1 The company: KSB has a global market share of 10 percent of the world's largest manufacturers of pumps, valves and related systems, headquartered in Frankenthal (Pfalz). The Group has its own sales companies, production sites and service companies and is represented on all continents. Approximately 80% of the ordinary shares are in the hands of a foundation; the remaining ordinary shares as well as the preference shares are freely floating shares.
KSB manufactures its products on all five continents. With production sites in 19 countries and a
tightly knit sales and service network, KSB employees are always close at hand when customers
have fluids to transport or flow to shut off. KSB sees the geographical diversity as one of the key factors as to why it was able to generate good results even during the economic downturn.
1.1 Products
1.2 Key figures
1.3 Shares
Each ordinary share authorizes the holder to one vote at KSB AG’s Annual General Meeting. Klein Pumpen GmbH, Frankenthal, holds approximately 80% of the ordinary shares; the KSB Stiftung (KSB Foundation), Stuttgart, holds the majority of the shares of Klein Pumpen GmbH. The preference shares carry separate cumulative preferred dividend rights and progressive additional dividend rights. Holders of preference shares are entitled to voting rights in the cases prescribed by law. The issue of additional ordinary shares does not require the consent of the preference shareholders. Similarly, the issue of additional preference shares does not require the consent of the preference shareholders unless the subscription rights exclude newly issued senior or pari passu preference shares.
1.4 Shareholder Returns
KSB has generated fabulous return for its shareholders. Around June 2004 it was selling for 100 and now around 400. Even without dividends this is a compounded 20% return over seven years. Furthermore, the dividend is not too shabby either. Here is the rundown of the dividends on ordinary and preference shares.
KSB ordinary share
KSB preference share
2 Sales analysis and growth
KSB manufactures its products on all five continents. With production sites in 19 countries and a tightly knit sales and service network, KSB employees are always close at hand when customers have fluids to transport or flow to shut off. KSB sees its ubiquity as one of the strengths of the company and is investing substantial amount of money in updating and opening new facilities, especially in China and India.
KSB supplies its products to many different regions and sectors. This helps it in balancing out the opportunities and risks in various sales areas.
KSB has been a consistent grower. Sales have grown at a compounded rate of 6.5% since 1999 and are now touching the €2 billion mark. It has been able to maintain its sales during the worst of the crisis and expects to see growth in this area.
3 Management
3.1 Pay
The total remuneration of members of the Supervisory Board amounts to € 1,310 thousand for financial year 2010 (previous year: € 1,257 thousand), and the total remuneration of the Board of Management amounts to € 4,027 thousand (previous year: € 3,705 thousand). € 19,580 thousand (previous year: € 21,026 thousand) has been provided for pension obligations to former members of the Board of Management and their surviving dependants; total benefits paid to these persons amounted to € 1,436 thousand in the year under review (previous year: € 1,428 thousand). Additions of € 1,770 thousand (previous year: € 1,906 thousand) were made to the pension provisions for active and former members of the Board of Management. Based on the relevant legal provisions, the Annual General Meeting on 19 May 2010 resolved not to disclose the remuneration of the Board of Management separately for each member and classified by components.
The management does not seems to be excessive. The management board consists of 4 members and as KSB does not disclose their pay on a per person basis, we can't say how much each one got. But 1 million on an average is not overpayment.
3.2 Performance
How do you judge a management team. There are two things one can do. One, to look at the cold hard numbers from the company’s financial statements and second to look at the share-holder letters and see if they have delivered on their promises and has the company been taking the directions they want it to take.
The cold hard numbers are given in the following two figures. We see that KSB has done quite well with its invested capital. The RoIC has been between 8.9-16.1 with an average of 11.84. It has good FCF which has not been very consistent because of the cyclicity of its industry and the recent economic downturn. Furthermore, the capex (see in the valuation section) has been uneven. Still, it had one one negative FCF in the last 8 years and the company is fundamentally undervalued on this metric.
.
Now, let us look at the shareholder letters and see if the management has delivered on its promises.
“We see the BRIC countries, i.e. Brazil, Russia, India and China, among the most important growth regions of the future. In the last five years, we have done a lot in these countries to build on our market position. Once the financial and economic crisis has subsided, we expect a return to strong, above-average demand in these countries. And we are ideally prepared to make the most of this for new business.” — Chairman
2007 We chose the boom markets of China and India as the first in which to extend our technical capacity. Last October, we opened a large valves plant in the Dalian special economic zone; this was followed a month later by our new manufacturing site for standard pumps in Shanghai. In India we were able to create additional capacity through alterations to the existing production technology. The result is a 25 percent rise in valve output. As well as this, we now have plans in place for additions to our Indian pump and valve manufacturing facilities. This year we are also investing in what continues to be our major market: Europe. Key elements of the investment programme are new production and test centres for large power station and water pumps, together with the expansion of our industrial pump production. We are committing € 70 million to these measures in Frankenthal, Pegnitz and Halle (Germany), and are also investing in butterfly valve production at La Roche-Chalais in France.
Our goal for 2008 and beyond is profitable growth for the KSB Group. Based on the positive developments hitherto, we aim for our sales revenue to pass the two billion euro mark by 2010. By then at the latest, our goal is also to achieve an eight per cent return on sales. -- they achieved the 2B mark in 2009 and the return on sales was 10% in 2008.
2008 In our ongoing strategy review process, we see our broad positioning in terms of market and technology as a competitive advantage. We shall not give up this advantage for the purpose of short-term profit maximisation. Instead, the different economic cycles of our market sectors always provide for a certain balance, creating an element of stability and supporting our sustainable profitable growth (even with the global downturn 2009 was the second best year at KSB in terms of sales revenue and profits, see below).
4 Financial strength
KSB has an enviable balance sheet. It has enough current assets to pay all its liabilities. It has no goodwill and intangible assets are only €90.5 million compared to €818.5 million in equity. The following data is from KSB’s most recent half year report:
Historically, we see in the figure below that KSB has been incrementally improving its balance sheet. Since 2006, the equity ratio, current assets, fixed assets, and the balance sheet total have all improved. Because of these numbers I put KSB in a low risk in terms of financial strength.
5 Profitability
KSB’s margins have not been very stable in the last five years. But two things remain clear, the margins have improved in the last decade and also since 2008, the margins are on a decline. The management blames it on the global economic downturn. Let us try to put the income statement of 2008 and 2010 together and see where the margin suffered.
As we see, the margins suffered due to multiple factors. Higher taxes, higher labour costs, higher depreciation and amortization and a higher financial loss. As KSB has already made significant investments in its facilities, the margins will recover when it increases its topline (the cost of material as a % of sales has decreased since 2008).
6 Valuation
KSB has been a consistent generator of FCF. Below is a table of the company during 2003-2010.
6.1 Discounted cash flow valuation
KSB had a negative free cash flow in only 2003 and since then has performed reasonably well. The FCF generation is far from stable. We see that the numbers are not very consistent, this is due to the cyclical nature of the company and the intermittent nature of its capital expenditure. If we look at the cash flow figures, they seem consistent enough, with a minor blip in 2010. With a 90 million starting FCF, 10% hurdle rate and no growth the company will be worth € 990 million. This is a potential upside of 34%, assuming no growth in FCF.
6.2 Valuation using net margin and P/E
KSB is a growth company. It has increased its sales from € 1,087 million (1999) to € 1,939 million (2010). This is a compounded growth rate of 6.5%. The company has enviable position in both China and India and is capitalizing on the growth opportunities there. With current revenue of 2 billion and market cap of 738 million, and a reasonable P/E of 12, the market expects a net margin of 3% at the moment. During the last decade the net margin has bottomed at 1.15% in 2004 and topped at 7% in 2009, the company is trading below mid-way of the margin spectrum. The potential upside is 233% and the potential downside is 62% (if the margin falls back to 1.15 and the market pays the same P/E).
7 Competition
We first look at the competitors and then make the case as to why KSB is a good opportunity. The competitors are
Dover Corp
Dover is an industrial conglomerate consisting of nearly 40 separate businesses. The firm organizes its business under four reporting segments: industrial products (26% of sales), engineered systems (31%), fluid management (23%), and electronic technologies (20%).
Crane Co.
Stamford, Conn.-based Crane is a manufacturer of highly engineered industrial products. Crane operates in five business segments: aerospace and electronics, engineered materials, merchandising systems, fluid handling, and controls.
Mueller Water Products
Mueller Water products designs, manufactures, and distributes water infrastructure components for use in drinking and wastewater markets. The firm reports under three business segments: Mueller Water, U.S. Pipe, and Anvil.
Following is the table of the key statistics and the companies relative valuations.
It is not difficult to make an investment decision here. MWA and CR are quite expensive. Dover and KSB are close in terms of valuation, but KSB’s margins are at a low and Dover’s are on a high. One a purely valuation basis, KSB is a better bet.
8 Risks
Apart from the normal risks like foreign exchange risks, competitive risk which are there for every company, we want to discuss the liquidity risk and the risk of global downturn.
The following table describes the amounts/liabilities KSB has according to their maturity. With €301 million in cash, I don’t see KSB having any problems fulfilling its financial covenants.
Another risk to consider is the global downturn. We want to ask as to what is the minimum cost KSB must pay to run its operations. Currently, KSB pays €650 million in staff costs and €50 million in amortization and depreciation and another €339 million in operating expenses such a leases, currency translation losses, assets disposal losses administrative expenses etc. So, for KSB to remain above water, it needs to sell €1,039 million. This is half of its current sales and seems pretty unlikely even in a downturn.
Investment thesis
Additional disclosure: I do not own any shares at the moment because I wanted to analyze the company for myself. I plan to buy on Monday. I would like to thank Juan, the owner of the excellent Intelligent Investor blog and a GuruFocus contributor, for suggesting the company. Juan does own some shares of KSB.
KSB manufactures its products on all five continents. With production sites in 19 countries and a
tightly knit sales and service network, KSB employees are always close at hand when customers
have fluids to transport or flow to shut off. KSB sees the geographical diversity as one of the key factors as to why it was able to generate good results even during the economic downturn.
1.1 Products
1.2 Key figures
| No. of shares | 1,751,327 |
| No. of ordinary shares/price (KSB.F) | 886 615/€443 |
| No. of preference shares/price (KSB3.F) | 864,712/€400 |
| Market cap | €744 million (Jan 26, 2011) |
| Total liabilities | €1,058,858,000 (June 30, 2011) |
| Cash and equivalents | €301,926,000 (June 30, 2011) |
| Equity | €818,461,000 (June 30, 2011) |
| Enterprise value | €1,500,932,000 (€1.5 billion) |
1.3 Shares
- The share capital totals € 44.8 million and is divided into 1,751,327 no-par-value shares (ordinary and preference shares).
- The number of ordinary shares amounts to 886,615 (equals € 22.7 m of share capital); the number of preference shares amounts to 864,712 (equals € 22.1 m of share capital).
- Approximately 80% of the ordinary shares are in the hands of Klein Pumpen GmbH, whose holdings are controlled by the KSB Foundation, the remaining ordinary shares as well as the preference shares are freely floating shares.
Each ordinary share authorizes the holder to one vote at KSB AG’s Annual General Meeting. Klein Pumpen GmbH, Frankenthal, holds approximately 80% of the ordinary shares; the KSB Stiftung (KSB Foundation), Stuttgart, holds the majority of the shares of Klein Pumpen GmbH. The preference shares carry separate cumulative preferred dividend rights and progressive additional dividend rights. Holders of preference shares are entitled to voting rights in the cases prescribed by law. The issue of additional ordinary shares does not require the consent of the preference shareholders. Similarly, the issue of additional preference shares does not require the consent of the preference shareholders unless the subscription rights exclude newly issued senior or pari passu preference shares.
1.4 Shareholder Returns
KSB has generated fabulous return for its shareholders. Around June 2004 it was selling for 100 and now around 400. Even without dividends this is a compounded 20% return over seven years. Furthermore, the dividend is not too shabby either. Here is the rundown of the dividends on ordinary and preference shares.
KSB ordinary share
| 2010 | 2009 | 2008 | 2007 | 2006 | 2005 | 2004 | |
| Dividend per share in € | 12.00 | 12.00 | 12.50 | 9.00 | 2.00 | 1.03 | 1.03 |
| Percentage of dividend yield (based on year-end share price) | 1.9 | 2.9 | 3.5 | 2.0 | 0.5 | 0.8 | 1 |
KSB preference share
| 2010 | 2009 | 2008 | 2007 | 2006 | |
| Dividend per share in € | 12.26 | 12.26 | 12.76 | 9.26 | 2.52 |
| Percentage of dividend yield (based on year-end share price) | 2.1 | 3.1 | 4.3 | 2.1 | 0.7 |
2 Sales analysis and growth
KSB manufactures its products on all five continents. With production sites in 19 countries and a tightly knit sales and service network, KSB employees are always close at hand when customers have fluids to transport or flow to shut off. KSB sees its ubiquity as one of the strengths of the company and is investing substantial amount of money in updating and opening new facilities, especially in China and India.
KSB supplies its products to many different regions and sectors. This helps it in balancing out the opportunities and risks in various sales areas.
KSB has been a consistent grower. Sales have grown at a compounded rate of 6.5% since 1999 and are now touching the €2 billion mark. It has been able to maintain its sales during the worst of the crisis and expects to see growth in this area.
3 Management
3.1 Pay
The total remuneration of members of the Supervisory Board amounts to € 1,310 thousand for financial year 2010 (previous year: € 1,257 thousand), and the total remuneration of the Board of Management amounts to € 4,027 thousand (previous year: € 3,705 thousand). € 19,580 thousand (previous year: € 21,026 thousand) has been provided for pension obligations to former members of the Board of Management and their surviving dependants; total benefits paid to these persons amounted to € 1,436 thousand in the year under review (previous year: € 1,428 thousand). Additions of € 1,770 thousand (previous year: € 1,906 thousand) were made to the pension provisions for active and former members of the Board of Management. Based on the relevant legal provisions, the Annual General Meeting on 19 May 2010 resolved not to disclose the remuneration of the Board of Management separately for each member and classified by components.
The management does not seems to be excessive. The management board consists of 4 members and as KSB does not disclose their pay on a per person basis, we can't say how much each one got. But 1 million on an average is not overpayment.
3.2 Performance
How do you judge a management team. There are two things one can do. One, to look at the cold hard numbers from the company’s financial statements and second to look at the share-holder letters and see if they have delivered on their promises and has the company been taking the directions they want it to take.
The cold hard numbers are given in the following two figures. We see that KSB has done quite well with its invested capital. The RoIC has been between 8.9-16.1 with an average of 11.84. It has good FCF which has not been very consistent because of the cyclicity of its industry and the recent economic downturn. Furthermore, the capex (see in the valuation section) has been uneven. Still, it had one one negative FCF in the last 8 years and the company is fundamentally undervalued on this metric.
.
Now, let us look at the shareholder letters and see if the management has delivered on its promises.
“We see the BRIC countries, i.e. Brazil, Russia, India and China, among the most important growth regions of the future. In the last five years, we have done a lot in these countries to build on our market position. Once the financial and economic crisis has subsided, we expect a return to strong, above-average demand in these countries. And we are ideally prepared to make the most of this for new business.” — Chairman
2007 We chose the boom markets of China and India as the first in which to extend our technical capacity. Last October, we opened a large valves plant in the Dalian special economic zone; this was followed a month later by our new manufacturing site for standard pumps in Shanghai. In India we were able to create additional capacity through alterations to the existing production technology. The result is a 25 percent rise in valve output. As well as this, we now have plans in place for additions to our Indian pump and valve manufacturing facilities. This year we are also investing in what continues to be our major market: Europe. Key elements of the investment programme are new production and test centres for large power station and water pumps, together with the expansion of our industrial pump production. We are committing € 70 million to these measures in Frankenthal, Pegnitz and Halle (Germany), and are also investing in butterfly valve production at La Roche-Chalais in France.
Our goal for 2008 and beyond is profitable growth for the KSB Group. Based on the positive developments hitherto, we aim for our sales revenue to pass the two billion euro mark by 2010. By then at the latest, our goal is also to achieve an eight per cent return on sales. -- they achieved the 2B mark in 2009 and the return on sales was 10% in 2008.
2008 In our ongoing strategy review process, we see our broad positioning in terms of market and technology as a competitive advantage. We shall not give up this advantage for the purpose of short-term profit maximisation. Instead, the different economic cycles of our market sectors always provide for a certain balance, creating an element of stability and supporting our sustainable profitable growth (even with the global downturn 2009 was the second best year at KSB in terms of sales revenue and profits, see below).
4 Financial strength
KSB has an enviable balance sheet. It has enough current assets to pay all its liabilities. It has no goodwill and intangible assets are only €90.5 million compared to €818.5 million in equity. The following data is from KSB’s most recent half year report:
| Items (in € thousands) | 30 June, 2011 |
| Cash and equivalents | 301,926 |
| Intangible assets | 90,536 |
| Current assets | 1,319,251 |
| Total assets | 1,877,319 |
| Equity | 818,461 |
| Non-current liability | 468,437 |
| Current liability | 590,421 |
| Total liability | 1,058,858 |
Historically, we see in the figure below that KSB has been incrementally improving its balance sheet. Since 2006, the equity ratio, current assets, fixed assets, and the balance sheet total have all improved. Because of these numbers I put KSB in a low risk in terms of financial strength.
5 Profitability
KSB’s margins have not been very stable in the last five years. But two things remain clear, the margins have improved in the last decade and also since 2008, the margins are on a decline. The management blames it on the global economic downturn. Let us try to put the income statement of 2008 and 2010 together and see where the margin suffered.
| Item | Dec 31, 2008 | Dec 31, 2010 |
| Sales | 1,991,739 | 1,939,254 |
| Other operating income | 31,247 | 35,921 |
| Cost of materials | – 843,439 | – 790,855 |
| Staff costs | – 614,628 | – 649,844 |
| Depreciation and amortisation expense | – 35,017 | – 48,148 |
| Other operating expenses | – 336,765 | – 339,507 |
| Other taxes | – 7,973 | – 8,304 |
| Financial loss | – 7,229 | – 17,252 |
| Earnings before income taxes | 200,117 | 135,796 |
| Tax | 30.2% | 33.75% |
| Earnings after income taxes | 139,489 | 89,960 |
As we see, the margins suffered due to multiple factors. Higher taxes, higher labour costs, higher depreciation and amortization and a higher financial loss. As KSB has already made significant investments in its facilities, the margins will recover when it increases its topline (the cost of material as a % of sales has decreased since 2008).
6 Valuation
KSB has been a consistent generator of FCF. Below is a table of the company during 2003-2010.
6.1 Discounted cash flow valuation
KSB had a negative free cash flow in only 2003 and since then has performed reasonably well. The FCF generation is far from stable. We see that the numbers are not very consistent, this is due to the cyclical nature of the company and the intermittent nature of its capital expenditure. If we look at the cash flow figures, they seem consistent enough, with a minor blip in 2010. With a 90 million starting FCF, 10% hurdle rate and no growth the company will be worth € 990 million. This is a potential upside of 34%, assuming no growth in FCF.
6.2 Valuation using net margin and P/E
KSB is a growth company. It has increased its sales from € 1,087 million (1999) to € 1,939 million (2010). This is a compounded growth rate of 6.5%. The company has enviable position in both China and India and is capitalizing on the growth opportunities there. With current revenue of 2 billion and market cap of 738 million, and a reasonable P/E of 12, the market expects a net margin of 3% at the moment. During the last decade the net margin has bottomed at 1.15% in 2004 and topped at 7% in 2009, the company is trading below mid-way of the margin spectrum. The potential upside is 233% and the potential downside is 62% (if the margin falls back to 1.15 and the market pays the same P/E).
7 Competition
We first look at the competitors and then make the case as to why KSB is a good opportunity. The competitors are
Dover Corp
Dover is an industrial conglomerate consisting of nearly 40 separate businesses. The firm organizes its business under four reporting segments: industrial products (26% of sales), engineered systems (31%), fluid management (23%), and electronic technologies (20%).
Crane Co.
Stamford, Conn.-based Crane is a manufacturer of highly engineered industrial products. Crane operates in five business segments: aerospace and electronics, engineered materials, merchandising systems, fluid handling, and controls.
Mueller Water Products
Mueller Water products designs, manufactures, and distributes water infrastructure components for use in drinking and wastewater markets. The firm reports under three business segments: Mueller Water, U.S. Pipe, and Anvil.
Following is the table of the key statistics and the companies relative valuations.
| Item | Dover (DOV, Financial) | Mueller Water (MWA, Financial) | Crane Co (CR, Financial) | KSB |
| P/E | 14.1 | - | 15 | 9.68 |
| P/S | 1.5 | 0.3 | 1.2 | 0.38 |
| Rev growth (3Y avg.) | -0.4 | -10.4 | -5.4 | 2.5 |
| EPS growth (3Y avg.) | 4.3 | - | - | 0.3 |
| Op Margin | 14.7 | 0.5% | 11.6% | 7.7% |
| Net Margin | 9.9 | -2.9% | 7.7% | 3.9% |
| ROE | 17.6% | -9.7% | 18.9% | 9.8% |
| Debt/Equity | 0.5 | 1.7 | 0.4 | 1.1 |
| EV | $14.8 billion | $1,470 million | $3.5 billion | €1.5 billion |
| FCF (2010) | $764 million | $30 million | $104 million | €89 million |
| EV/FCF | 19.3 | 49 | 33.65 | 16.85 |
It is not difficult to make an investment decision here. MWA and CR are quite expensive. Dover and KSB are close in terms of valuation, but KSB’s margins are at a low and Dover’s are on a high. One a purely valuation basis, KSB is a better bet.
8 Risks
Apart from the normal risks like foreign exchange risks, competitive risk which are there for every company, we want to discuss the liquidity risk and the risk of global downturn.
The following table describes the amounts/liabilities KSB has according to their maturity. With €301 million in cash, I don’t see KSB having any problems fulfilling its financial covenants.
Another risk to consider is the global downturn. We want to ask as to what is the minimum cost KSB must pay to run its operations. Currently, KSB pays €650 million in staff costs and €50 million in amortization and depreciation and another €339 million in operating expenses such a leases, currency translation losses, assets disposal losses administrative expenses etc. So, for KSB to remain above water, it needs to sell €1,039 million. This is half of its current sales and seems pretty unlikely even in a downturn.
Investment thesis
- KSB is both geographically as well as industrially diverse company. It has operations on all major continents and is expanding in China, India and Latin America. A large part of its sales (>20%) already come from this region.
- KSB has an enviable balance sheet with enough current assets to pay all its liabilities.
- KSB is undervalued in the region of 34% assuming no growth in FCF. Going on from here, anything below €400 is a very good entry point and will be a very good investment.
- 80% of KSB’s ordinary shares are held by KSB foundation
- KSB has a very good management and the pay is not out-of-line. The total compensation for the supervisory board is around €1 million and for the management board it is €4 million. There are 4 members in the board of management. As KSB does not declare the split between the managers, it is not possible to find out how much each one of them is paid, but this seems like a reasonable sum.
Additional disclosure: I do not own any shares at the moment because I wanted to analyze the company for myself. I plan to buy on Monday. I would like to thank Juan, the owner of the excellent Intelligent Investor blog and a GuruFocus contributor, for suggesting the company. Juan does own some shares of KSB.
