Ann: Full year results presentation, page-23

"Honestly, pretty good buy back at these levels if I'm being honest. New 52W Lows"

The low is more like 12 years x 52 weeks = 624 week lows (!):




Of course, after the major acquisition in 2023, the company is carrying more debt today than 3 years ago, so the Enterprise Value isn't at an all-time low.

The current EV is close to an all-time low, though, as can be seen from the grey columns in the chart below, at a time when the EBIT is approaching an all-time high (the blue columns):



Which means that the EV/EBIT multiple is at an all-time low:




Clearly, this is part of a multi-year trend during which the multiple has undergone a secular de-rating, from in the mid-teens a decade ago, to less than 11.0x today.

So it cannot be ruled out that the de-rating process continues.
However, it can't go on indefinitely and at some stage it must reach a limit.

What is the leading indicator for the reaching of that de-rating limit?

I think it is once the market sees the financial leverage level falling sufficiently- to, say, ~2.0x Net Debt-to-EBITDA (currently ~3.0x, down from 3.7x in FY2023).

At the current rate of returning capital to shareholders, this would only be a late-2026 story, though. So it's still some time away.

Of course, if the repair of the balance sheet is indeed some kind of a re-rating catalyst, then the market, being the future-looking animal that it is, will start to anticipate it probably 12-18 months before it actually happens.

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