Yingde Gases

This is a cheaper version of Air Liquide and Praxair.  Yingde Gases is the largest bulk industrial gas producer in China:

By end of 2013, they say they had a 47% market share.  Currently selling for 11 times earnings and growing fast,  compared to 16-18 times for Air Liquide, and 20 plus times for Praxair.

Business Model

Similar to Air Liquide and Praxair (build plants next to customer, long term take-or-pay contracts), with a few differences:

• The MNCs prefer to build in clusters (p6) in certain regions, to enhance their reputation and pricing power, and take advantage of regional synergies.  Yingde is less selective in this, and will build isolated plants.
• Yingde has a more sales from on-site/pipeline, less from merchant (13% in 2012, 11% in 1H13).
• Yingde only invests in China, the others allocate capital globally and can avoid China if they don't like the opportunities there.

Yingde, in short, borrows lots of money, sets up a plant next to a factory, and then gets a utility-like stream of payments over the next 10-15 years.  It takes about two years for a plant to achieve profitability.  They are still expanding:

Balance Sheet

Since their business relies on debt, lets look at it first:

• Total debt at 7bn (mostly long term) is about 6 times (2013) earnings before tax.  Or 3.7 times EBIDTA.  High.
• Most of it is bank plus other loans (3.15bn) and senior notes (2.6bn) - 8.1% yield, due in 2018.   Also medium term loans 800K.
• The 8.1% 2.6bn RMB senior notes are actually in USD.   Did not find any information about currency hedging or swap.  Currency risk if the RMB drops against USD.
• Roughly 1bn is due this year, another billion in the year after, and 4.5bn due in 2-5 years.
• Some swaps, to achieve mix of floating and fixed debt - they receive floating rate and pay fixed rate - hedge against rising rates.  Couldn't find how much.  Not important since the debt is all short or medium term anyway.

Looks like they have reached their borrowing limit:

• In 2012 they breached debt covenants; these covenants were later removed.
• Moodys gives them a stable Ba2 rating, but says a "downgrade could be triggered if Yingde Gases further increases debt leverage".
• New shares were issued on Oct 2013 (1.25% dilution) and convertible bonds and warrants were issued on Dec 2013 (potential 2.2% dilution). 

A significant risk is that they rely on short or medium term funding.

The Steel Industry

This is a risk. 55% of Yingde's 2012 sales were to steel customers (p17), and 71% of their installed capacity is for the steel industry.  Although protected by take-or-pay contracts, these will be no good if their customers go under, and may not even help if the customers simply force renegotiations.  In mid-2012, Yingde confirmed that 18% of its capacity was operating below minimum-take-or-pay level (p1).  This was during a during a period when steel margins were negative - they have since recovered (p10):

In the long term,China's steel industry still has excess capacity:

• It is estimated there is 500 mt of global overcapacity.  China produces 50% of the worlds steel, and has an estimated 250-300 mt excess.  
• Despite the recent bounce, longer term the excess may take 7 to 20 years to grow out of.
• Predictions are for low, single-digit growth in China's steel capacity this year.
• Recent steel plant closures in China may be just for show.
• 50% of China's steel production is controlled by state or provincial govts.  These will be the hardest to shutdown.

Although Yingde has now moved into the chemical and coal industries, half its new contracts in 2012 were still for the steel industry.  New contracts in 2013 were better, with just under 30% capacity of new contracts for steel.

Valuation

To get an idea of valuation, estimate their earnings if they stopped taking on new contracts now.  Based on capacity under construction at end 2013, earnings and CFO would increase by 25% in two years.  Then they could pay off their debt in 4 years.  At HKD 6.60, this would be a PE of 8.25.

They show no sign of stopping however, in 1H13they announced 6 new contracts (240,000 Nm3/hr).  In 2H13 they announced another 8 projects (405,000 Nm3/hr).  A total 30% increase from our expected expected 2016 output!

Cashflows

They have always generated CFO, but spent more in investments:

And from their new contracts announced end 2013, there is no sign of them slowing CFI to generate free cash flows in the next 4 years.

Receivables

Receivables have slipped a little in 2013, up 50% while revenue only up 38%.  But looking at a chart of revenue divided by receivables, it seems OK:

I've included 1H13 above because that's when there was a slowdown.  No effect here.

Receivables that were over 3 months old grew by 56% in 2013. See if they go down in 1H14.

Not a red flag yet, but bears watching.

Others

Abdereen Asset Management owns 13%.These guys are value investors and usually do their homework.  No way they can quickly sell such a large stake.

Summary

Cheap, if they succeed.  Their current price may be 8X earning in two years time, and 6X earnings in another two.  Their ongoing operations have no threat from competition.  The risk is that their customers go under, or just don't fully pay.  If that does happen, it will probably be a sudden event -  not something that gradually creeps up.  Combined with their large debt, and no sign of slowing growth, that makes me a little nervous.

It will probably be fine, with a small chance of something bad happening.  Its priced low because of China's well known overcapacity problem.  The trouble is: if there was a crisis and the stock did drop 40-50%, I could not be reasonably certain that the company would survive.

I haven't decided whether to buy yet.  If I buy, limit to 2% of my portfolio.  Risky stocks can be part of a 'basket-of-stocks', not part of a concentrated portfolio. 

Edit: 26/Apr/2014.  Decided not to buy.  The reasons for the low price - steel overcapacity - are real.  Also risk of RMB depreciation.  And I don't want to hold a basket of stocks.

Kering

Kering (formerly PPR), the owner of Gucci and Bottega Vanetta, is a conglomerate and has recently streamlined its operations to focus on Luxury. 66% of revenue (and 96% of operating income) were from Luxury in 2013.

The Brands

Gucci

Gucci is positioned slightly below LV/prada, above Burberry/Coach.  From visiting a small Singapore store (6 months ago):

• The store was slightly busy/crowded.  We just walked in, they do not make people wait in line like Prada/Vuitton do.
• Price tags are on the items, unlike Vuitton/Prada. 
• Bags are sometimes on sale.  With a sale tag attached to a bag.  Unlike Prada/Vuitton.  Loudly proclaiming a sale is terrible for a luxury brand - it makes people hesitate to buy because it may go on sale later.  From their website:

• Most products on display were still logo-ed: Only a small display of their bamboo shopper was in the center of the store.
• Shoulder and tote bags were available for less than SGD 2K.  Cheaper than Prada/Vuitton.

Gucci manufactures all their products in Italy.

Most sales are through directly operated stores: 77% in 2013, up from 70% in 2008 (compared to 82% for Prada brand in 2012).  In the early 2000s, I remember seeing Gucci items for sale at "pop-up" discount outlets by enterprising merchants, but this no longer happens - they have tightened up their distribution.

By sales, Gucci is probably the second largest, after Vuitton:

• LVMH Fashion & Leather (all brands): 9.8bn sales in 2013.  I;m guessing 60% of this is probably Vuitton, so lets say 6bn.
• Gucci (3.5bn in 2013)
• Prada (2.6bn in 2012)

Like Vuitton, Gucci's products are now out of favour due to logo fatigue. As buyers become more discerning, they move away from the blingy products covered in logos, especially those everyone else is carrying. They tend to move towards more subtle products, which people 'in the know' will know about, to express their 'taste', rather than wealth.  For Gucci, this means moving away from their easily recognisable canvas logo bags:

Towards newer styles, mostly leather bags:

Gucci charges a lot more for leather bags (e.g.: Sukey Medium Guccissima Leather Tote for SGD 2235.40, while an equivalent canvass bag was SGD 1357.)  So the new product mix should increase profitability.

No-logo products have been increasing.  Some numbers:

• They accounted for half of 2013 leather goods sales, up from 37% in 2012.  
• In 2013 Q1, no-logo products accounted for 37% of sales in Asia Pacific 30% in Korea (vs 9% a few years ago), and also over 30% in China.
•  For Q4 in 2013, management said the number of entry-level products had been cut by 25-30 percent and the proportion of sales from no-logo products reached 62 percent in the fourth quarter, against 44 percent the previous year.

Management has guided that, long term, logo products will still make up 40% of sales.  Gucci is “zoning” stores so fans of its famous GG logo see what they want, while customers for whom the logo is al­ready too brash a fashion statement are catered for elsewhere in the same shop. I don't like this - it is moving towards having the same brand in two market segments.A Luxury brand should be very clear what it stands for and which price range it targets, it cannot be everything to everybody.

Despite its shortcomings, I believe the brand still holds.  For a luxury company, this gives a sustainable competitive advantage.  Or at least, one that is theirs to lose.

Bottega Veneta

Competes at the high end, near Hermes and Chanel.  Tote bags with their signature weave look start at 3.7K:

Surprisingly they also sell plain bags significantly cheaper: Plain tote at 1.2K, and plain tote with a little weave at 2.1K.

Not much to say about them - they are doing everything right: selling at the highest end of the market...very subtle and refined...mostly through their own stores, which do look and feel the part.  Although sales are one third of Gucci's, operating margins are similar at around 30%.  Remarkable for a small brand.

(Yves) Saint Laurent

Seems to be placed slightly above Gucci -  they have no canvass bags.  2.7K SGD for mini tote bag (from Saks), 3000 SGD for a non-mini tote.

Still quite small, only 8% of revenue and 5% of operating income for the Luxury Division.

Puma

With sales of 3bn, Puma is the second largest sports brand in Europe. Worldwide, it lags far behind Nike (18.5bn) and Adidas (14.8bn in 2012 - includes Reebok).  Europe accounts for 30% of Puma's sales, of which 80%  (of sales/income?) are in France and Italy.

Operating margin is around 6% - so although they have the 80% of the revenue that Gucci has, and more employees, they produce less than 1/5th of its income.  Nike has a 13% operating margin, Adidas had 8%.

Kering has appointed a new CEO, and designed a new marketing campaign to turn the brand around.  Given how far it trails its compeditors, I am not optimistic.

Income and profitability

Since the company has been shedding many of its businesses in the past few years, we'll only look at the  Luxury division for historical profitability.  Gucci is responsible for 2/3rds of the Luxury Division's recurring operating income, BV around 20%.

Sport and lifestyle (in 2013), despite having the same revenue as Gucci (or half the luxury Division), had only a 6% margin.

How cyclical is this business?  Looking at the 2013 Annual report to estimate fixed and variable costs, I guess that 1/3rd of their revenue is for fixed costs.  If so, a 20% drop in revenue would halve profits; a 30% drop would quarter them.  I could not find any information in their 2009 results about why revenue increased (was it from China?) and margins decreased.

A significant number of their sales come from Mainland Chinese nationals.  HSBC estimates they are responsible for 28% of Gucci's 2012 sales.  A hard landing in China would lead to a significant profit drop:

Source: The Bling Dynasty (p17)

Redoute loses 30-40m a year, so selling it off should boost earnings by about 2%.

Balance Sheet

Kering's total debt of 4.8bn is high, at 3.2 times recurring operating income (before tax). Most of it is financed through medium term bonds - 5 and 7 years bonds issued recently has a yield of 1.8% to 2.5.  Two thirds of the total debt is fixed rate, and more than 85% of it is in Euros.

When is the debt due.  A large chunk (1.7bn) is due this year, the remainder is evenly spread out over the next 5 years:

Debt increased nearly 30% in 2013.  This was mostly due to acquisitions (1,154m spent on more Puma shares, Queelin, Chyristopher Kane, France Croco, Richard Glmort, Pomatello, and Altuzarra).  Looks like that they are continually buying up small brands in the hope that they can transform some of them to make it big.

Cash on hand is 1.4bn.  This may or may not include 315m recapitalization of Redoute prior to sale.  It does not include the the social guarantees to be paid to Redoute and Relais Colis employees, which cannot be estimated yet and will be recognized next year.

So net debt in 2013 is around 3.1 to 3.4bn, or 2 to 2.3 times recurring operating income (before tax).  Then we have to account for an one-off unknown deduction next year.

Cash Flows

Despite its history of under-performing units and continual restructuring, Kering has generated free cashlows most years:

Looks like their biggest mistake was buying Puma in 2007.

The CFI in 2013 is from acquiring a number of small companies (345m), 306m for store openings.

Summary

Kering is the cheapest of the Luxury stocks, trading at around 14X earnings (I don't consider Coach a Luxury brand).  Currently unpopular, because of the switch to non-logoed products.  Main Risks are:

• China.  With mainland Chinese nationals responsible for an estimated 28% of Gucci sales, a hard landing in China would affect them badly.  If it happened, I'd want to buy afterwards, not before.
• I'm not sure how cyclical its earnings would be.  They did not drop during 2009, but this is probably because of expansion in China.   The stock price is volatile: it dropped by 70 percent in 07/08, and has risen 4 times since then.  Again, better to buy after the drop than before.
• Kering has operating leverage (high fixed costs due to stores, marketing, etc) as well as little financial leverage of 2+ times earnings - a little more than I'd like.  Hope they pay down their debt.

I have bought half my position, its priced reasonably but is not cheap.  I'd buy more if it went down to 120 Euros, or when there is a crisis/recession.