |
03/18e |
29.8 |
27.3 |
-8.5% |
31.2 |
28.6 |
-8.6% |
49.1 |
48.4 |
-1.4% |
Source: Findel, Edison Investment Research
Valuation: Headroom remains
In setting our multiples for our Findel sum-of-the-parts valuation, we inevitably refer to N Brown as a benchmark for Express. Although N Brown has seen a re-rating in recent months, we have elected, given the absence of profit growth at Express in FY18e, not to increase the FY17e NOPAT multiple that we apply to it (see our August update note for background information on our sum-of-the parts analysis). We have also left Education’s FY18e EBITDA multiple unchanged. The result of an increase in the proportion of FY18e profit coming from Education is a small increase in valuation from 240p to 252p. The FY17e and FY18e P/E ratios at 252p would be 10.1x and 9.2x, respectively. There is no dividend yield and we do not expect to see the dividend restored until after Express has navigated the currency headwinds of FY18 and is growing EBIT strongly again.
Exhibit 2: Financial summary
£000s |
2013 |
2014 |
2015 |
2016 |
2017e |
2018e |
||
Year end 31 March |
IFRS |
IFRS |
IFRS |
IFRS |
IFRS |
IFRS |
||
PROFIT & LOSS |
||||||||
Revenue |
|
|
491,233 |
402,200 |
406,930 |
410,601 |
451,951 |
490,491 |
Cost of Sales |
(254,481) |
(265,468) |
(215,146) |
(213,479) |
(231,321) |
(253,846) |
||
Gross Profit |
236,752 |
136,732 |
191,784 |
197,122 |
220,630 |
236,644 |
||
EBITDA |
|
|
31,999 |
43,320 |
45,136 |
41,758 |
44,986 |
48,425 |
Operating Profit (before amort. and except.) |
|
26,787 |
39,224 |
41,686 |
37,264 |
38,959 |
42,339 |
|
Intangible Amortisation |
(2,621) |
(2,848) |
(3,029) |
(2,348) |
(1,930) |
(2,027) |
||
Operating profit pre exc post intang amortisation |
24,166 |
36,376 |
38,657 |
34,916 |
37,029 |
40,312 |
||
Exceptionals |
(11,031) |
(16,928) |
(27,036) |
(25,458) |
(3,167) |
0 |
||
Other/share based payments |
(1,847) |
(1,698) |
(861) |
(239) |
(1,000) |
(1,000) |
||
Operating Profit |
11,288 |
17,750 |
10,760 |
9,219 |
32,862 |
39,312 |
||
Net Interest |
(10,523) |
(9,876) |
(10,097) |
(9,901) |
(10,027) |
(10,758) |
||
Financial exceptional items |
(283) |
(472) |
(136) |
(998) |
735 |
0 |
||
Profit Before Tax (norm) |
|
|
11,796 |
24,802 |
27,699 |
24,776 |
26,002 |
28,555 |
Profit Before Tax (FRS 3) |
|
|
482 |
7,402 |
527 |
(1,680) |
23,570 |
28,555 |
Tax |
1,103 |
(1,857) |
(5,323) |
91 |
(4,658) |
(5,996) |
||
Profit After Tax (norm) |
12,130 |
22,563 |
21,994 |
19,785 |
21,538 |
23,558 |
||
Profit After Tax (FRS 3) |
2,890 |
2,219 |
(25,261) |
(10,196) |
18,912 |
22,558 |
||
Average Number of Shares Outstanding (m) |
84.8 |
84.8 |
85.2 |
86.1 |
86.3 |
86.3 |
||
EPS - normalised (p) |
|
|
14.3 |
23.7 |
25.8 |
23.0 |
24.9 |
27.3 |
EPS - normalised and fully diluted (p) |
|
12.1 |
19.9 |
22.2 |
20.3 |
22.0 |
24.1 |
|
EPS - (IFRS) (p) |
|
|
3.4 |
2.6 |
(29.7) |
(11.8) |
21.9 |
26.1 |
Dividend per share (p) |
0.0 |
0.0 |
0.0 |
0.0 |
0.0 |
0.0 |
||
Gross Margin (%) |
48.2 |
34.0 |
47.1 |
48.0 |
48.8 |
48.2 |
||
EBITDA Margin (%) |
6.5 |
10.8 |
11.1 |
10.2 |
10.0 |
9.9 |
||
Operating Margin (before GW and except.) (%) |
5.5 |
9.8 |
10.2 |
9.1 |
8.6 |
8.6 |
||
BALANCE SHEET |
||||||||
Fixed Assets |
|
|
140,839 |
133,047 |
94,428 |
92,927 |
98,706 |
99,594 |
Intangible Assets |
100,892 |
90,337 |
50,217 |
47,322 |
47,638 |
50,611 |
||
Tangible Assets |
31,329 |
34,644 |
35,070 |
41,423 |
43,041 |
40,955 |
||
Investments |
8,618 |
8,066 |
9,141 |
4,182 |
8,028 |
8,028 |
||
Current Assets |
|
|
327,016 |
301,960 |
328,250 |
321,279 |
332,437 |
354,208 |
Stocks |
58,896 |
64,406 |
65,405 |
53,472 |
56,230 |
61,856 |
||
Debtors |
210,234 |
213,284 |
224,375 |
229,848 |
255,475 |
285,323 |
||
Cash |
34,023 |
24,270 |
38,470 |
34,405 |
19,207 |
5,504 |
||
Other |
23,863 |
0 |
0 |
3,554 |
1,525 |
1,525 |
||
Current Liabilities |
|
|
(86,941) |
(82,861) |
(82,340) |
(76,191) |
(78,008) |
(82,108) |
Creditors |
(86,941) |
(82,861) |
(82,340) |
(75,673) |
(77,476) |
(81,576) |
||
Short term borrowings |
0 |
0 |
0 |
(518) |
(532) |
(532) |
||
Long Term Liabilities |
|
|
(280,443) |
(240,498) |
(257,628) |
(259,140) |
(263,514) |
(264,346) |
Long term borrowings |
(259,176) |
(231,223) |
(245,021) |
(250,569) |
(245,252) |
(245,252) |
||
Other long term liabilities |
(21,267) |
(9,275) |
(12,607) |
(8,571) |
(18,262) |
(19,094) |
||
Net Assets |
|
|
100,471 |
111,648 |
82,710 |
78,875 |
89,622 |
107,348 |
CASH FLOW |
||||||||
Operating Cash Flow |
|
|
26,500 |
26,097 |
19,250 |
8,889 |
11,259 |
12,051 |
Net Interest |
(10,000) |
(9,482) |
(9,938) |
(9,549) |
(9,605) |
(10,758) |
||
Tax |
(1,761) |
(998) |
(1,396) |
(2,494) |
(4,000) |
(5,996) |
||
Capex |
(8,259) |
(11,831) |
(10,269) |
(15,940) |
(9,927) |
(9,000) |
||
Acquisitions/disposals |
0 |
15,461 |
1,720 |
11,115 |
2,318 |
0 |
||
Financing |
0 |
0 |
(500) |
0 |
0 |
0 |
||
Dividends |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
||
Net Cash Flow |
6,480 |
19,247 |
(1,133) |
(7,979) |
(9,955) |
(13,704) |
||
Opening net debt/(cash) |
|
|
230,659 |
226,168 |
206,953 |
206,551 |
216,682 |
226,577 |
HP finance leases initiated |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
||
Other |
(1,989) |
(32) |
1,535 |
(2,152) |
60 |
(0) |
||
Closing net debt/(cash) |
|
|
226,168 |
206,953 |
206,551 |
216,682 |
226,577 |
240,280 |
Source: Findel accounts, Edison Investment Research. Note: Normalised PBT is after amortisation of intangibles. Tax for normalised EPS excludes tax on exceptionals.
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