Exel Composites - Long-term EBIT trajectory intact

Exel’s Q4 EBIT was soft relative to estimates, yet demand doesn’t seem to abate and in our view the US unit should, sooner or later, again reach the required performance level. Long-term earnings potential therefore remains significant.

The EUR 1.0m Q4 adj. EBIT was soft relative to estimates

Q4 revenue grew 33% y/y to EUR 36.5m vs the EUR 32.0m/31.8m Evli/cons. estimates. Buildings and infrastructure grew to be the largest industry and the fact highlights how there are many industries besides Wind power driving growth. Order intake was moderated due to the difficulties in the US and inflation had some negative impact on Q4 EBIT, but Exel continues to lift its own pricing and hence raw material price increases are not a major issue, at least not in the long-term perspective. We gather Exel’s raw material inflation pace slowed down somewhat late last year, which is not surprising considering the rate seen earlier during the year. That said, raw material prices don’t seem to be declining either and so the environment can still cause some short-term drag on EBIT. We estimate most of the EUR 0.9m q/q profitability improvement was attributable to the US unit.

We still estimate meaningful growth for this year

The US labor situation remains extraordinarily challenging and thus it will take at least some additional quarters before Exel again reaches the high single-digit EBIT margins it used to enjoy before the problems in the US materialized. Exel is doing the best they can to hire and retain local employees. Meanwhile demand appears to remain very strong across basically all geographies and customer industries. We revise our FY ’22 revenue estimate to EUR 150.7m (prev. EUR 146.8m), while our new EBIT estimate for this year is EUR 10.6m (prev. EUR 12.0m).

Long-term earnings potential continues to stand out

We believe Exel should have no trouble hitting EUR 150m top line especially when the US unit continues to progress. Exel has previously been able to reach 10% EBIT on a quarterly level (long-term target is above 10%). We expect FY ’22 results to still fall a lot short of the implied EUR 15m mark, and hence long-term upside remains significant. Exel is valued around 5.5-7.0x EV/EBITDA and 8.0-11.0x EV/EBIT on our FY ’22-23 estimates. Uncertainty around the US limits upside in the short-term and we thus revise our TP to EUR 9 (10). We retain our BUY rating.

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