Strong earnings growth momentum with low volatility: initiate with BUY! The transformation from a holding company with a broad portfolio to a focused industrial automotive supplier is in full swing. In automotive (c. 87% of group sales), MS Industrie mainly supplies truck and engine manufacturers with Diesel motor parts (aluminium housings, rocker arms, valve train and valve bridge systems). Here, the company particularly benefits from exclusive contracts with Daimler for the supply of valve bridge systems for its new heavy truck engine (also known as “Weltmotor”) and MAN for the supply of all rocker arms for all truck motors worldwide. These contracts clearly underline the competitive quality of the company erecting high entry barriers. It was achieved by high product quality and a sound reliability in terms of delivery translating into high customer loyalty. Hence, a prolongation of the Daimler contract for the next years is expected to be signed soon. Most importantly, the Daimler contract provides high visibility for top line growth, driven by the increasing penetration of the “Weltmotor” in Daimler’s large scale engine portfolio, as well as the ramp-up at other producers (such as MTU). At the same time, EBIT should grow strongly disproportionally by a CAGR 2012- 15E of 32%, as the company can rely on substantial economies of scale, mainly in personnel and D&A. This should come along with an increasing cash generation which coupled with the divestment of the remaining non-core commercial real estate assets in 2014E should massively improve the balance sheet structure with 1) net debt / EBITDA coming down from 4.3x in 2012E to 1.7x in 2015E, 2) net gearing shrinking by 110 pp to 94% in 2015E, while ultimately lifting the ROCE from 6% in 2012E to 13.1% in 2015E. We expect the stock to re-rate along with the improving market’s perception for the strong core business and the final divestment of the real estate assets. As the current valuation of PER 2014E of 7.5x (adjusted for PPAs) looks undemanding, we initiate with BUY. PT of € 3.00 is based on FCFY 2014E. philippe.lorrain |