Thursday, June 6, 2013

Vard has stirred.

Vard (formerly STX OSV) has been on my buy list for some time now, and recently, it has stirred.

Although the chart shows it is on a firm downtrend, it looks like it has found a bottom, and is now set to reverse.

Kim Eng has a TP of 1.66 for Vard. Reasons include 
  • Undue sell-down. We believe that recent weakness in share price is partly due to consensus cutting overly optimistic FY13F numbers and valuations due to margin concerns.
  • Brazil yard issues a drag on group margins. In our view, the market has underestimated potential margin pressures from Brazil yard for FY13F and is now/would be realigning their forecasts.
  • Room for upside surprise in contract wins. However, we believe that the strength of recovery from returning orders this year could surprise positively.  It is confident to bring in close to NOK12b in new orders for FY13F, but contributions from new contracts would mostly be seen in its financials from FY14F onwards.
  • A more supportive owner. According to Vard, Fincantieri looks to be a better fit for Vard given cultural similarities and their greater enthusiasm to grow the company as compared to the previous owner.
I may enter soon.