CFA Institute Research Challenge Hosted in Local Challenge CFA Society France Report L
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CFA Institute Research Challenge Hosted in Local Challenge CFA Society France Report L This report is published for educational purpose only LAGARDÈRE SCA by students competing in the CFA Research Challenge 2016 Euronext Paris 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015E 2016E 2017E 2018E Bloomberg Ticker MMB:FP NET SALES 7657 7370 7216 7170 7017 7429 7721 8015 Type of company: EBITDA 577 541 614 570 538 566 586 613 EBITDA 7.54% 7.34% 8.51% 7.95% 7.66% 7.62% 7.59% 7.65% Conglomerate MARGIN Sector: EBIT 320 302 309 324 324 343 356 370 EBIT MARGIN 4.18% 4.10% 4.28% 4.52% 4.61% 4.61% 4.61% 4.61% Publishing, Media, Travel Retail, NET INCOME -689 106 1319 49 98 121 132 143 Sports & Entertainment Recommendation: HOLD SHARE PRICE: €25.16 Investment Summary TARGET PRICE: €26.97 UPSIDE: +7.19% Recommendation We initiate our coverage of Lagardere SCA with a BUY rating and a target price of € 26.97 which implies a 7.19% potential upside from its current stock price (€25.16). We reckon that, at present, the Market and Stock Data stock is undervalued given its fundamentals. Market Cap 3,299.3 Four Distinct Division, Distinct growth potential The company was created as an SCA (Limited Partnership with Shares) with Jean-Luc Lagardère as Shares 131,133,286 Outstanding Managing Partner. Since 1992 the ecosystem of different companies within Lagardère group (then named Lagardère SCA) changed significantly. As of today, Arnaud Lagardère is the general and 52 weeks price 21.9 - 30.2 managing partner. The company is divided into 4 main divisions: Lagardère Publishing, Lagardère range Travel Retail (Lagardère Services before 2015), Lagardère Active, Lagardère Sports & Entertainment (formerly Lagardère Unlimited) Average 3M 204,783 volume Sales Growth Beta Levered 0.892 Sales from 2015 to 2018 have been projected as follows: Travel Retail (+6.14% CAGR 2015/16) which has a strong statistical correlation between sales of the business, sales of the airline industry and the Source: Bloomberg number of passengers travelling per year. Publishing has been projected with the average of a quantitative model and a conservative approach (+1.89% CAGR). Active has been projected to grow at (+4.29% CAGR). Sports & Entertainment is projected at (+4.54% CAGR) Sales growth for years 2019 to 2023 were constantly converged to the terminal growth rate. Valuation Our DCF implies a target price of €26.97 per share, which was derived through a three-stage model: First we computed the economic performances and the relative cash flows of the period 2015E- 2018E, then we assumed the growth rate to show a steady decline from 2019 to 2023 to the real world GDP growth rate of 2.65%. Considering these assumptions, the target price is given by Free Operating Cash flows for 24% and by the Terminal value for the remaining 76%. In order to verify the consistency of these findings, we performed a Monte Carlo simulation: we decided to run this exercise because the base case DCF model is mainly driven by organic factors, while the Monte Carlo simulation takes into consideration other external factors. 1 | Page Business Description Lagardère SCA is a media (and formerly also industrial) empire that takes its name from the entrepreneur and founder Jean-Luc Lagardère. In 1992 Hachette, France's most famous publisher, acquired Matra, an aerospace and airplane engine developer and producer. Lagardère group was created to be the 'umbrella company' of this new group. The company was created as an SCA (Limited Partnership with Shares) with Jean-Luc Lagardère as Managing Partner. Since 1992 the ecosystem of different companies within Lagardère group (then named Lagardère SCA) changed significantly. As of today, Arnaud Lagardère is the general and managing partner. The company is divided into 4 main divisions: 1. Lagardère Publishing 2. Lagardère Travel Retail (Lagardère Services before 2015) 3. Lagardère Active 4. Lagardère Sports & Entertainment (formerly Lagardère Unlimited) Figure: Geographical distribution of sales LAGARDÈRE PUBLISHING (28% of total sales), under the historic label of Hachette Livre, 2% 7% publishes educational books, general literature books, Illustrated books and partworks. This unit has a diversified geographical distribution of sales, which come mainly from France (30.7%), United 10% States (21.3%), United Kingdom (18.2%) and Spain (6.3%). 34% LAGARDÈRE TRAVEL RETAIL (53% of total sales) consists of retail operations and concessions in travel areas such as airports (Aéroports de Paris) and train stations. Main stores are classified 12% under Travel Essentials, Duty Free & Luxury, and Food Services. Part of this business unit is also the Distribution business, which operates in both independent and integrated retail networks. This business is being slowly divested as Lagardère is continuously searching for buyers. The management believes that the Travel Retail business can be the major 35% source of organic growth. The most famous names under the Travel Retail business are Relay, Hubiz, Aelia, Discover, Other Countries Asia-Pacific Rustichelli Mangione, Bricco and Trib's. The company also operates - under franchise - brands as USA and Canada Eastern Europe Hermès, Lonely Planet, Fnac, iStore, Costa Coffee, Paul, Victoria's Secret and Marks & Spencer. 2015 has been an important year for Travel Retail, for Lagardère acquired a North American travel France Western Europe retailer (Paradies, for 485M € paid in cash with a bridge loan) to increase its presence in North America, and more recently obtained a contract to operate in various sections of the Duty Free retail space at the new Midfield Terminal Complex (MTC) of the Abu Dhabi International Airport (from Figure: Sales per business 2017). Lagardère Travel Retail is the 4th travel retailer in the world (according to Moodie Report 2015). Sales come from France (26.2%), Europe (excluding France, 59.8%), North America and Asia-Pacific. 394 LAGARDÈRE ACTIVE (13% of total sales) contains an ecosystem of media activities. Sales come 958 2.004 mainly from France (85.5% of Active's sales). The firm owns famous magazines (52% of Active's sales) such as Elle, Paris Match and Version Femina, radio stations (22% of Active's sales) such as Europe 1, Virgin Radio and RFM, Television channels (9% of Active's sales, Youth Channels such as Tiji, Canal J and Gulli, Music Channels such as Virgin Radio TV, MCM, RFM TV, MCM Top), and Websites (Doctissimo, BilletReduc.com, Boursier.com). Part of this unit's activities is also the Audio-Visual production & distribution, which consists in selling and distributing to other TV channels programs archives and own productions. Sales of Active are highly dependent from the cyclical advertisement market. After the sale of 3.814 Canal+ to Vivendi in 2013, the focus of the management is to improve profit margin by performing an efficient cost optimization on this unit. Publishing LAGARDÈRE SPORTS & ENTERTAINMENT (6% of total sales) main activities consist in Marketing Rights and TV rights management, talent representation and music shows/live shows Travel Retail production.The company is one of the major international market players, although it is not one of Active the top ones. Main clients for marketing rights management are football teams in the British, French and German football leagues. The most famous teams are Borussia Dortmund, Olympique Sports&Entertainment Lyonnais and FC Southampton. 2 | Page Main TV rights owned come from the African Football Confederation and from the Asian Football Confederation. Talent Represented are mainly tennis players such as Andy Murray, Caroline Wozniacki and Richard Gasquet. The portfolio of activities is very broad, the unit also sells TV rights in Asia for events such as the tennis US Open and Paris Roland Garros tournament. The declared strategy of the management is to consolidate its market position by renewing the contracts and the rights that they already own. External growth is not probable unless very profitable and safe opportunities arise. Main sales come from Marketing Rights (47.9% of Sports & Entertainment sales) and TV rights (19.5%). Geographical distribution of sales is concentrated in France (56.9%), Asia-Pacific (20.1%), America (14.1%) and Africa (6.3%). MANAGEMENT STRATEGY The Management's main objective is to obtain a 3% organic growth before 2018 by increasing Lagardère's presence in the fast growing Travel Retail market. Better profit margin is pursued by increasing Publishing's exposure to the e-books market (which leads to higher margins as the production costs are lower), performing a cost optimization on the Active unit, divesting well functioning but non-profitable businesses (such as the Distribution business, divested in Spain and Switzerland in 2015) and bring Sport & Management to stable profitability. CORPORATE GOVERNANCE The company's legal structure deserves to be mentioned. It is indeed an SCA (société en commandite par actions), non-other that a Partnership Limited by Shares. There are two categories of partners: • General Partners • Limited Partners General Parners are indefinitely personally liable for the companies' liabilities, while Limited Partners are liable only to the extent of their contribution in the partnership. Their situation is the same as that of shareholders in a joint stock corporation. The company is managed by the Managing Partners. They are appointed by the General Partner even though the final decision is taken by shareholders in an ordinary general meeting. There is a Supervisory Board whose members are elected by the limited partners in order to represent their interest and eventually oppose to the choices of the General Partners and Managing Partners. General Partners are Arnaud Lagardère and Arjil Commanditée-Arco, a joint stock company represented by Arnaud Lagardère, Pierre Leroy, Dominique D'Hinnin and Thierry Funck- Brentano. These members are also Managing Partners of Lagardère SCA. This structure has some limitations and some benefits: It gives a stronger control power to the General Partners.