JB's Desk, a Bull Bear Bres|nahan Publication
Secular themes and trends are a fun starting place, though perhaps deceivingly simple; how do you identify entities both adept and nimble enough to catch the wave while being sufficiently resilient and robust as to make it through the occasional wipeout.
That's the big picture, background pondering on this one - here I've been thinking about vanity as a secular theme, industry versus ex-industry trends, and how competition is evolving.
This quick post has been on my mind for a month, work on Estée Lauder began in earnest mid-May.. [not sure why I've sat on things] Since then, EL is off roughly 11%, though I'll leave the multiples, etc. as they were then - they're just part of the story (sources: filings, CapIQ):
Estée Lauder is global if perhaps light in EMEA and siloed into four rather unbalanced segments (source: filings):
At times I wonder how deep you need (or even if you ought) to go into the weeds; would having a handle on white label dynamics or channel trends change the ultimate outcome for me - maybe it would give me more conviction in whatever I conclude.. A lot likely falls into categories that a good management team should be aware of and both tactically and strategically accounting for. Which I guess is to say, whatever allows you to sleep better at night and size this thing appropriately (if that's the end point).
The obesity treatments both slide right into the greater trend (they aren't pure healthcare) and if we imagine some scale of vainness, surely the side effect profiles likely increase the addressable population for entities like Estée Lauder - e.g., 'Ozempic face' 😱..
Right, there's an opportunity here and social media surely is another big one; but this is mainly developed markets and if you step back that growing global middle class - well it's easy to see why this is something that's been front of mind lately.
Estée Lauder has been through quite the roller-coaster ride of late and that is another bit that attracts me - I've got this contrarian streak that I'll likely never be able to shake (my goal is to merely stay cognizant of it).
Coming into this I have biases and one is that generally speaking I'm a fan of the business model. How do you not love an entity that can be less cyclical and wield gross margins in the seventy to eighty percent range (source: CapIQ)! [yes, I see the trend over the last decade]
Begging some questions, like has management made the business more cyclical (or less) and will technology and connectivity, etc. bring down barriers to competition. On the latter I'm thinking the business has lent itself to a natural cycle of innovation and destruction, so long as regulators allow the serial acquisitions to continue - it could be argued that the companies are similar to what we see in the pharmaceutical industry... Foremost, they are logistical wizards - wielding their scale to the benefit of many.
Lots of words, what's the setup? Guidance is for revenues to contract one to two percent on the year.. margins to be the focus - expect them to improve over time.. cuts, aka 'profit recovery plan'. If you look at the latest quarter you could have guessed, revenues have stabilized but margins absolutely exploded - really looks like the nadir.
Conflict? Estimates seem to remain grounded but this is set against an expectation of favorable trends accelerating and the valuation is still skewed towards that of a growth investor's comfort zone.. There's a lot of no mans land between growth and value; are there any 'core' managers left? /shrug
Resolution? Figure the BEAR scenario is the easiest to game out with at least one iteration being as simple as things not accelerating and Estée Lauder hitting a bit of an air pocket (note their fiscal year does not equate to a calendar year). Under that scenario maybe you're looking at a TEV/REV of ~2.5 times or about $90. That could easily see the bottom drop out should revenue or margin trends actually reverse. And management did sort of punt on that last call - I'll paste my notes, chicken scratches, at the bottom.
To be honest I've not done enough work to break out BULL or BASE scenarios here and don't want to lean too much on mere mean reversion.. I've listened to the latest call but would like to do more including take some time on competitors such as L’Oréal or Galderma [who I'm a bit obsessed with of late].
At this point I remain solidly NEUTRAL on Estée Lauder – EL..
br. -john
p.s. bit of a disjointed mess but part of this exercise is to just GET WRITING again :)
p.p.p.s. chicken scratch notes - I'll endeavor to improve this over time :D
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