Just over three years ago, the shares of this unique group were trading at 646p each, two years later they were down to only 184p, that was by this time last year.
But, as in life, you can’t keep a good one down for too long.
Yesterday morning saw a recent issue of its shares being dealt in following an acquisition Placing at the start of this month, with the group raising £30m to part-fund its latest £49m purchase.
Mpac is a specialist in machine building, such as robotics, for clients requiring solutions for packaging machinery, cartoning and case handling, particularly in the food and beverage and healthcare sectors, and now emerging in the field of clean energy.
In the early September issued H1 2024 results, the company also gave the following update in relation to the group's current trading and outlook:
“Current trading is in line with the Board's expectations and the Group has a diverse order book going into H2 2024, providing good revenue coverage supported by a strong prospect pipeline;
Confident in relation to the full year end and, with continued improvement in project margins, in delivering the H2 underlying profit weighting which was announced earlier in the year; and
The Group's balance sheet remains strong and, as predicted, the timing of orders led to an expansion of working capital in H1 which is expected to unwind as the projects complete.”
On 18th September, the company announced that it had acquired the entire issued share capital of BCA for a total consideration of $17m,
Then at the start of this month it announced the £47m acquisition of CSi Palletising.
At that time CEO Adam Holland stated that:
"I'm delighted to announce the transformational acquisition of CSi Palletising, which along with our recent acquisitions of BCA and SIGA Vision, will significantly transform our customer offering and core capabilities, consistent with our stated strategic ambition.
We have substantially expanded the breadth of our technology and extended our customer reach globally.
We are excited about the numerous growth opportunities for the enlarged Group."
Yesterday morning analyst Sanjay Vidyarthi at Panmure Liberum put out a Buy note on the group, with a declared Price Objective of 800p a share.
His estimates for the current year to end-December are for £129m (£114m) sales. With pre-tax profits of £10.7m (£7.1m), generating earnings of 35.6p (26.2p) per share.
For the next year to the end of December 2025 he goes for the acquisitions to kick in – with £209m sales, £18.6m profits and 45.6p of earnings per share.
Giving even more welly into the shares is his estimate for 2026 - £228m sales, £22.0m profits, and 54.1p of earnings.
Ever since I started following this company, eons ago, I have liked the way it has been strategically managed – as can be witnessed by its global acquisitions.
Mpac Group is a really ‘well-packaged’ company that has continued growth stamped clearly on its outer.
Considering that the estimated price-to-earnings ratio for the UK stock market is 16.34, I would suggest that the shares of Mpac Group at only 442p, on 12.42 times current year earnings, are just far too cheap to be ignored.
As an interim goal, I see them rising back up to the 550p level reached in late May this year.
(Profile 19.12.19 @ 182p set a Target Price of 235p*)
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