Sunday, January 4, 2009

Henkel (HEN3) - long candidate ?

Here is an idea for a long position:

Henkel - long idea
- ticker = hen3 (German stock exchange)
http://uk.finance.yahoo.com/q?s=HEN3.DE
- company website - investor relations
-> latest quarterly report

- current share price =
23.97 Euros
- book value per share = 22 Euros (5.7 billion Euros / 260 million shares) ; check the 2007 annual report for this;
- earnings per share = 2.13 Euros
- growth of EPS in last 5 years = continuous growth, typical of Warren Buffet picks
- context: global economic slowdown

- my opinion:
Henkel is a long standing German company, with steady and growing profits, typical of stocks that Warren Buffet favors.
Henkel sells many famous products known by millions of households across Europe: Persil, Fa, Somat, Schwarzkof, Mir, Bref, Diadermine, etc. Laundry & home care, cosmetics/toiletries, adhesive technologies.
Because the products are so famous it is highly probable Henkel will stay in the future and it is difficult to compete with them. It is similar to Johnson and Johnson (JNJ) in my mind.
The book value alone is already 22 Euros per share. Parts of it is goodwill which I cannot value myself.
But I believe there is still considerable margin of safety.
The earnings growth might slow down due to the global economic slowdown, but in the medium/long term (3 to 10 years), I foresee a significant growth for the share price.
With a conservative scenario of earnings of 20 Euros per share (10 times the current 2 Euros per year) in the next 10 years, the value of each share already is over 35 Euros easily (considering the book value).
And this is a very conservative scenario in my view.

A position: 1$ long Henkel + 0.7$ short Toll Brothers (TOL) seems intersting to me.
It gives protection on the downside, should the stock markets get depressed again; and it favors the long side.

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