Vitaliy Katsenelson’s Contrarian Edge has a great post on Medtronic Inc. (NYSE:MDT) (Barron’s is wrong on Medtronic). Katsenelson’s post is a rebuttal to a Barron’s article, Should Medtronic Investors Lose Heart?, in which the author argues that MDT is a sick man. His post is a superb line-by-line refutation of Barron’s thesis:
“The stock looks cheap, trading at about 8.2 times expected forward earnings, but the company’s 10% long-term-earnings growth rate is below the industry average…
At 8.2 times earnings, the market prices in zero growth. If any growth is produced, even half of its “below-industry-average” growth, the stock will not be trading at 8.2 times earnings, but at a much higher valuation. Ironically, today’s low valuation gives MDT earnings a yield of 12%. If MDT remains at this valuation for a long time, it can buy back 12% of the company year after year, and this in itself would result in 12% earnings growth.
“… and it carries a fair amount of debt….
The amount of debt seems high at first, at $10.5 billion; but the company has $3.9 billion in cash and short-term investments, thus net debt is closer to $6.6 billion. MDT generates $3.4 billion of free cash flows – it can pay off ALL of its net debt in less than two years. Also, don’t confuse MDT with low-quality, highly cyclical stocks that were in vogue in the first half of 2010. This is a company that maintained a return on capital of over 20% for decades – an indication of a significant moat. Its revenues are extremely predictable, cash flows are very stable, and thus debt levels are very reasonable. Medtronic’s stock was punished with a 10% decline for lowering its guidance by an astonishingly minor 2%.
“The stock is also a historical underperformer, turning in losses year-to-date, as well as in the last one-, two-, and five-year periods that are greater than its peers in the Dow Jones U.S. Medical Equipment Index and the overall market….
This argument fails to draw a distinction between fundamental performance and stock performance. Over the last ten years, MDT grew both sales and earnings per share at 14% a year. It increased dividends 17% a year. These are not the vital signs of an “underperformer.” As the article pointed out, MDT’s stock has gone nowhere over the past decade – that is true, but not because MDT was mismanaged or failed to grow, but rather because at the turn of the last century MDT was trading at almost 50 times earnings. Medtronic is a typical sideways-market stock: it was severely overvalued at the end of the secular bull market, thus its earnings and cash flows grew while P/Es contracted. This happened to a battalion of stocks, from Wal-Mart to J&J to Pepsico. In fact when I hear the statement that a stock has “not gone anywhere,” I immediately start looking at the stock to see if it is a buy.
No position.
Greenbackd 