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Raute - Focus shifts to Western markets

Raute reports Q1 results on Apr 29. We continue to expect only break-even EBIT for this year. In our view Europe and North America will now be Raute’s focus markets.

Russia’s absence will be felt especially in the short-term

Raute will deliver its previously signed Russian orders to the extent feasible, case by case, and the company will not sign any new Russian orders for now. Raute has a staff of about 40 in Russia, but other than that no local assets. Raute is therefore not precisely exiting Russia, however we believe the Russian business will gradually shrink to zero and stay there for the foreseeable future. Russia has historically been a very important market for Raute as orders from the country averaged more than EUR 50m in recent years and there was good momentum until the end of last year; the Russian order intake amounted to EUR 79m in FY ’21 and we had estimated a similar amount of Russian revenue for this year. We cut this estimate down to some EUR 30m after the invasion. It remains unclear where the figure will land in the end, but we now expect around EUR 130m revenue for Raute vs the roughly EUR 175m estimate before the war.

Western markets’ strength is the best short-term remedy

In our view Europe and North America are the markets which could best help make up the Russian shortfall in the short-term. These established markets have historically belonged to the core of Raute’s strategy, and their order intakes also picked up last year after a few slower years. These markets’ strength could prove our short to medium term estimates too low. Latin America and Asia, especially China, also have long-term potential. Raute’s competitive positioning should in any case remain favorable, but we continue to see lots of uncertainty around financial performance and hence it’s hard to view current valuation particularly attractive.

We consider current valuation pretty much fair

In our view Raute’s financial profile hasn’t been altered much in the sense that the company should still be able to achieve EUR 10m EBIT with some EUR 150m revenue. Current valuation is cheap relative to this potential, but risks are related to e.g. Western orders’ strength in the short and medium term. Raute is now valued around 6x EV/EBITDA and 9x EV/EBIT on our FY ’23 estimates. We retain our EUR 15 TP and HOLD rating.

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