Scanfil - Outlook basically unchanged

Scanfil operations continue to develop on a positive note as industrial OEM customer demand seems remarkably strong in the face of the pandemic. We have made rather small downward revisions to our estimates due to increasing uncertainty. Our TP is EUR 5.25 (5.75), rating BUY.

No dramatic effects to segment performances so far
Q1 revenue grew by 11% y/y (two-thirds due to the HASEC acquisition) to EUR 144m and thus beat estimates by ca. EUR 10m. ROI, at 17.8% in Q1, continued to develop strong. February saw the Chinese plants stall due to the coronavirus situation that hadn’t back then escalated into a pandemic. There has been only one production plant closure so far since (in Poland). In fact, March was the strongest month in terms of (organic) growth and helped to compensate for slow February. According to Scanfil supply chains have continued to work well and only a few customer accounts have seen demand forecasts drop for Q2 and Q3. Naturally uncertainty is growing but for now Scanfil can reiterate its previous strong outlook for this year.

Scanfil continues to perform and is ready for acquisitions
We have slightly revised our estimates down due to increased uncertainty. The adjustments are remarkably small, amounting to an average of EUR 6m in quarterly revenue, or 4%. We have also done a small downward adjustment to operating margin, now expecting 6.5% instead of the previous 6.75%. We thus see EBIT at the low bound of the guidance range i.e. at EUR 39.0m; we previously expected EUR 41.4m. Scanfil says it has a liquidity position of some EUR 60m ready to be deployed for e.g. M&A.

A valuation above peer multiples is well justified
The pandemic seems to pose no cracks to Scanfil’s fundamentals. According to one narrative the pandemic will reverse globalization and thus supply chains and actors such as contract manufacturers are hit particularly hard. In our opinion such stories fly a bit too high and are based on unsound reasoning. Scanfil’s comments readily confirm industrial OEMs still want to outsource significant amounts of production. We update our TP to EUR 5.25 (5.75) due to increased macroeconomic uncertainty but note how few facts seem to impair Scanfil’s long-term story. We see good upside to Scanfil’s 5.5x EV/EBITDA and 7.5x EV/EBIT ‘20e valuation multiples.

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