Eltel - Organic progress continues
Positives, negatives, and one-off gains
Eltel’s Q4 revenue, at EUR 226m, topped the EUR 206m/207m Evli/cons. estimates while EBITA came in ca. EUR 2m above estimates. Finland performed much according to our expectations while Sweden topped our estimates; Norway and Denmark were a bit soft. The EUR 2.5m positive one-off in Poland, due to a real estate sale, drove the Other business segment to an EBITA of EUR 1.7m, clearly above our estimates even when excluding the one-off. Eltel’s earnings were, however, much in line with our estimates when adjusted for the one-off. Eltel’s turnaround continues and the company guides increasing operative EBITA margin for FY ’22. Q1, as happens to be the nature of the business, will represent a slow start for the year.
We now estimate a positive rate of growth for the year
Eltel continues to make progress, but there remains much uncertainty with respect to the gradient. Diesel prices, salaries, materials as well as logistics costs are headwinds. Inflation isn’t a problem for the Communication business (more than 60% of revenue), yet it affects Power. We make relatively small estimate revisions, but we now expect Eltel to reach a positive 2% growth this year, whereas we previously expected a 2% decline. Our new FY ‘22 revenue estimate is EUR 829.6m (prev. EUR 774.0m). Our margin estimates are up by only 10bps for the year, but they rise by some EUR 2m in absolute terms due to the growth revision. We however expect Q1 EBITA to remain slightly in the red and see most of the profitability gains accruing over the summer. We believe Eltel is still going to focus on turnaround for a while and thus e.g. M&A may have to wait for a while, but should it occur Denmark and Sweden are perhaps the most potential countries.
Valuation continues to stand neutral
Valuation still doesn’t seem to offer clear upside considering the uncertainty around the improvement pace. We find the 6x EV/EBITDA and 15x EV/EBIT multiples, on our FY ’22 estimates, to be neutral relative to peers. Eltel’s margins remain modest compared to peers; quicker than expected improvement can drive upside, but we wouldn’t expect much more than EUR 22m EBITA at this point. Our TP is now SEK 15 (17); retain HOLD.