Assuming that you believe their estimates (which I do, but you'll have to do your own analysis of their cash flows etc to check this), I believe it is a good thing for healthia. This is for 3 main reasons.
1. Increasing size. Increased size allows greater efficiencies in back office and acquisition teams just simply due to the economies of scale. When the business first listed it only had around 60million shares that IPO at $1.00. A measly 60 million market cap. This wasn't on the radar for many institutional investors. We have seen a few start to pick it up now, and with increased size I believe it will continue. This is what often happens with micro caps that have traction, as the size increases, so does the money inflow (especially once they do their DCF calculations on a few years of results). My ideal investment is one that can grow from a $50million cap to a $2000million cap and be in the ASX200. The extra buying power of the institutional and then index investors provides the final high price at to which you can exit.
2. Increased diversification. We all know diversification is good for withstanding downturns and generating stable returns. So this acquisition is particularly good from that front with more exposure to underexposed regions. More clinics = more ideas, more data, more testing, more diversification. One of the reasons I liked Healthia in the first place was that the clinics are quite independent from each other, with different clinic class ownership and teams and profit share calculations for each clinic. This means that they can see quite easily which ones are doing well and performing and which ones aren't. They then use these ideas from the good performing clinics to improve other clinics. If this fails, they have closed some clinics in the past which weren't sufficiently profitable.
3. Reduced overall gearing. Net debt going from 5x underlying NPAT down to 3.65x provides an improved balance sheet which can either be used to buffer the current potential downturn in economic conditions OR to further growth.
As we saw with the acquisition last year, it was the catalyst for the share price to double from $1.00 to near $2.00. I think we could potentially see a similar jump from this acquisition. Maybe from $2.00 to $3.00 or $3.50, which would STILL be undervalued in my opinion.
I think this is a stock that you can potentially aim to hold until it is in the ASX200.
GLTAH & DYOR.
HLA Price at posting:
$2.20 Sentiment: Buy Disclosure: Held
