Hi robusta,
I'd taken a back seat from the market for a while but started looking through some stocks lately in search of some value using some basic screeners. One that caught my eye is Challenger (CGF) and I was wondering if you or any others here have had a look at it recently? The reason it caught my eye was as follows:
Current P/E of about 6.86 vs other diversified financials companies - (Platinum – 13.83, Macquarie – 10.35, IOOF – 14.90, Perpetual – 17.09)
Reasonably steady increase over the years in EPS and DPS with only hiccup coming in 08 - same as most financial companies experienced.
Consensus earnings are all pointing towards EPS growth this year, even at the lower end - which will marginally increase dividends as they maintain a payout ratio
Continue to implement buyback strategy which certainly seems a smart move while the shares trade at this PE level.
Interested in the views of others, just seems they are lurking in the shadows with consistent earnings growth while trading at a reasonable discount to peers. Note I also work in the financial services industry and Challenger are (as far as i know) the first company that springs to mind for most when doing annuities for people leading to or in retirement. As baby boomers continue to move into retirement it should help them continue their EPS growth as all their presentations show.
Anyhow just thought i'd generate some discussion
I decided to buy some late last week, superannuation and retirement centric investments are only going to increase in size and providing challenger doesn't make some monumental stuff up they should continue to be around and reap the rewards. Bit of a boring investment really but that doesn't both me as long as it continue's to steadily improve YoY.
I think what may hurt their valuation currently vs their peers is that while their P/E is quite low due to the relatively high EPS, the dividend yield is still only around 5%. Most of their peers have yields around the 7% mark and some are fully franked. Maybe Challenger need to increase their payout ratio a little to entice more more their way.
I wouldn't be surprised either Robusta, was looking at some Financial Planner and FUM numbers the other day in a financial planning magazine we receive at work. AMP/AXA and CBA's numbers are truely huge vs most others, this would lead me to believe that someone like Westpac of NAB might have a tilt if they wanted to expand their financial services market share - although may still be a remote chance as regulators may step in?
NEW INVESTMENT
MTU - M2 Telecommunications
A month ago I was looking at MTU and thinking if only it fell below $3.00 I would buy some, well at $2.62 today I could no longer resist.
A nice history of growth, good ROE and bright prospects. Once again this is a business that can increase revenue and NPAT with very little capital expenditure required.
Here is the latest investor presentation
http://www.asx.com.au/asxpdf/20110519/pdf/41yr8z22h5d2d9.pdf
Bought 1115 x MTU @ $2.62 = $2921.30 (08/08/11)
Investment Increased
MTU - M2 Telecommunications
278 x MTU @ $2.66 = $739.48 (Converted renounceable rights offer)
Actually parted with the cash a bit over a week ago, shares were allocated today.
This makes MTU my largest holding at the moment with 1393 shares bought at a average price ~ $2.628.
Probably should add 52 week low, $2.27 52 week high $3.73. Etrade is showing total shareholder return for 1 year of 30.1%
I would love anyone with the ability to post a chart to put one up for the recent 12 months and maybe another for the 12 month period ending 08/08/11, this will show how volatile the price has been while the earnings have been anything but.
There was some rumour that CGF will need to boost capital because of change in regulation on how their assets are treated. That may be the reason for downward pressure on the share price. Don't have the link at hand so Google for yourself.
Otherwise I like CGF's annuity products although I don't know if there's really much competitive advantage in their product offering.
Announcement today that the additional capital required is not as much as some feared... share price up 6%...
For the first time in a while some of my investments are doing what they were bought to do lol. I understand the whole market is going up at the moment so its not that spectacular but I feel i'm starting to find my groove with the way i'm looking at stocks.
However, you may not know for sure that the market was not right to price it lower in the first place and the current rally is wrong for many years to come...
Lucky is a strange word. I'm always told, by others, how lucky I am when something really unlucky happens to me.
Seriously, how long do you think it will be before your investments will be back to b/e?
2017 maybe? That'll be a lot of posts about new fundamental positions. But I'm sure there will be lots of bargains in between.
Would depend on the business, but if should not be too hard to work out by looking at the earnings and cash flow over a decent holding period, if you can get some decent growth - bonus!!!
Good! The focus isn't on the price - but the underlying business performance.
Next little goal I will be waiting for is to turn cash flow positive it probably won't happen this year but I have high hopes for FY 2013/14.
Hi Robusta
Have you taken into account imputation credits?
I’m a little surprised that you are not already cash flow positive as the market itself is yielding 6.7% gross and I would have thought your selection would be yielding a bit more.
Either there, or nearly there, a positively geared portfolio of businesses offering growth potential is nothing to be sneezed at. A bit more of an equity buffer to deal with the volatility would probably be a good risk mitigation objective from here.
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