A Look at Joel Greenblatt's Investment in Automatic Data Processing

During the second quarter, Joel Greenblatt (Trades, Portfolio) increased his stake in Automatic Data Processing Inc. (ADP) by 6,692.15% with an impact of 0.34% on his portfolio. He is now the company's fourth-largest shareholder with 524,626 shares, which is 0.11% of the company's outstanding shares.

The company

Automatic Data Processing is a provider of business outsourcing solutions. It offers a range of human resources, payroll, tax and benefits administration solutions from a single source. The company is also a provider of integrated computing solutions to auto, truck, motorcycle, marine, recreational vehicle (RV) and heavy equipment retailers and manufacturers. The company's reportable segments are employer services, professional employer organization services and dealer services.

Last quarter results, outlooks and news

Worldwide new business bookings grew 18% for the quarter, 13% for the year. The outperformance in new business bookings led to short-term pressure on the margins and earnings growth but reflect the success of offerings.

Driven by strength in the human capital management business, total revenues from continuing operations increased by 5% for the quarter and 7% for the year. Diluted earnings per share from continuing operations increased 15% for the quarter and 12% for the year.

ADP regional employment reported growth in all four major regions improved slightly in August, an increase of 190,000 jobs from August to September. Also due to the important contribution that small businesses make to economic growth, ADP small business employment increased by 85,000 jobs from July to August. It has been named a leader by an independent research firm, The Forrester Wave; for the fourth consecutive year, ADP was named a leader in Gartner's Magic Quadrant for payroll BPO services.

For fiscal 2015, ADP expects revenues to grow in the range of 7% to 8% on a year-over-year basis and diluted earnings per share growth of 12% to 14% for fiscal 2016.

New business bookings are expected to rise approximately 10% over $1.4 billion sold in fiscal 2014, compared with the previous outlook of 8%.

Buybacks

During fiscal 2015, ADP returned approximately $2.5 billion in cash to shareholders through dividends and share repurchases.

Financial situation

The company has a financial strength rated 8 out of 10. It has a cash-to-debt ratio of 181.08 that is ranked higher than 72% of the 746 companies in the global business services industry, which has an average ratio of 1.81. The high ratio of cash to debt is confirmed by an even better interest coverage ratio of 309.85. Both ratios are outperforming the company’s competitors and are hitting the best performance in recent history. If we don’t consider the FY 2014, which closed with a cash-to-debt of 1.66, the ratio had a five-year growth rate of 334%, jumping from 41.99 for the FY 2010 to 181.08 of FY 2015.

The company doesn’t have any short-term debt and the above progress is explained with the progressive reduction of long-term debts.

Profitability

Both operating and net margins are strong. They are both ranked higher than 81% of other companies in the same industry, and they are 18.41% and 13.28% respectively; even so they are both hitting the lowest level in the recent company’s history.

Net profit margin has been steady in the last five years, with an average ratio of 12.77% and an easy growth rate of 5%.

The operating margin is steady as well.

About returns, ROE of 25.96% is outperforming 86% of the industry and is even at the best levels of recent company history while ROA of 4.13% is at the average level when compared to the industry median of 3.59% and is below the best performance of FY 2009 when it was 5.43%; return on assets during the last five years has been as high as 4.71% and as low as 4.11%, showing a long-lasting steadiness.

Share price and EPS

The stock is trading at about $80. Year to date, the price has declined by 4% but has risen by 115% over the last five years with a CAGR of 14%. During the last 12 months, it has risen by 11% and is now trading 11.97% below its 52­-week high and 23.55% above its 52­-week low, with a P/E ratio of 26.30 and a forward P/E ratio of 24.27.

On a five-year basis earnings per share (EPS) has grown by 21%, with an average growth rate of 5% every year and a CAGR of 3.89%.

EPS has grown at a lower rate than the price (21% versus 95%) and the current P/E ratio of 26.30 invites an examination of this big difference in these growth rates.

Since 2011 the stock has an average P/E ratio of 19.73 jumping from the lowest level of 15.82 to the highest of 26.28 reached at the end of the fiscal year 2015 and at the current price of $80, the stock is overpriced by 33% since its real price shoud be about $60. The stock needs a drop of about 25% to be fairly valued based on current earnings.

According to the current analysts' estimates, the price will be closer to the current $80 just within two years, when thanks to an estimated EPS of 3.73 its fair price should trade at about $73 / $74

Dividend yield

The company pays its shareholders an annual yield of 2.44% with a dividend payout ratio of 67%. The yield has a five-year growth rate of 8.20%, has the same growth rate over the last three years and a higher rate of 12.10% over the last 10 years. The company is increasing its dividend since 1985.

Gurus and hedge funds

The main hedge fund holding shares of the company is Bill Nygren (Trades, Portfolio) with 0.93% of outstanding shares, representing 2.06% of his total assets. The second one is First Eagle Investment (Trades, Portfolio) with 0.55% of outstanding shares, and the third is the hedge fund Pioneer Investments (Trades, Portfolio) with 0.14% of outstanding shares.

Conclusions

The company looks overpriced at its current price, and according to the DCF calculator, putting a growth rate of 21% for the next five years (as happened for the last five years), the company is overpriced by 69% and its fair value is $47. The P/E growth rate calculator confirms the company is overpriced but just by 33%.