Shareholders in Aim-traded Gama Aviation (GMAA:206p) suffered a bout of turbulence after the operator of privately owned jet aircraft reported a flat trading performance in the first five months of the 2018 financial year at its annual meeting.
Analysts at broking house WH Ireland reined back their full-year pre-tax profit forecasts from $21.8m (£16.3m) to $19.9m, representing 16 per cent growth on last year but well behind the 27 per cent growth I had envisaged when I last suggested buying the shares at 257p (‘Small-cap earnings beats’, 21 Mar 2018) when Gama reported a near 25 per cent uplift in its 2017 underlying pre-tax profit to $17.1m.
The reason for the downgrade is mainly due to a more challenging trading environment for Gama’s European ground services division. On the plus side, its US air operation continues to report robust trading, reaping the benefits of the fleet joint venture with BBA Aviation (BBA), and the US ground division continues to pull in new clients and produce strong organic revenue growth.
Importantly, the company has the firepower to accelerate its plans in its higher growth Asian and the US operations, having raised £48m in a placing at 245p a share in February, a fundraising heavily backed by an affiliate of the mighty Hutchinson Whampoa (China), a Hong Kong-based conglomerate operating across a diverse number of sectors including the provision of aircraft maintenance and logistic services. Hutchinson now owns 21 per cent of Gama’s enlarged share capital of 63.5m shares.
Around $19.8m (£14.2m) of the capital funded the acquisition of Hutchinson’s Hong Kong aviation interests, including a 20 per cent stake in China Aircraft Services, a company founded in 1995 and one of only three operators that provide maintenance, repair and overhaul aviation services at Hong Kong International Airport. I understand that the collaboration is "making good progress”.
In the Middle East, Gama is using $5m of the fundraising as seed capital to develop a new $45m aviation centre at Sharjah International Airport. It makes sense to do so in light of capacity constraints at Dubai International Airport. Sharjah is well located to be used as a platform for expansion in the Middle East, and is a lower cost base, too. The aviation centre is on track to open in the fourth quarter of 2019.
A further $10m from the fundraise is being used to expand hangar capacity and tooling and equipment at Gama’s fast-growing operations on the east and west coast of the US, where Gama operates from 14 locations and manages a fleet of 200 aircraft. Growth has been held back there by capacity constraints, an issue the new capital addresses, as well as providing cross-selling opportunities on the maintenance side of the business. The directors confirm that they “expect to add base maintenance capacity on both coasts in line with our 2018 strategic plan”.
The point is that these investments and the ongoing robust organic growth in the US operations still support a step change of profitability in the 2019 financial year, a key reason behind my buy recommendation in March. Also, Gama has strengthened its management team since I published that article, having appointed a new finance director, a director of corporate development and chief operating officer for the US air division. It has also settled four out 10 of the litigation cases outstanding, and is “confident that the overall awards will result in a cash inflow to the company”.
True, the placing will be dilutive on EPS in the short term as the new funds are deployed which is why WH Ireland is pencilling in a figure of 26.4¢ this year, down from 31.6¢ in 2017, even though pre-tax profit is set to rise by 16 per cent to $19.9m. However, the broker still expects earnings growth of 50 per cent in the 2019 financial year, pencilling in EPS of 39.8¢ based on pre-tax profits of $32.1m. On the basis of the current sterling dollar exchange rate of £1:$1.34, this implies 2018 EPS of 19.7p, rising to almost 30p in 2019 and a forward PE ratio of 10 and seven, respectively. That’s an incredibly low rating for a company without any debt issues (net debt of less than £10m at the end of 2017 has effectively been wiped out as around £20m of the placing proceeds are earmarked for future acquisitions).
Clearly, Gama’s board has to deliver on their expansion plans by targeting high growth regions, and the earnings downgrade resulting from the weaker European business is hardly ideal. However, I feel that the 20 per cent pullback in the company’s share price since March is overly harsh as it’s completely out of proportion to the scale of the earnings downgrade.
Price on a price-to-book value of 1.3 times, offering a dividend yield of 1.4 per cent (the final payout of 2.75p a share for the 2017 financial year goes ex-dividend on Thursday 28 June), and with drivers in place to support the 2019 profit growth trajectory, I would recommend riding out this turbulent passage and await the next trading update from the company on 19 July 2018. Hold.
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