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4 Things You Need To Know About Can-One Bhd

Thomas Chua
Publish date: Sun, 26 Feb 2017, 10:03 PM
Value Investing Platform

Can-One Bhd is incorporated on 7 January 2004 and listed on the Main Board of Bursa Malaysia Stock Exchange on 29 July 2005. The Company is involved in the manufacturing of tin cans, plastic jerry cans, bag-in-box and food products (i.e. condensed milk & evaporated milk). I came across this company after being recommended by someone’s blog. So I decided to do a research on this company. Here are the four things that you need to know before investing in this company:

#1 Consistent increase in Revenue & Net Profit

canone-earnings-power

Source: Annual Reports

Over the past 11 years, Can-One Bhd has been able to consistently generate increasing revenue and net profit. The NP margin is hovering between 4.2% – 9.2% which is relatively low.

The recent 3rd quarter result has shown a drop in the Company’s revenue and net profit Q-o-Q from RM242 million to RM213 million and RM27 million to RM23.7 million respectively. As a result, the company’s 9 months ended net profit fall short when comparing against the previous year 9 months ended results.

#2: Strong Growth In Food Division

Source: Annual Reports

Source: Annual Reports

From the chart above, Can-One Bhds growth comes from the Food products segment which produces OEM condensed milk and evaporated milk. As for the general cans (i.e. tin cans, plastic jerry cans & bag-in-box), this segment has been suffering a drop in profit since year 2011. This is mainly due to higher raw material costs and stiff market competition. Thus, you can expect that this trend will continue in the near future.

Source: Annual Reports

Source: Annual Reports

#3: High Gearing

canone-gearing

Source: Annual Reports

While Can-One Bhd’s earning power seems moderate, what concerns me is its high gearing from year 2005 to 2015. This means that the Company has very little margin of error. Any unexpected event happen (i.e. financial crisis) may have a significant impact on its ability to repay its debt.

Source: Annual Reports

Source: Annual Reports

A good business does not need significant amount of debt to finance its business operation since the business is able to generate consistent cash flow to sustain its business operation. This is not the case for Can-One Bhd. So I dig deeper and here is what I found out on the Company’s cash flow generation.

#4: High Capital Expenditure

Source: Annual Reports

Source: Annual Reports

Can-One Bhd seems to be incurring capex higher than its net cash flow generated from operation. This is a sign of capital intensive business which I dislike. In addition, the Company’s cash flow from operation does not seem to be consistent with its increasing net profit from year 2005 to 2015. This suggest a significant amount of cash is stuck in receivables and inventory.

Conclusion

Despite it has consistent increase in Revenue and Net Profit over the past 11 years, the Company was not able to generate consistent operating cash flows. In addition, every year the Company have to incur significant capex on its plants and machinery. As a result, the Company have to seek debt financing to finance its business operation. Based on the Company’s financial analysis, I would skip this Company.

If you are planning to invest in this Company, make sure you have a higher margin of safety. The current price of RM3.45 per share and a PE of 8.78, in my opinion, is too high after taking into consideration on the Company’s financial strength.

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Be the first to like this. Showing 8 of 8 comments

eyewitness

Excellent analysis, Thomas.

2017-02-26 22:36

popo92

When you take all figures and numbers out and you don't look at details, its gonna cost you a lot. The fact is financial analysis need details on company movement. Let's take an example High gearing is because of acquisition of F&B business and also kianjoo. Are these business deal worth it? I try not to be bias. Recent year, there's interest buyer of kianjoo from aspire insight (3.30) and Toyota Tsusho Corp (3.74) and canone rejected them. At the first place, borrowings to buy kianjoo can be solve easily. Secondly, how much kianjoo actually worth? Is kianjoo providing enough return for canone? EPF is giving a very high valuation to buy canone F&B business too. How do you rate this deal? Again, look at past financial analysis of 11 year doesn't make any business sense at all. We all know, F&B milk division weren't wholly owned back then, Kianjoo weren't purchase as well. Problems you should really finding out is are these deals worth, are they generating cash flow to canone now and in future? PE for past history are baseless, quality to generate future PE is what we are looking for..

2017-02-28 19:52

Michael Chen

Well, this is just a financial analysis on Can-One Bhd's core biz.. Besides, Can-One only owns Kianjoo 32.9% (Not even a subsidiary). Not to mention that Kianjoo's performance is not good as well. At the end of the day, it is still boils down to the Group's Cans division & Food division. The writer already analysed the "operating" cash flow generated by the Group which is generally not consistent. This automatically linked to both the Group's core biz cashflows.

Indeed, past performances does not determine future results but it is a good indicator of whether the Group's biz is resilient or not. The writers look at long-term. Unless you are pure asset play, then assets like Kianjoo maybe your focus.

2017-02-28 23:54

Thomas Chua

If you look at the figures correctly, you would have noticed that F&B Division starts on year 2006. Kianjoo's contribution to the company's earnings does provide a significant impact on the Group's net profit that's why I believe the Management does not want to sell-off KJ to Aspire & Toyota. But if you look carefully in its cashflow statements, it is excluded from net profit (merely an accounting gimmicks), which means there is no cash flow coming in to the company. To me, cash is king. KJ only provides Can-One dividends. If KJ future performance is not good, means dividend is reduced.

Perhaps I should write better next time to include more biz activities for better understanding rather than numbers...haha, thanks for your info popo92!! =)

2017-03-01 00:17

stockmanmy

The high capex 20111 to 2015 is to built up its milk division which today is very profitable and highest contributor to Canone.


Furthermore, the operating cash flow did not include Associate profits from Kian Joo , nor dividends from Kian Joo.



Bottom line, analysis failed.

2017-03-03 09:19

stockmanmy

on a strategic, how would one rank Canone management?


I would give them A +, it now controls Kian Joo which has a market cap of $ 1.3 billion.

many have tried but only Canone managed to take over Kian Joo.

You can analyse this KJ acquisition further.

2017-03-03 09:49

Thomas Chua

Hi, the high capex is since year 2006 till 2015. If a biz needs this long period and high capex to build, in my opinion, it is not a good biz even though it is growing. This is just my personal analysis and sharing. I analysed this company based on their core business.. Investment in associates is where they can sell anytime when they deemed fit.. As mentioned, if you read their cashflow statements.. you would have noticed that it is excluded from the profit before tax, pls refer "Share of profit of equity-accounted associate, net of tax"..

You prefer this company, maybe is because you probably know much more than I do.. Thanks for sharing your thoughts..

2017-03-03 23:35

Olga

to be honest.. there are advantages and disadvantages in canone.. but the bottomline is this: can canone face the uncertainty and do well, then it can easily clear its debt off and no more worries? or something happens along the way that canone finds it hard to be profitable, like price of raw material surged too much.. or nothing happens at all and revenue and earnings all stay stagnant n after any years the debt has been paid off..

part 2: even if u get it all figured out.. now can u figure out how the price of share of canone will move? maybe canone is gonna make a big profit next qoq, maybe.. but price did not move up.. or price moved up and everyone thinks the next qoq will surely be good and it turns out bad?

Conclusion: the writer did a good job on the points he has mentioned. Whatever points he did not mention if anyone would to point it out and share is also good.. but currently, in my own opinion, just mine, canone needs to show the kind of results that is above expectation from the capex they have put it. no doubt its business sector is good as demand is there but the demand growth is what we want, isn't it? and on the downside, the risk of it to fall is of course there as the margin of error is slim..

2017-04-09 14:32

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