Western Digital (WDC, Financial) designs, develops, manufactures, and sells hard disk drives (HDDs), and increasingly, solid-state drives (SSDs). The company’s hard disk drives are used in desktop and notebook computers, enterprise applications, and consumer electronic applications. Among the most profitable product areas for WDC is in the enterprise drive segment. Overall, WDC’s market share in the HDD industry is roughly 44%. During the last several years, the HDD industry has consolidated substantially, and the top three companies now control nearly 100% of the market. Furthermore, WDC’s vertically integrated business model makes it the lowest-cost producer of disk drives. It is also important to note that WDC management has done a superb job of returning the firm’s strong and consistent free cash flow to shareholders via buybacks and dividends. WDC also recently made a series of bold moves that could become game-changers for the industry.
The company received approval from the Ministry of Commerce of the People’s Republic of China (MOFCOM) to fully integrate the Chinese assets from its acquisition of Hitachi’s disk drive business. We believe the combination could add more than $2.40 to EPS3 (using current share count), given the possible savings of more than $400 million a year in operating expenses, and $250 million in the cost of goods sold.
WDC also announced a deal to acquire SanDisk (Nasdaq: SNDK) for approximately $19 billion in cash and stock, catapulting the company into a leadership position in SSDs. The move gives the company a very competitive offering and should put to rest fears that WDC could be cut out of the drive business by SSD players.
A quick summary of our evaluation of potential best-case and worst-case scenarios is shown below:
- Downside ($55 per share): $18 billion of revenue and $4.8 billion of EBITDA4. Assumes $650 million of MOFCOM synergies, $500 million of SNDK synergies (up to $1.1 billion over the long term), offset by 6% decline in the core business. Using an 8x multiple on owner earnings5 implies a stock value of $55 per share.
- Upside ($138 per share): $18.9 billion of revenue and $5.2 billion of EBITDA. Assumes $650 million of MOFCOM synergies and $700 million of SNDK synergies (up to $1.1 billion over the long term). Using a 14x multiple on owners' earnings implies a stock value of $138 per share.
Western Digital has been in our portfolio since early 2007. The investment is a good example of how we scale up and down our position size over time.
From FPA Capital Fund (Trades, Portfolio)'s first quarter 2016 commentary.
