1. Investment Summary 2. Company Overview 3. Characteristics of the Business of Fast Retailing 4. Trend of Apparel Retailing
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Enterprise for analysis: FAST RETAILING Co., Ltd. The stocks code: 9983 Stock prices(July 21th,2011): ¥13720 Rating: “Buy” Target Stock Prices: ¥21556 1. Investment Summary The target stock price of Fast Retailing Co., Ltd. was estimated at ¥21556 by using the Discounted Cash Flow method (hereafter, DCF method). It is 57% higher than current stock prices ¥13720. Thus the investment recommendation of Fast Retailing is "buy". The core business of Fast Retailing, UNIQLO, succeeds in differentiating from other companies by offering high-quality basic clothing at low cost, thus enable them to expand their business in Asia market in the future. 2. Company Overview Fast Retailing is the Japanese apparel retailing company which offers high-quality basic clothing at reasonable prices and its corporate statement is “changing clothes, changing conventional wisdom and changing the world”. The net sales were 814billion yen and the operating income was 132billion yen as of the end of February 2010, which was ranked first for Japanese domestic apparel retailers (Exhibit 1) and the fourth in the world (Exhibit 2). They have three main groups, “UNIQLO Japan”, “UNIQLO International” and “Global Brands”. “UNIQLO Japan” and “UNIQLO International” account for 83% of net sale (Exhibit 3) and they are operating 878 stores in Japan and 136 stores in the world. They aim to achieve the net sales of 8 trillion yen by 2020 and they expect that the business in Asia will drive the expansion. 3. Characteristics of the Business of Fast Retailing Fast Retailing introduced the system of SPA (Specialty store retailer of Private label Apparel) and it enabled them to offer high-quality basic clothing at low price. These factors differentiate Fast Retailing from other companies in apparel retailing companies. ■Dealing with “Basic Clothing :“Fast Retailing created a new market in apparel industry, so called “Basic clothing”. Basic clothing is different from fashion oriented clothing. In general, fashion oriented clothing is made in accordance with the trend. On the other hand, basic clothing is the clothing like under shirts and jeans that anybody can wear, so Fast Retailing can target every generation. This factor differentiates Fast Retailing from other companies and they have achieved rapid growth. ■”High Quality”:They achieved the rapid growth by offering high-quality products like “HEATTECH” and “Fleece”. The reason why they can continue to create high quality products is that they have utilized the characteristic of basic clothing. Generally speaking, if you deal with fashion clothing, you have to change the products once the trend has changed, so you don’t need to improve the products because the trend has changed and you have to focus on creating the new trend clothing. On the other hand, basic clothing is consistent and unchangeable because the trend doesn’t have influence on basic clothing. It means that they can focus on the same products for a long time and they can improve the products as a result of trial and error. This enables them to create the high quality products. The typical example is “HEATTECH”. This product was created as a result of trial and error in cooperation with TORAY, which is a Japanese fibers and textiles company. This product sold 50 million in 2008. ■“Low cost”:Low cost is one of the factors that differentiate Fast Retailing from other apparel companies. There are three reasons why they can offer their products at reasonable price. Firstly, they introduce the system of SPA. SPA is the model encompassing all stages of the business from design and production to final sale (Exhibit 4). Thanks to the model, they can exclude the middleman and save cost. Secondly, the low prices became possible by placing large amount of orders with the factory. Thirdly, most of the products were made in China, so that they can save cost. 4. Trend of Apparel Retailing Market ■Japanese Market:The scale of apparel retailing market is estimated approximately 10 trillion-yen as of 2009. The scale of the market was 13 trillion-yen in 1991 and the scale has been shrinking for nearly 20 years because Japan has suffered deflation just after the bubble burst (Exhibit 5). In the future, it is estimated that the scale of Japanese market will keep shrinking because Japan is rapidly aging. ■Asian Market:There is a lot of demand in Asia as the number of rich people is increasing. There are 900 million middle class in Asia in 2008 compared with 140 million in 1990. It is estimated that the number of middle class in Asia would reach 20 billion by 2020. Especially in China, the number of middle class will be 1 billion (Exhibit 6) and the scale of apparel retailing industry will expand rapidly. It is clear that taking their needs in China is the most important thing for apparel retailing companies. 5. Future Prospect ■Current Situation ・UNIQLO Japan:UNIQLO Japan is the core activities of the Group with 80% share of net sales. It is the nation’s largest apparel retailer with net sales of 615.1 billion yen and operating income of 127.7 billion yen as of 2010, and 808 stores nationwide. At present Japanese conditions remained severe with deflation and aging society with a falling birthrate. Within this environment, net sales of department stores and General Merchandise Stores are decreasing and apparel retailers are having a difficult time. However, it is increasing net sales by utilizing their strength “high-quality”, “reasonable prices” and “basic clothing”. There is another competing apparel retailing brands called SHIMAMURA in Japan. SHIMAMURA is offering fashionable products at reasonable price. However, the kind of clothing SHIMAMURA deal with is different from UNIQLO and SHIMAMURA can’t be their threat in the Japanese market. ・UNIQLO International:UNIQLO International net sales account for 10% of Fast Retailing net sales. They are seeing as this business as a future core business for them. It has 138 stores overseas as of 2010 (Exhibit 7), net sales are 72.7 billion yen and operating income is 6.3 billion yen. Though this business still only accounts for a small amount of UNIQLO Japan’s sales, the increase in sales largely exceeds UNIQLO Japan (Exhibit 8). In the past, UNIQLO International strategy officially failed in 2002. However, this business started succeeding in 2005 and the number of stores has been increasing six-fold compared with the number of stores in 2005. ■Future Strategy ・UNIQLO Japan:It is expected that First Retailing will exert their strength in Japanese apparel market in the future. At the moment, foreign apparel companies such as ZARA and H&M has been expanding their business in Japan. However, both companies will not be a threat to UNIQLO Japan because the clothing that both companies are dealing with is different from the clothing that UNIQLO offers. In other words, ZARA and H&M deal with fashionable clothing, while UNIQLO deal with basic clothing. However, the size of market is shrinking because of deflation and aging society with a falling birthrate. That trend will remain in the future and it is inevitable that UNIQLO JAPAN will be affected by that trend. They also aim at expansion of women’s share in the future in Japan. In order to expand women’s share, they are increasing the numbers of large stores. However this strategy is not working and it is not clear if UNIQLO Japan can realize the goal. ・”UNIQLO International”:At present, Fast Retailing aims at No.1 apparel retailing company in the world and net sales of five trillion yen by 2020. In order to achieve the goal, they see the UNIQLO International as the most important business and they are going to expand aggressively into the Asian Market. Currently, they are opening up 136 stores mainly in Asia and they will accelerate the shop pace especially in China. In China, the population of middle class is increasing and they are willing to expand the share. Moreover, Fast Retailing is ranked 4th place behind "INDITEX (ZARA)" and "H&M" and "GAP" in the world apparel market. In the future, the competing companies may become a threat of UNIQLO International. However, UNIQLO will utilize their strength such as "high quality", "low price", and "basic clothing" and it will be hard for them to threaten UNIQLO International (Exhibit 9). 6. Analysis of Financial Statement Gross margin and operating margin is higher than other companies (Exhibit11.12). This becomes possible by offering high quality products at low cost. 7. Future Net Sales Fast Retailing has three main businesses, “UNIQLO Japan”, “UNIQLO International” and “Global Brands” The future net sales of each business is estimated by expressing that the number of stores multiplied net sales per store equal net sales. (Exhibit 10) ■“UNIQLO Japan”:UNIQLO Japan is opening 842 stores. The normal size stores are 714 and the large scale stores are 128. The number of the normal size stores hasn’t increased lately because the domestic apparel market size has been shrinking. On the other hand, they are increasing the number of large scale stores in order to expand the women’s share in Japan and they scrap normal size stores that may cannibalize demand in new areas. So we expect that when they open one new large scale store, they scrap one normal size store. In the future, it is expected that the pace of opening large scale stores will decrease because they haven’t been succeeding in getting women’s share so far. Net sales per stores are expressed that net sales per square meter multiplied the size of the store equals net sales per stores. The net sales per square meter of Fast Retailing is in the highest level in the apparel market and it is hard to increase the number, so we expect that the net sales per square stays the same, approximately 900 thousands yen.