Enersense - Favorable tailwinds set to continue
No major surprises in connection with the report
Enersense’s Q4 top line declined by 3% y/y, mostly due to the sale of Staff Leasing business, to EUR 65.9m and was above our EUR 63.0m estimate. The revenue beat was largely due to International Operations, but Power was also above our estimates. Certain M&A related items, both positive and negative, affected results, but overall profitability was slightly above our estimates. Infections continued to bother in certain projects, however these are unlikely to be a major issue going forward. Long-term profitability improving investments in IT and offshore wind power business will burden results this year, and we revise our FY ’22 profitability estimates down by some EUR 3m.
Latest macro changes are more likely to be supportive
There is some inflation risk, especially in the Baltics as the local contracts are long, but the contracts tend to compensate for cost pressures as now seen to some extent in raw materials and wages. Enersense has expanded its value chain presence with two recent acquisitions, and these don’t involve any significant integration issues. Enersense will also update its long-term targets later in H1’22 (the current target is 10% EBITDA margin by 2025 whereas we estimate 7.3% margin for FY ’22). Offshore wind power is a major growth driver going forward as it is a relatively underdeveloped space compared to onshore. The latest shifts in geopolitics do not in our view pose significant risks for Enersense, rather they are bound to accelerate the European transfer away from hydrocarbons and major initiatives in e.g. Germany could yet play out favorably for Enersense’s strategy.
Valuation is not challenging in either short or long term
Our EUR 18.2m EBITDA estimate for FY ’22 lands a bit above the midpoint of the EUR 15-20m range, which we don’t view very challenging. The respective 5.5x EV/EBITDA and 12x EV/EBIT multiples aren’t high compared to peers, and valuation is even more attractive in the long-term perspective as Enersense should achieve relatively steep earnings growth. Peer multiples have, however, continued to decline in the past two months and we update our TP to EUR 8 (10). Our rating remains BUY.