I would like to thank a fellow forumer named dydx in http://www.wallstraits.com/ who surfaced this gemlike company listed on SGX to everyone (read thread http://www.wallstraits.com/community/viewthread.php?tid=2764 and http://www.wallstraits.com/wsforum/showthread.php?tid=218).
Disclaimer: The author is vested in Adampak. YMMV.
1. Overview
Products and Services
Adampak products and services are in the area of manufacturing labels for any products that requires some form of labeling. Their labels range from serialized barcodes, generic paste-on labels, tamper-proof labels, labels and seals for use in electronic circuit boards (clean-room 100 and 1000 requirements), insertion of Radio Frequency Identification Tags (RFID) onto labels.
In recent years, Adampak acquired 100% stake in Aident, and hence expanded its business laterally into precision die-cut components, as well as enlarged the manufacturing base to reach into Malaysia.
Industry analysis
Product labels have grown to become ubiquitous and indispensable in our daily lives. And as human’s insatiable need for more products grow indefinitely, the demand for labels will also grow in pace. The global market size for labels is estimated to be worth US$2.0 billion in terms of sales[1]
From a manufacturing perspective, labeling services are critical in the entire product value chain. Companies rely heavily on the labeling services to firstly, perform effective inventory management (using barcodes or RFID), secondly, to communicate key information visually (e.g. from manufacturer to distributor to suppliers to front line sales).
Dividing the pie for service redundancy
In view of the criticality in the entire value chain, companies are cautious in awarding their contracts to the label manufacturers. They will normally adopt a policy distributing the required number of labels amongst the shortlisted manufacturers. This prevents a single point of failure in the entire value chain by building in a layer of service redundancy. For instance, say HP requires 1,000,000 labels for their entire series of printers, if there are three competitors, they will split the pie accordingly and award each label manufacturer a part of the entire contract. Should one label manufacturer’s operations suspend, the customers will be able to fall back on another substituting firm and prevent a catastrophic disruption of the product value chain.
Market Dominance and Barriers to Entry
The prior paragraph implies that the industry will never allow the creation of a monopoly. One manufacturer may be able to eat a majority of the pie, but it will never be able to swallow it complete; in the longer run, many will perish and at the same time, none will be able to achieve complete market dominance; the competition will always taper out to an equilibrium comprising several key players in the industry.
At first glance, the labeling business appears to be a commodity-like industry, with low barriers to entry for potential competitors. But a closer look reveals otherwise. For those companies that have an impressive clientele of most global clients, with 30 to 40 years of industry experience, with consistent delivery of high quality products – these are invisible barriers to entry. For instance, HP will naturally be disinclined to switch to a new China label manufacturer entrant that has not yet been tried tested and proven, and avoid any risk of their product labels fading or falling off at the consumer’s end; they will prefer to stay with the reliable incumbents like Adampak. In addition, for any competitor to take on Adampak in terms of being the lowest cost producer, it must be able to achieve a significant scale of operation to derive economies of scales. It is also quite apparent that extensive experience is required in terms of running a labeling business and managing the technicalities of operations.
As long as the incumbents continue to consistently deliver quality labels at the lowest possible cost, I do not see why product companies like HP will take a risk and perform a switch on such critical services.
Exposure to economic cycles of boom and bust
Adampak and Zephyr currently derive a majority of their sales from pharmaceuticals, electronics, hard drives, telecommunication products. Therefore their businesses are inadvertently driven by demand in the various sectors. While they are making efforts to expand into other industries like 3rd Party Logistics, it will be inadvertent that their sales and profits will depend on the expansion and contraction of the various sectors during economic cycles of boom of bust.
Competitor Analysis: History of the Three Kingdoms
For industrial applications, Adampak, Zephyr and Brady – all these three companies hail as the giants who take up majority of the global pie of labeling services. In the South-East-Asia region, Adampak & Zephyr hail as the two industry leaders. This is based on the fact that their clientele include an impressive list of MNCs like HP, Fed-Ex, DHL, Merck, Seagate, Maxtor, etc. etc. While on the international arena, all three of them compete for contracts from the big companies. There are other labelers, but judging at the Adampak and Brady’s ability to grow sales so consistently and rapidly over the last few years, it does seem that they are gradually scalping sales from the smaller competitors.
Zephyr (pronounced as Zef-fee) is a privately held company based in Singapore. It has 2 factories in Malaysia and 1 in Singapore, as compared to Adampak’s 8 multi-national factories spread over Philippines, China, Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore. Sources from industry insiders revealed that Adampak started out as a sub-contractor of Zephyr. When Zephyr is not able to fully satisfy the sales due to production capacity, the spillover deals went to Adampak. Adampak subsequently cut the umbilical cord, moved forward and went public in 2002. Adampak took the bold move and seized the opportunity to launch into China, while at the same time, Zephyr was cautious of operations in China, so it stayed within the confines of Singapore and Malaysia.
Now, Brady is a US based company with a very extensive range of label services. It has a global outreach with offices and factories spread across Europe, America and Asia. For FY07, it has achieved sales of US$1.3 billion, with 25% of the sales of some US$520m from Asia Pacific countries. In recent years, it has been trying to make attempts to secure its foothold in the Asian region. To break into the Asian markets, Brady took a move to setup factories and offices in Asia, and once attempted mounted a takeover bid on Zephyr.
Competitors Analysis: Financials
In addition, profit/sales ratio for Zephyr is 13.3%, Brady’s is 8%, and Adampak leads with a profit/sales ratio of 15%. In terms of efficiency in cost structure, Adampak emerges as the clear winner here. In terms of Return on Assets (as a measure of profit per dollar of asset), Zephyr has ROA of 13.4%, Brady's is 6%, Adampak leads the pack with an ROA of 16%.
Comparatively in terms of growth, Zephyr is languishing (-5% growth for FY07, and only a total 12% growth since 2003 from then S$39m to FY07 S$44m) as it watches Adampak rapidly expand into Asian markets. If Adampak can continue to sustain its current rate of growth, it is only a matter of time that Adampak will overtake Zephyr to become the South-East Asia’s industry leader. Adampak is well anchored in the Asian markets but the company faces stiff challenges from the goliath incumbent Brady. Given Adampak’s well established network and factories well positioned in South East Asia, I do not rule out a possibility that Brady will extend a takeover bid for Adampak for it to leapfrog and expand its presence in Asian countries.
Areas of Improvement for Adampak
For Adampak to continue to maintain its edge in this industry, efforts must be continually made to leverage on technology to reduce costs and streamline operations. What is observed from a ground tour is that there are many areas that can be further improved with the aid of technology. For example, quality checks on barcodes are performed to 100% by manual visual checks, and this can be expedited by incorporating computerized image recognition technology to replace labour and speed up such checks. This is perhaps just one of the many possible areas of improvements. In addition, instead of a manufacturer offering labeling services, Adampak can consider forging strong relationships with partner companies in related industries to provide customized turnkey solutions for customers. i.e. Adampak can become the customer’s single point of contact from setting up of a label system to printing of labels.
Adampak's business strategy
It is in my opinion that Adampak adopts a strategy that (1) maintains a niche specialization in label manufacturing, (2) leverage on resources in developing nations to reduce production and labour costs, and (3) grows business aggressively in Asian regions by establishing a localised presence.
Challenges of Industry and growth drivers
Final Remarks
Quotes from Brady’s FY07 report
“Fiscal 2007 was marked by challenges and progress for Brady. While sales grew 34 percent over last year, we were disappointed by a 5 percent increase in net income, which fell well short of our expectations. This was primarily driven by challenges we faced in our OEM markets, with increased pricing pressure from our customers, a loss of focus due to major acquisition integration efforts and some loss of market share. We responded quickly to correct our cost structure, refocus our OEM sales force in Asia and integrate recent acquisitions.”
Was Brady’s CEO referring to a loss of market share to up and rising competitors like Adampak? I would think so. The deeper I analyze the business; the more I am convinced that Adampak is well poised to become the next Unisteel of labels.
2. Management Quality
Is the management of (a) an unquestionable integrity, (b) holds a vested interest, (c) highly competent and (d) shareholder oriented?
Vested Interest
The executive management has a significant vested interest in the company. Executive Director Mr Anthony Tay Song Seng holds a 32% stake in the company with 85 mil shares, while CEO Mr Chua Cheng Song holds a 2% stake with 6.1 mil shares. In addition, in recent months, the Executive Director has steadily been increasing his holdings through open market purchase. As a minority shareholder, the above facts provide immense confidence that the management will be acting in the best interests of the shareholder.
Management stability & integrity
There is also great stability in the management as there have been no changes in the key appointment holders for the last 7 years of listings. This is a good indication of a good and united leadership core. Management has thus far been forthcoming and candid – be it about the challenges the company faces, or the quality of earnings in light of rough times ahead. Management integrity is also spotless, with no clear signs of inconsistencies.
Management competency
The executive director Mr Anthony Tay Song Seng is the founder of the company with more than 25 years of experience in the industry. CEO Mr Chua has been with the company for a period of 10 years. At the manager level, at least 50% of the appointment holders had experience level ranging from 10 years to 20 years in the industry. The independent directors comprise of two chartered accountants, Mr Goh Siang Khin and Mr Lee Joo Hai, and one lawyer Mr Teo Kiang Kok. In addition, interestingly, both independent directors served a stint in Unisteel, and hence they will definitely be able to add value to Adampak from their experience in Unisteel. All of them have an illustrious professional track record in either accountancy or the law practice. This is a very strong representation, and enhances the shareholder confidence in the accuracy and transparency of the financial statements.
Shareholder oriented
Adampak has consistently and unfailingly made good its promise to share the wealth generated from its operations with the shareholders. Although there’s no formal dividend policy, Adampak has distributed approx. 30% of profits to all shareholders for the last few years. This is not expected to change in the near future as the management will likely remain in operation.
My Impression of Adampak’s staff
I went into Adampak posing as a potential customer. I was greeted with a forthcoming Customer Service Manager, and happened to bump into the Executive Director Anthony dressed in tee-shirt and jeans just stepping out from the production floor, probably after doing his ground walkabout. He gave me the first impression as a very down-to-earth and hands on person who knows his stuff. A casual walkabout at the production floor reveals that several technicians are highly experienced with over 20 years of service in this industry.
3. Business Fundamentals & Valuation
Adampak has excellent business fundamentals. For FY2007, using Owner’s Earnings (3.242 mil) / Share Capital (15.5 mil) ROE = 20.9%. For FY2006, ROE is 25.6%. It has a high current ratio of 4, and runs on low debt to finance its growth. The Net Tangible Asset Value as at FY07 is US$0.14, or S$0.19. Using the FY07 operating cashflow of S$0.0275, and a projected growth rate of 15%, assuming Adampak has no terminal value and stays in business for 7 years, Adampak’s intrinsic value is estimated to be S$0.38, which is actually a very conservative estimate of intrinsic value. Take this value and compare to current share price, there is a significant margin of safety of 1.57.
[2] Information source of private company Zephyr is from downloaded annual reports at www.acra.gov.sg
No comments:
Post a Comment