Kier is suffering from a lack of confidence in the market. It was not helped by a 67 page note from Barclays which includes these quotes:
With a share price down over 25% in the past 12 months and consensus remaining 100% overweight, we seek to assess whether the decline is justified, or more simply a result of wider sector concerns. In our view, significant acquisitions, H1 WCap outflows, heavy historical use of exceptionals, meaningful on- and off-balance-sheet leverage, increasing utilisation of JVs and a forthcoming divisional restructure inevitably raise some concerns, particularly in light of recent issues in the sector.While we appreciate a number of Kier’s attractions – with a strong position within the Highways market, which should see increased spend in the forecast period on assumption of control of the Smart Motorways JV and the expected returns that should be generated from the investments made into residential and commercial property development over the past three years – we believe the shares are not as ‘cheap’ or cash-generative as at first glance, with significant adjustments required to appreciate the full leverage position. We see few potential catalysts to drive a substantial re-rating given the greater level of risk now in the model and, as a result, initiate at Underweight with a 995p price target based on our SOTP valuation, which we view as the most logical way to approach the hybrid business model.
Within this note we highlight a number of areas that raise some uncertainty on the sustainability and cash generation of underlying earnings within the group’s Contracting businesses – namely adjusted cash conversion, which we see as lower than reported in presentations, significant provisions created on acquisition, relatively soft organic earnings progression once adjusting for M&A and a mixed outlook for the sustainability of high payables balances in construction.
With a growing share of earnings from leveraged joint ventures in Property and Residential, visibility is increasingly challenging and earnings sensitivity increasing.
There was a discussion on this on ftalphaville on 7 June 2018.
This seems like too much doom and gloom to me, people are still scared of another Carillion but I think the drop is overdone at Kier. I'm not aware that they are the weakest in the sector and the latest update indicated the quantity of work available seems to be growing.
