I don't view this as a strategic review; I view as an effort in selling off, out, part or whole.
It appears to me that there are no take over offers on the horizon. In my interpretation, this announcement means: "Can someone please buy us, either all of it or the parts:
- Halo Manufacturing
- Brands Division
- New Zealand Dairy
- The Healthy Mummy
The last sentence of the announcement is a kind of give away:
For further information call: Rob AntulovManaging Partner Australia, Modus Partners
On the face of the information of this announcement, an obvious solution is to sell or liquidate the unprofitable divisions (2, 3, and 4); I take it that they are unprofitable since no profit there is mentioned. ... and keep the profitable one: Halo Manufacturing
The announcement states the Halo Manufacturing is profitable with sales of $56m. Reading the fine print, one learns that the $56m also includes inter-company sales;
this raises the question (crucial) what would be the inter-company PRICES charged to those divisions? - in order to make Halo Manufacturing profitable; would that be EBIT, NPAT?
Let's contemplate a potential buyer:
Why would someone buy a company that
arguably has strategically failed at
almost every corner? T
he current SP price is thus the condensed value estimation by investors of capital that 'wants to be allocated efficiently'.To refresh our memories, when Long Table sold out their holding, they took a substantial cut: 3c when the SP was around 13c before the CR and the transformative acquisition of THM. Using the similar logic, a potential buyer would probably looking also at a discount of around 30%; given the current SP of 1.1c this would lead to 0.8c per share (in this crude back of the envelope calculation). Personally, I can't see a SP of 4c.
If one looks at time frames:
I think, a potential buyer has all the time in the world, whereas the seller (HLF) has no or little time.Let's refresh our memories: When HLF raised / needed cash last year in March, the new money was raised at 6.8c (equalling an almost 50%) discount from the then current SP. Today, in addition, access to capital is still getting dearer given the latest RBA raise of interest. Something to think about with HLF's debt burden - when re-financing time comes
So, if I 'read the tea leaves right', I would forecast a share price well below 1c for the future.
My gut feeling is that this could also go easily the way WATTLE went (some long term posters here would remember that episode on the ASX).
AIMAO - all in my arrogant opinion
