The future of AZJ, page-425

The 'lively' blog this morning has two brokers commenting:

Daniel: So Aurizon (ASX: AZJ), to be honest, the result itself was pretty solid. Profits were up 11%, but it was a little bit below expectation on the back of higher interest costs. So the stock was down 8% on the day. Really, if we look at the underlying performance of the business, we think it’s performing well and we see some really good medium-term growth coming through their land bridging business, which is where they are going to bring goods from Asia through their rail network from Darwin to Adelaide, back through Melbourne and Sydney, rather than people bringing goods via ships, which can get very congested at ports. And they’re talking to four very large perspective potential customers. They’re in contract discussions. So if some of those come off, we see some really good medium term growth for the company.

Hugh: And you’re not paying a lot for the stock now. It’s a very reliable business. They’re able to give guidance. It’s not like it’s very uncertain and it’s trading on about 12 times, which is really appropriate for a business that’s going nowhere rather than a business that has some growth, and they are forecasting growth.