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Yesterday, Aspen reported really good half-year numbers. They delivered a 10% increase in revenue and a 37% rise in profits thanks to good margin expansion. The company made R7.77 per share for the six months. The strong organic growth in the business is very encouraging; these numbers were not aided by a once-off bump from vaccine sales.
Last week Aspen released half year results for the 6 months ending December 2020. After a few rough years, the numbers looked much better. Revenues increased 17% to R18.6 billion. This resulted in a 16% rise in normalised headlines earnings per share to R6.76.
The South African pharmaceutical giant Aspen reported a strong set of full-year numbers, even though Covid-19 was a net drag on their earnings. Contrary to popular opinion, Dexamethasone was a non-event in these numbers and if you bought Aspen shares on just this one drug, you would've quickly learnt that you made a bad mistake.
On Thursday evening Aspen announced their six month figures. The numbers were largely in line with what they had earlier announced to the market in their trading statement.
On Friday evening Aspen released a trading update which included a fair amount of important information. Revenues are expected to grow between 2-4% and normalised headline earnings per share are expected to come in between R7.46 and R7.77 for the 6 months ending December 2019. Trading at R107 a share and making R7.50 in 6 months, this company is cheap.
We have owned Aspen Pharmacare in Vestact JSE portfolios for many, many years. We started buying them in July 2005 when the share price was R27.55.
What is going on at Aspen? They closed last night below R70 a share, a price they were at in 2010. The company released a sens yesterday indicating an anticompetitive fine in the UK of 8 million Pounds. Although that amount is not crippling it represents a sign of desperation within the corporate culture.
Africa's pharmaceutical giant Aspen, reported very soft interim numbers on Thursday night, sending the share price down as much as 50% intra-day on Friday. The stock eventually closed down 29%, at the lowest levels in seven years. The main concerns were mounting debt on the balance sheet and the delayed sale of the infant nutrition business.
Aspen Pharmacare, a long-beloved Vestact stock, reported its annual results yesterday, for the period to the end of June 2018. Simultaneously, they announced the sale of their global infant nutritional (baby milk formula) business, for just under R13 billion.
Towards the end of last week Aspen released their 6-month results for the period ending 31 December 2017. As expected from the trading update, the growth in earnings looked solid. Revenues grew by 11%, and headline earnings grew by 26%. The below table shows the businesses product breakdown by revenue. The pie graph below then shows the product mix by region.
Yesterday Aspen announced that they received approval in China for their Alula brand of infant milk formula. The company indicated in their last set of results that they were on track to get the approval, it is still a huge step for the company. You may remember the 2008 Chinese milk scandal, where babies in China died and thousands were hospitalised due to poorly manufactured infant formula. The result of the scandal is that brands matter in China. You would rather pay up for a well know international brand than an unknown local brand.
One of the main concerns with Aspen is their high intangible asset level on the balance sheet. An intangible asset is an asset that is not physical in nature and includes things like trademarks, patents and goodwill. This often means that the valuation is somewhat subjective.
For many investors they had flashbacks of Steinhoff yesterday as the Aspen share price dropped 10% and the the words 'Viceroy report' were mentioned. Viceroy Research were the guys who published a report showing how Steinhoff were cooking the books. This Tweet from Viceroy in late December confirms that they have a South African company in their sites.
On Thursday we had full year earnings from Aspen, one of our biggest local holdings. This one certainly deserves a closer look.
Some more on the Aspen H1 results from yesterday. Make sure that you watch this fabulous interview (that lasted longer than initially) - Aspen H1 normalised HEPS up 6%, see the imbedded video below. Self inflicted (supply chain) problems in South Africa, those have been fixed and a turnaround is afoot. An interesting question, when asked about why own Aspen today, at these levels, he gives an answer which I suspect a shareholder should expect. He said that 40 reporting periods of increased earnings, time and time again, tells you something. And he tells of how the business was harder at the beginning, cap in hand sitting in front of the bank manager. In some ways he says, it is easier to run a bigger business. Interesting perspective, not too dissimilar to those of Phil Knight of Nike in his book, Shoe Dog.