Ferronordic: SEK 66/sh in net cash to spend - ABG

Company expects positive '23 Germany EBIT, ABGSCe SEK 22m
Ferronordic reported Q4 EBIT from Germany of SEK -5m (ABGSCe -2m), somewhat below our expectations even though sales were 36% above. However, management said that Germany was at a break-even run-rate at the end of the quarter, and also that it expects positive FY'23 EBIT for the country; we have SEK 22m, for a margin of 1.1%. Moreover, following the sale of the Russian operations, the year-end net cash position was SEK 957m (~66/sh), of which SEK 7.5/sh was proposed to be distributed to shareholders.

Germany EBIT lowered, CIS raised
At the group level we lower '23e-'24e EBIT by SEK 3-4m, to SEK 41-63m. We lower estimates for Germany, which despite beating our expectations on sales for Q4 was below on EBIT. For the CIS business (now only Kazakhstan), we make sales-driven EBIT upgrades following the strong organic growth in Q4. On our estimates, CIS goes from ~10% of '22 group sales (excl. Russia) to 15% by '25e.

Fair value SEK 90-110 (85-100), of which net cash at SEK 66/sh
The dividend proposal of SEK 7.5/sh is only ~10% of the net cash position, which in our view is a clear indication that the company aims to use most of it for M&A. Finally, while we lower our estimates, the net cash position was ~SEK 170m (~12/share) higher than we had estimated. As such, factoring in the lower estimates, but higher net cash, we raise our fair value range to SEK 90-110 (85-100) per share, which roughly equates to an EV/EBIT range of 8-12x applied to the average of our '23e-'24e EBIT.

Länk till analysen i sin helhet: https://cr.abgsc.com/foretag/ferronordic/Equity-research/2023/2/ferronordic---sek-66sh-in-net-cash-to-spend/