⁠Dimitry Nakhla | Babylon Capital®
RT @DimitryNakhla: A sober valuation analysis on $LVMH 🧘🏽‍♂️

•NTM P/E Ratio: 21.91x
•10-Year Mean: 24.92x

•NTM FCF Yield: 4.56%
•10-Year Mean: 4.13%

As you can see, $LVMH appears to be trading below fair value

Going forward, investors can receive ~14% MORE in earnings per share & ~10% MORE in FCF per share 🧠***

Before we get into valuation, let’s take a look at why $LVMH is a high-quality business

*Financials In Euros €*

BALANCE SHEET✅
•Cash & Short-Term Inv: €11.29B
•Long-Term Debt: €11.33B

$LVMH has a strong balance sheet, reflected by its AA- S&P Credit Rating & 18.91x FFO Interest Coverage

RETURN ON CAPITAL✅
•2019: 16.6%
•2020: 10.2%
•2021: 18.9%
•2022: 21.2%
•2023: 21.0%

RETURN ON EQUITY✅
•2019: 21.5%
•2020: 12.8%
•2021: 28.9%
•2022: 28.0%
•2023: 26.7%

$LVMH has excellent return metrics, highlighting the company’s financial efficiency

REVENUES✅
•2013: €29.02B
•2023: €86.15B
•CAGR: 11.49%

FREE CASH FLOW✅
•2013: €2.99B
•2023: €11.59B
•CAGR: 14.50%

NORMALIZED EPS✅
•2013: €6.83
•2023: €30.33
•CAGR: 16.07%

SHARE BUYBACKS❌
•2013 Shares Outstanding: 503.22M
•LTM Shares Outstanding: 500.30M

MARGINS✅
•LTM Gross Margins: 68.8%
•LTM Operating Margins: 26.5%
•LTM Net Income Margins: 17.6%

***NOW TO VALUATION 🧠

As stated above, investors can expect to receive ~14% MORE in EPS & ~10% MORE in FCF per share

Using Benjamin Graham’s 2G rule of thumb, $LVMH has to grow earnings at a 10.95% CAGR over the next several years to justify its valuation

Today, analysts anticipate 2024 - 2025 EPS growth over the next few years to be less than (10.95%) the required growth rate:

2024E: €31.56 (4.3% YoY)* Dec

2025E: €35.25 (11.4% YoY)
2026E: €38.15 (8.2% YoY)

So, let’s assume $LVMH ends 2026 with €38.15 in EPS & see its CAGR potential (dividends included) assuming different multiples:

23x P/E: €877.45💵 … ~10.0% CAGR

22x P/E: €839.30💵 … ~8.1% CAGR

21x P/E: €801.15💵 … ~6.2% CAGR

As you can see, we’d have to assume 23x for $LVMH to have attractive return potential & while 23x is certainly reasonable given its quality, we should be aware that $LVMH 10-Year average multiple (24.92x) is elevated a bit due to the valuation spike in 2020-2021

While $LVMH deserves to trade at a premium multiple due to its quality, I’m hesitant to rely on 23x because I want to ensure some margin of safety

It’s safer to rely on ~21x earnings & be pleasantly surprised with some multiple expansion (rather than have the risk of multiple compression)

I’d prefer to be more patient & wait for a better entry price around €640💵 (11% below todays price), this way I can reasonably expect ~11% CAGR assuming a 21x multiple

$MC $LVMHF $LVMUY

#stocks #investing
___

𝐃𝐈𝐒𝐂𝐋𝐎𝐒𝐔𝐑𝐄‼️: 𝐓𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐢𝐬 𝐍𝐎𝐓 𝐈𝐧𝐯𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐀𝐝𝐯𝐢𝐜𝐞. 𝐁𝐚𝐛𝐲𝐥𝐨𝐧 𝐂𝐚𝐩𝐢𝐭𝐚𝐥® 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐢𝐭𝐬 𝐫𝐞𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞𝐬 𝐦𝐚𝐲 𝐡𝐚𝐯𝐞 𝐩𝐨𝐬𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐞𝐜𝐮𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐞𝐬 𝐝𝐢𝐬𝐜𝐮𝐬𝐬𝐞𝐝 𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐭𝐰𝐞𝐞𝐭.

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐢𝐧𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐦𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐝 𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐭𝐰𝐞𝐞𝐭 𝐢𝐬 𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐝 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐢𝐧𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐦𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐥 𝐩𝐮𝐫𝐩𝐨𝐬𝐞𝐬 𝐨𝐧𝐥𝐲 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐬𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐝 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐛𝐞 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐮𝐞𝐝 𝐚𝐬 𝐢𝐧𝐯𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐚𝐝𝐯𝐢𝐜𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐦𝐞𝐞𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐩𝐞𝐜𝐢𝐟𝐢𝐜 𝐧𝐞𝐞𝐝𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐚𝐧𝐲 𝐢𝐧𝐝𝐢𝐯𝐢𝐝𝐮𝐚𝐥 𝐨𝐫 𝐬𝐢𝐭𝐮𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧. 𝐏𝐚𝐬𝐭 𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐦𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐢𝐬 𝐧𝐨 𝐠𝐮𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐟𝐮𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐞 𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐮𝐥𝐭𝐬.

𝐈𝐧𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐦𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐝 𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐭𝐰𝐞𝐞𝐭 𝐡𝐚𝐬 𝐛𝐞𝐞𝐧 𝐨𝐛𝐭𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐝 𝐟𝐫𝐨𝐦 𝐬𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐜𝐞𝐬 𝐛𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐨 𝐛𝐞 𝐫𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐚𝐛𝐥𝐞, 𝐛𝐮𝐭 𝐢𝐬 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐠𝐮𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐞𝐝 𝐚𝐬 𝐭𝐨 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐥𝐞𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐞𝐬𝐬 𝐨𝐫 𝐚𝐜𝐜𝐮𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐲.
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⁠Brandon Beylo
Nasdaq down.

Gold up.

Silver up.

$SBSW up. https://t.co/xU5PwJgvei
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⁠Brandon Beylo
I want to short $NVDA so badly.

Someone talk me off the ledge. https://t.co/N3p7o8Ld6N
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Aswath Damodaran (Youtube)
Country Risk: The 2024 Update
If there is a lesson that I learned from the 2008 market crisis, it is that market crises almost always play out as big changes in the price of risk. In keeping with that lesson, I have been updating my implied equity risk premiums for the S&P 500 every month, and my country risk premiums twice a year. I have also created two annual updates, one on equity risk premiums that I publish in March of each year and the other on country risk that I publish in July each year. This session provides an abridged version of the my 2024 country risk premium update, starting with the drivers of country risk, moving on to measures (sovereign ratings, country risk scores, equity risk premiums) and closing with an explanation of how country risk plays out in business and investing decisions.
Slides: https://pages.stern.nyu.edu/~adamodar/pdfiles/blog/CountryRisk2024.pdf
Paper: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4896539
Blog Post:
Data:
1. Equity Risk Premiums, by country, in July 2024: https://pages.stern.nyu.edu/~adamodar/pc/datasets/ctrypremJuly24.xlsx
2. Currency riskfree rates in July 2024: https://pages.stern.nyu.edu/~adamodar/pc/blog/CurrencyRiskfreeJuly2024.xlsx

AkhenOsiris
Did AMZN ecommerce get some benefit from the CRWD-induced outage? Visa blaming outage for soft July (many airline sites were down)
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Musings on Markets
Country Risk: My 2024 Update
After the 2008 market crisis, I resolved that I would be far more organized in my assessments and updating of equity risk premiums, in the United States and abroad, as I looked at the damage that can be inflicted on intrinsic value by significant shifts in risk premiums, i.e., my definition of a crisis. That precipitated my practice of estimating implied equity risk premiums for the S&P 500, at the start of every month, and following up of using those estimated premiums when valuing companies during that month. The 2008 crisis also gave rise to two risk premium papers that I have updated each year: the first looks at equity risk premiums, what they measure, how they vary across time and how best to estimate them, with the last update in March 2024. The second focuses on country risk and how it varies across geographies, with the focus again on determinants, measures and estimation, which I update mid-year each year. This post reflects my most recent update from July 2024 of country risk, and while you can read the entire paper here, I thought I would give you a mildly abridged version in this post.

Country Risk: Determinants

At the risk of stating the obvious, investing and operating in some countries is much riskier than investing and operating in others, with variations in risk on  multiple dimensions. In the section below, I highlight the differences on four major dimensions - political structure, exposure to war/violence, extent of corruption and protections for legal and property rights, with the focus firmly on the economic risks rather than on social consequences.

a. Political Structure

Would you rather invest/operate in a democracy than in an autocracy? From a business risk perspective, I would argue that there is a trade off, sometimes making the former more risky than the latter, and sometimes less so. The nature of a democracy is that a government will be less able to promise or deliver long term predictable/stable tax and regulatory law, since losing an election can cause shifts in policy. Consequently, operating and investing in a democratic country will generally come with more risk on a continuous basis, with the risk increasing with partisanship in the country. Autocratic governments are in a better position to promise and deliver stable and predictable business environments, with two caveats. The first is that when change comes in autocracies, it will be both unexpected and large, with wrenching and discontinuous shifts in economic policy. The second is that the absence of checks and balance (legal, legislative, public opinion) will also mean that policy changes can be capricious, often driven by factors that have little to do with business or public welfare.

Any attempt to measure political freedom comes with qualifiers, since the biases of the measuring service on what freedoms to elevate and which ones to ignore will play a role, but in the figure below, I report the Economist's Democracy Index, which is based upon five measures - electoral process and pluralism, government functioning, political participation, democratic social culture and civil liberties:


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Democracy Index in 2023: Source: The Economist[...]

Based upon the Economist's democracy measures, much of the world remains skewed towards authoritarianism, changing the risk exposures that investors and businesses face when operating in those parts of the world.

b. War and Violence

Operating a business becomes much more difficult, when surrounded by war and violence, from both within and outside the country. That difficulty also translates into higher costs, with those businesses that can buy protection or insurance doing so, and those that cannot suffering from damage and lost revenues. Drawing again on an external service, the Institute for Economics and Peace measures exposure to war and violence with a global peace index (with higher scores indicating more propensity towards violence)


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Global Peace Index 2024: Source: Institute for Economics & Peace

While Africa and large swaths of Asia are exposed to violence, and Northern Europe and Canada remain peaceful, businesses in much of the world (including the United States) remain exposed to violence, at least according to this measure.

c. Corruption

As I have argued in prior posts, corruption operates as an implicit tax on businesses, with the tax revenues accruing to middlemen or third parties, rather than the government.


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Corruption Index 2023: Source: Transparency International

Again, while you can argue with the scores and the rankings, it remains undeniable that businesses in much of the world face corruption (and its associated costs). While there are some who attribute it to culture, I believe that the overriding reasons for corruption are systems that are built around licensing and regulatory constraints, with poorly paid bureaucrats operating as the overseers

There are other insidious consequences to corruption. First, as corruption becomes brazen, as it is in some parts of the world, there is evidence that companies operating in those settings are more likely to evade paying taxes to the government, thus redirecting tax revenues from the government to private players. Second, companies that are able and willing to play the corruption game will be put at an advantage over companies that are unable or unwilling to do so, creating a version of Gresham's law in businesses, where the least honorable businesses win out at the expense of the most honorable and honest ones.

d. Legal and Property Rights

When operating a business or making an investment, you are reliant on a legal system to back up your ownership rights, and to the extent that it does not do so, your business and investment will be worth less. The Property Rights Alliance, an entity that attempts to measure the strength of property rights, by country, measured property rights (physical and intellectual) around the world, to co[...]

me up with a composite measure of these rights, with higher values translating into more rights. Their most recent update, from 2023, is captured in the picture below


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Property Rights Index 2023: Source: The Property Rights Alliance

Again, there are wide differences in property rights across the world; they are strongest in the North America and Europe and weakest in Africa and Latin America. Within each of these regions, though, there are variations across countries; within Latin America, Chile and Uruguay rank in the top quartile of countries with stronger property rights, but Venezuela and Bolivia are towards the bottom of the list. In assessing protections of property rights, it is worth noting that it is not only the laws that protect them that need to be looked at, but also the timeliness of legal action. A court that takes decades to act on violations of property rights is almost as bad as a court that does not enforce those rights at all.

One manifestation of property right violation is nationalization, and here again there remain parts of the world, especially with natural resource businesses, where the risks of expropriation have increased. A Sustainalytics report that looked at metal miners documented 165 incidents of resources nationalization between 2017 and 2021, impacting 87 mining companies, with 22 extreme cases, where local governments ending contracts with foreign miners. Maplecroft, a risk management company, mapped out the trendline on nationalization risk in natural resources in the figure below


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Source: Maplecroft

National security is the reason that some governments use to justify public ownership of key resources. For instance, in 2022, Mexico created a state-owned company, Litio Para Mexico, to have a monopoly on lithium mining in the country, and announced a plan to renegotiate previously granted concessions to private companies to extract the resource.
Country Risk: External factors

Looking at the last section, you would not be faulted for believing that country risk exposure is self-determined, and that countries can become less risky by working on reducing corruption, increasing  legal protections for property rights, making themselves safer and working on more predictable economic policies.  That is true, but there are three factors that are largely out of their control that can still drive country risk upwards.

1. Commodity Dependence

Some countries are dependent upon a specific commodity, product or service for their economic success. That dependence can create additional risk for investors and businesses, since a drop in the commodity’s price or demand for the product/service can create severe economic pain that spreads well beyond the companies immediately affected. Thus, if a country derives 50% of its [...]

economic output from iron ore, a drop in the price of iron ore will cause pain not only for mining companies but also for retailers, restaurants and consumer product companies in the country. The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) measures the degree to which a country is dependent on commodities, by looking at the percentage of its export revenues come from a commodities, and the figure below captures their findings:


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Proportion of revenues from commodities- 2019-2021; Source: UNCTAD

Why don’t countries that derive a disproportionate amount of their economy from a single source diversify their economies? That is easier said than done, for two reasons. First, while it is feasible for larger countries like Brazil, India, and China to try to broaden their economic bases, it is much more difficult for small countries like Peru or Angola to do the same. Like small companies, these small countries have to find a niche where they can specialize, and by definition, niches will lead to over dependence upon one or a few sources. Second, and this is especially the case with natural resource dependent countries, the wealth that can be created by exploiting the natural resource will usually be far greater than using resources elsewhere in the economy, which may explain the inability of economies in the Middle East to wean itself away from oil.

II. Life Cycle dynamics

As readers of this blog should be aware, I am fond of using the corporate life cycle structure to explain why companies behave (or misbehave) and how investment philosophies vary. At the risk of pushing that structure to its limits, I believe that countries also go through a life cycle, with different challenges and risks at each stage:


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The link between life cycle and economic risk is worth emphasizing because it illustrates the limitations on the powers that countries have over their exposure to risk. A country that is still in the early stages of economic growth will generally have more risk exposure than a mature country, even if it is well governed and has a solid legal system. The old investment saying that gain usually comes with pain, also applies to operating and investing across the globe. While your risk averse side may lead you to direct your investments and operations to the safest parts of the world (say, Canada and Northern Europe), the highest growth is generally in the riskiest parts of the world.

3. Climate Change

The globe is warming up, and no matter where you fall on the human versus nature debate, on causation, some countries are more exposed to global warming than others. That risk is not just to the health and wellbeing of those who live within the borders of these countries, but represents economic risks, manifesting as higher costs of maintaining day-to-day activity or less economic production.  To measure climate change, we turned to ResourceWatch, a global partnership of public, private and civil society [...]

organizations convened by the World Resources Institute. This institute measure climate change exposure with a climate risk index (CRI), measuring the extent to which countries have been affected by extreme weather events (meteorological, hydrological, and climatological), and their most recent measures (from 2021, with an update expected late in 2024) of global exposure to climate risk is in the figure below:


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Climate Risk Index (CRI) in 2021: ResourceWatch

Note that higher scores on the index indicate more exposure to country risk, and much of Africa, Latin America and Asia are exposed. In fact, since this map was last updated in 2021, it is conceivable that climate risk exposure has increased across the globe and that even the green regions are at risk of slipping away into dangerous territory.

Country Life Cycle - Measures

With that long lead in on the determinants of country risk, and the forces that can leave risk elevated, let us look at how best to measure country risk exposure. We will start with sovereign ratings, which are focused on country default risk, because they are the most widely used country risk proxies, before moving on to country risk scores, from public and private services, and closing with measures of risk premiums that equity investors in these countries should charge.

1. Sovereign Default Risk

The ratings agencies that rate corporate bonds for default risk also rate countries, with sovereign ratings, with countries with higher (lower) perceived default risk receiving lower (higher) ratings. I know that ratings agencies are viewed with skepticism, and much of that skepticism is deserved, but it is undeniable that ratings and default risk are closely tied, especially over longer periods. The figure below summarizes sovereign ratings from Moody's in July 2024


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Moody's Sovereign Ratings in July 2024; Source: Moody's

If you compare these ratings to those that I reported in my last update, a year ago, you will notice that the ratings are stagnant for most countries, and when there is change, it is small. That remains my pet peeve with the rating agencies, which is not that they are biased or even wrong, but that they are slow to react to changes on the ground. For those searching for an alternative, there is the sovereign credit default swap (CDS) market, where you can market assessments of default risk. The figure below summarizes the spreads for the roughly 80 countries, where they are available


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Sovereign [...]