Exel Composites: The story is not derailed – Evli Research

Strong development continued during Q1

Exel’s EUR 27.8m Q1 revenue grew by 3% y/y and matched EUR 27.9m/27.2m Evli/cons estimates. The company updated its reporting structure, now disclosing revenue for seven customer industries instead of the previous three broad segments. Buildings & infrastructure and Wind power, which previously made up the Construction & Infrastructure segment, reported a combined EUR 12.0m in revenue, which was in line with our estimate (Wind power only grew by 1% y/y due to timing issues). Machinery & electrical, Transportation and Telecommunications, i.e. the former parts of Industrial Applications, reported a combined EUR 8.4m. This was less than we expected but Equipment & other industries and Defense made up with a total of EUR 7.4m. Adjusted EBIT, at EUR 2.1m, also met EUR 2.2m/2.0m Evli/cons estimates. ROCE increased to 12% from 3% a year ago and the US unit reached profitability. Order intake growth accelerated to 23% y/y pace and the EUR 34.5m in new orders meant order backlog stood at EUR 37.1m, up 50% y/y. A big US order is scheduled to be delivered through FY ’20.

We now expect adjusted EBIT to increase to EUR 7.8m

Although strong development continued Exel is not immune to macro uncertainty and thus the company withdrew guidance. We revise our estimates down. We previously expected 6% top line growth for this year, and we have revised the figure down to 3%. We cut our FY ’20 EBIT estimate down by EUR 0.9m to reflect potential operational challenges. In our opinion the long-term case remains intact. Exel also has a good liquidity situation. The EUR 10m overdraft facility was extended by two years.

We cut our TP due to significantly higher uncertainty

In our view higher multiples are justified by the fact that Exel has continued to perform according to expectations. Meanwhile the pandemic raises uncertainty even if development has remained good. We update our TP to EUR 5.50 (6.75) due to lowered estimates and higher uncertainty; yet in our view Exel still trades at relatively low multiples and we thus retain our BUY rating.