Market Gem : China Milk

by November 04, 2008
Core Business
Supposily to be the largest company specializing in the production of pedigree bull semen, pedigree dairy cow embryos and raw milk in the growing dairy industry of China. Four areas of growth
1) Produces bull semen for sale to other farmers and insitutions
2) Using cow waste to make fertilizers and sell it
3) Soon to produce their own dairy products
4) Sale of raw milk

Risk:
Their cattles are reared in farms located in Daqing in Heilongjiang Province in the PRC.
Natural calamities such as drought, snowstorm, flood or other natural disasters would have a significant adverse effect on their operations and business if there is significant loss of their livestock or damage to their facilities that would disrupt their production processes.
Their business is highly dependent on the health and physical condition of their herd. Sickness or disease infection may lower the weight, milk yield and reproduction capability of our cows as well as the quality and quantity of the semen produced by our sires. They indicated that they have in place stringent health management
and hygiene control measures, which encompass the critical processes of processing and collection of
bull semen and embryos, milking of dairy cows, the sanitisation of cattle sheds and farms, as well as the
monitoring of the health condition of their herd and staff.
In addition, any unfortunate events that have negative impact on the dairly industry in China such as the recent Milk scandal, affects demand.


Is the company focused?
Focuses on breeding cows, selling the raw milk , creating more quality cows using semen, selling fertilizers also.
Profit comes mostly from semen.



China’s Demand for milk:
"So great is the demand for milk and milk products that China’s dairy industry has been experiencing a shortage situation of raw milk, primarily due to the inability of the local dairy industries to meet demand. In China, the average annual milk consumption per capita rose from 2.5 kg in 1984 to 14.3 kg in 2003" This pharse was stated in their annual report. However as we all know, the recent scandal has cause abit of a hicup in the Dariy industry of China. The important questiona to ponder is, will the Dairy Industry in China ever recover? How long will the downtrend in this industry last?
http://chinamilk.listedcompany.com/newsroom/20080926_193047_G86_B2C597F8D5621CE4482574D0003EAFAD.1.pdf

Future Growth Drivers
The company is improving their herd size to drive higher milk yield
• Continue to enhance internal breeding programme
• To import another 3,000 Australian Holsteins around June 2008
• Explore acquisition opportunities; targets identified
• In negotiation with a government-owned bull semen producer in Heilongjiang Province for a possible acquisition
Increase production ofquality bull semen and cow embryos
• Focus on growing/importing quality Holsteins and bull sires so as to raise production of bull semen and cow embryos, which Generally command higher margins
• Commercialize gender-controlled bull semen and cow
Embryos Move downstream to process Raw milk
• To commence milk processing for an existing major customer as soon as possible
There is a rapidly growing penchant for international food and beverage concepts which use a lot of milk and milk products. The PRC government has also been promoting the need for nutrition as evidenced by the government’s nation-wide School Milk Programmed.


Economics of scale:
Possibly the biggest company that has dairy farms in China.
Possible Competitor is Fonterra
With 9 farms in the cities of Daqing and Harbin, we own an impressive herd of 15,0412 pedigree bull sires,
Our Group owns a total of 100,000 square meters of cow-sheds, 125 million square meters of grassland and 1.83 million square meters of farm land

Market Leadership:
More than 700 model dairy farms have been established around Beijing and Tianjin, with 280,000 cows, according to the Chinese government. Plans are in the works for hundreds of other similar farms, and there are plans to speed up the use of selected dairy genetics

Focus a lot on research:
At China Milk, they placed a strong emphasis on research and development.

(From their annual report)
We collaborate with 12 external researchers and technicians from reputable research institutes such as the HLJ August First Reclamation University in the PRC, working on various initiatives to improve our efficiency, productivity and product quality.

These initiatives include the increasing of milk production in our cows; raising protein levels and fat content of our raw milk; increasing the success rate of embryo transplants; as well as enhancing the quality of embryos and Total Mixed Ration of cattle feeds.

Our collaboration with external researchers has also allowed us to process liquid manure from cattle, for the production of organic fertilizers that are biodegradable and environmentally friendly. These composite fertilizers are used in our farms, as well as sold to other customers throughout the PRC since February 2002.

Comment: Their economic moat seems to be fairly strong, though one must give this company more time to build up it's economic moat in the coming future. Suffice to say there are no competitors so far that can match up to the size and scale of China Milk.


Management holding their own shares?
The information can be found in our Annual Reports. And announcement through SGXnet will have to be made when management and directors are buying/selling shares.
At the moment, none of the management and the directors have been buying/selling shares since IPO.
Should you have any further queries, please feel free to contact me.

Regards
Martin Choi

Chief Financial Officer

Conservative debt
Long term liability: 1,074,869,000
Net Profit for the year 2008: 480,600,000
Comment:
Management is able to pay off total liabilities within 3 years if they are able to continue to yield NPAT figure in 2008. Suffice to say their reserves of 1.4billon RMB is also able to use if NPAT can’t cover.

ROE
Now looking at their ROE figures, im kind of impressed with the results. The first two columes are empty beacuse, im generally lazy to caculate ahah. But with ROE exploding to figures like 26%, i don't think there should be anything to worry about with regards to management's ablility to use cash to their best potentials.

Quality Net Profit after Tax
Check their depreciation, is it acceptable?
Looks acceptable
The Group’s depreciates property, plant and equipment on a straight-line method over the estimated useful lives,
starting from the date on which the assets are placed into productive use. The estimated useful lives reflect the
directors’ estimate of the periods that the Group intends to derive future economic benefits from the use of the
Group’s property, plant and equipment. The carrying amount of property, plant and equipment is disclosed in
note 12.

R&D as an expense or an asset?
Nil
Any one-off Charge or profit?
Yes, financial derivatives an increase of 877% from 2007. Take note, that once this is discounted, its Net profit growth is only a mere 8% and not 23%.
Still its intrinsic holds at least $1.00+
In addition , their net profit increase from 2007 to 2008 is calculated as $9million SG dollars or 42 million RMB, this doesn’t include the increase in financial cost of which I have no idea how it is link to the increase in the account change in fair value of F.I


Scanning of RED flags in the company
Is there a growing gap between cash flow from operation activities and earnings (cash flow has to be higher then net earnings for refinancing purposes )
2008 / 2007 and 2006 (All in terms of '000)
Cash flow: 402,903 / 381,350 and 289,850
Net income: 480,607/ 378,500 and 272,600
Not a problem here.

Net Earnings is growing faster then sales
Not a problem here
Disproportionate increase in account receivable vs Sales increase
Not a problem here

Unusual increase in inventories vs. sales increase
Sales: 2,217,316 and 1,800,000
Inventories: 149,944 and 134,377
Not a problem here

Any large write offs?
Nope

Quality of the earnings
-Did they include profits from the past periods? (No)
-Under provide for future expenses with current sales, bad debts?(No)
-Increase in reliance of earnings sources apart from main business? (No)
-Cutting pay in workers, employees, R&D etc? (No)

Capital Expenditure
The gorup have been spending alot on Capital Expenditure, this is vital for the company to no.1 establish their economic moat no.2 to get ahead of competiton no.3 to build up brand name and improve on their margins/net profit/revenue etc.
Common sense depicts that , the nature of their business does not require much capital to replace machines , factores or euiptment just like manufacting companies. Therefore , this is not a capital expenditure intensive company.

Final Comments
Beacuse finnancial ratio keep changing in accordance to share price, i decide not to post any ratio from now onwards. But buying China Milk from 0.80cents per share and below should be have a decent margin of safety with high potential to the up side.

Using Adam's koo EPS growth model
Intrinsic is $1.11 based on estimated no growth scenario and 0.13 dividends
At least $1.00 per share based on 0.10 with 5% growth.

Market Gem: SINOTECH FIBRE

by November 01, 2008
Core Business:
Based in Longkou City in Shandong Province, Sino Tech-fiber produces polyurethane (PU) and microfiber synthetic leather, these products are then sold to manufacturers and trading companies that produce fashion apparel, sports apparel and equipment, luggage and travel accessories, as well as upholstery furnishings for furniture. Take not that Sino Tech-fiber is the producer and supplier of these raw materials and not a manufacturer of the end products.
Sino Tech---Processed materials ---Manufacturing companies---Finished products---China’s consumers

Profit breakdown and sales location:
Microfiber Synthetic Leather: 40% of sales
PU Synthetic Leather: 60% of sales
92% of sales come from China
6% of sales come from India
2% from other countries

Risks involving the company:
Competitors, higher taxation, slow down in China consumers’ demand, frauds, failure of the PMP project and natural disasters like the recent earthquake that cause factories to shut down.

Comments: Ever since listed, their sales have been steadily increasing, almost 300million RMB every year. Net profit likewise also increases in tandem with sales. Operational cash flow remains healthy with the rate of receivables growth kept at minimal.

Comments: Due to the fact, the company has to plan for its future and sustain their competitiveness in the industry; A lower free cash flow (FCF) is seen. This was deal to more research and development cost. Recently in 2008, they spend a total of $600million RMB for the establishment of the new PMP production lines and expansion of current capacity. Profit margin remains very high and maintains at 36.8%-35% region.

Competitive advantage:
Their industry outlook:
Strengthen by environment and animal rights and Quality of life in China, Chinese consumers demand more of such high quality products. Under their annual report in 2007 they state that
“Coupled with rising affluence and increasing customer sophistication, more Chinese consumers are demanding higher quality synthetic leather products thus resulting in China importing more high quality synthetic leather products. This augers well for the PRC synthetic leather industry, which will undoubtedly, continue to develop and ride on the latest technologies to produce newer and higher quality synthetic leather products to match the increasing demand.”
Still unconvinced, I went to research more on the demand for synthetic fibre and found evidence as stated below.http://news.tootoo.com/Textile/Fiber_Yarn/20080928/160597.html
http://www.pcifibres.com/ (Look under synthetic fibre index)
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China_Business/HE23Cb03.html

Unique Advantage:

Sino Tech-fiber is one of the designated uniform material production companies for the Naval Armament Research Institute the State Administration of Taxation and the State Administration for Industry and Commerce, The People’s Liberation Army (“PLA”), Chinese People’s Armed Police Force, the Ministry of Public Security and other uniformed groups, along with the Government’s Tax and Judiciary departments accounted for 14.4% of total revenue in FY2007.

Market Leadership:
First and only company that deals with PATTERN MOULDING PAPER, in addition to that probably one of the few companies that supply leather to the Chinese army. The People's liberation army is one of the world's largest military forces, with approximately 7,000,000 members
-With a wide customer base of over 120 customers
With that said , the company is not the largest producer of Synthetic Fibre in China. This fact does not deter me from investing, because the company’s stock is not considered a blue chip but that of a high growth stock. So I think its best to give this young company a chance to prove itself in the coming future in terms of climbing up the market leadership ladder.

Future Growth Drivers:
Development of new products:
Sino Techfibre Limited has crossed a significant milestone as it rolls out its Pattern Molding Paper (“PMP”) capabilities – it is the first and only Chinese company to have this unique capability. The Group’s initial PMP production capacity of 40 million meters will be doubled in FY2009 when our third and fourth lines are installed.

In line with our Group’s continual efforts to develop new cutting edge products, Sino Techfibre recently installed new machines to produce TPU – an ultra-thin film (ranging from 0.015mm to 0.03mm in thickness) which enhances the waterproofing and wind proofing properties of garments such as raincoats, winter wear, sports shoes, gloves, medical equipment and packaging materials.

Other potential:
The Group has benefited from the launch of PLA’s new uniforms on 1 August 2007 and will continue to enjoy orders for these new uniform materials as they are phased in, progressively for the next few years. In addition, the other uniformed groups such as Ministry of Public Security are due for a uniform change later this year (2008).

The company has recently appointed a local PMP distributor with extensive experience in Japan, Italy and UK-made products.

Analyst Coverage from CIMB written by Kenneth Ng CFA
kenneth.ng@cimb.com (His report on future growth)

PMP sales showed up, the next six-to-nine months will give clear signals whether
this is indeed the holy grail. Sino Techfibre had a nascent 1% of group revenue and
profit derived from its new Pattern Moulding Paper (PMP) product in 2Q. The new star
product recorded ASPs of Rmb17.2/m and gross margins of 42.2%, slightly below the
guidance of Rmb20/m and >50% gross margins. 2Q contributions are trial runs and it is
still early days yet for the product. We expect PMP to contribute about 10% of FY08
profits and 30% of FY09 profits. Management updated that its glossy–blend of PMP had
gotten good response from the market and it is 1) expanding its product range and 2)
doubling its PMP production capacity to 80k meters by FY09. In our opinion, the next
six to nine months will give clear signals on whether this new product would indeed be
the holy grail for Sino Techfibre. This remains the key driver for the stock.

Looking ahead, company intends to produce non-woven cloth as well. The other
noteworthy point is that Sino Techfibre intends to start another new product, non-woven
cloth.
The company intends to take delivery of non-woven cloth machines in 4Q08 and
produce their own non-woven cloth in 2009. The non-woven fabric which it intends to
produce will be used for high-end PU leather. Currently, the company imports this raw
material from Korea. The expansion into non-woven cloth can help prop up margins of
their PU leather product as well as to aid collaboration with the PLA to jointly develop
products.
This expansion adds to a list of new products it has planned for FY09-10.

Management matters:

Looking for more buying from management?
Lam Tin Tsoh and Li Wenheng are buying more at 0.71

Is the salary of the management, acceptable? Too high? As compare to the Net profit. (As a general measure it cannot be more then 10% of Net profit)
Net profit after tax =$S94 million

Director’s fees converted to $SG 888.2k

Thus 888,200/94,000,000*100%=0.18%

Are they giving employees too much stock options?
Nope

Is the firm counting expanding, applying more of RnD during tough times?
Yes

Debt analysis:
Conservative Debt:

Sinotech is able to pay off their long term debts within 2years, only provided they are able to maintain their current net profit of RMB 470,600,000

Short term debt analysis:
Problems: Clarification Announcement Relating To the Article "Who’s Cash Flow Pipeline Is Choked?" In The Straits Times on 14 October 2008

(What the company says)
Based on the latest financial results for the six months ended 30 June 2008 (“1H2008”), the Company maintained a financially sound position with a low gearing of 1.4%. Going forward, the Company do not foresee any liquidity problems arising from paying off the short-term obligations from current assets excluding inventories, given a healthy quick ratio of 3.49.

The net decrease in cash and cash equivalents amounting to RMB353.5 million in 1Q2008 is mainly due to amount of RMB430.9 million of cash paid to purchase property, plant and equipment. This capital expenditure was mainly supported by the Company’s internal funds.

As mentioned in the press release dated 14 August 2008, the Company has budgeted approximately RMB600 million for its expansion in order to stay on the forefront of the product curve by investing resources in higher technology production capabilities to improve gross margins and introduce new and higher value products. Such investments are made with the view to secure the Group’s competitiveness in the near future, instead of short-term growth. The Board envisages that this capital expenditure is sufficient to secure the Company’s growth for the next few years, and that there will not be any major capital expenditure in the foreseeable future. The management’s approach is to be prudent in the Group’s financial management.

(What I think)
Update* 2008, company undertook major capital expenditure of 600M Rmb, in doing raising current liabilities to 226million and lowering cash on hand 171million from 440million. Total Liabilities stands at 249.7million, prepayments and receivable need to come in to settle these liabilities, however there is a risk of not receiving these assets in time and possible reduction to bad debts, in light of these, I still deem Sino tech acceptable as higher net profit is to be expected in the long run, and I believe they are able to get back all their receivables and be able to repay their current liabilities on time. Lastly, I would expect the company to maintain an average among capital expenditure spent in the coming years.


ROE data:

2006' ROE:27%

2007'ROE 28%

Comments: Love their high ROE figures.
Any ROE above 15% is exceptional.

EPS growth Model:
Results from EPS growth model: Worth at least $0.80 per share if company is able to maintain an EPS of 0.10 per year for the next ten years.
Take note, that I change the Net profit to Sing Dollars in order to be accurate in my EPS figures.

Other Important Ratios:
At the current price of $0.14 as of 29Oct 2008

PBV per share: 0.41 times
(Remember, anything below 1 time PV is considered cheap)
Historical PE: 8-9 times
PE: 1.38 times

NAV per share: $0.35 based on annual report 2007
Nav per share is set to increase , as more euiqment is bought and more Net profit is expected to be yield by the company.
Last words:
Having read through many analyst reports and research information, I find Sino Tech Fibre at a price of 0.14 is ridiculously low. This young company’s share price has indeed been unjustifiably beaten to such a level; it’s as if some one took a Sledge hammer and wack a young innocent child on the head even thought the child did nothing wrong. I say this because; the market faults the company for spending too much on expanding and securing its competitive future in the fibre industry in China even though most of the funding comes from the company itself and the market also disregard its shares simply because it’s an S-share.
With that said, there is indeed fundamental value in this young company, which is definitely not worth 0.14 per share, given its ability to amass a total of $400million RMB within a few years, has good exposure to the Chinese government market, strong margins and good cash flows.
Having vested interest in it, I shall say no more.
However Sino Tech’s new venture into PMP and cotton industry has to works out, having spent soo much capital expenditure on it. Should everything turn out fine, even without the cotton venture in place, the intrinsic value will be much MUCH more higher then $0.80. Suffice to say this is a gem given its price at $0.14; I suggest buying it before it becomes expensive again!
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