Although we don't believe in timing the market or panicking over market movements, we do like to keep an eye on big changes -- just in case they're material to our investing thesis.
What: Shares of Macquarie Infrastructure (MIC) are trading 11% higher today after the company announced after the bell Monday that it would acquire the remaining 50% of International-Matex Tank Terminals it doesn't already own for nearly $1.03 billion.
So what: Macquarie has agreed to buy out the founding Coleman family in a deal comprising $910 million in cash and $115 million in stock. The acquisition will be financed at least in part by the offering (announced simultaneously) of $250 million in new debt due in 2019 and 10 million new shares, which at current post-pop prices will bring in roughly $675 million in gross proceeds. Macquarie values the acquisition at 10.7 times International-Matex's trailing EV/EBITDA.
Now what: Macquarie seems quite confident that the deal will be accretive to its bottom line very quickly, as it boosted its quarterly dividend by 1.3% to $0.95 per share. The company also upgraded its 2014 free cash flow projection to $4.55 per share (an 11% year-over-year improvement), and also boosted 2015's free cash flow guidance to $5.10 per share. Considering that Macquarie expects to pay out between 80% and 85% of its free cash flow as dividends, this works out to an implied yield of about 6.2% -- exactly the same as today's yield -- in 2015 for investors who buy in today after the spike.
Macquarie has already been one of the market's best stocks over the past five years, with dividend-reinvested returns reaching above 2,000%. It's also worth considering that the company's price-to-free cash flow ratio has grown at the same rate, which means that all of the stock's gain's have been driven by free cash flow valuation expansion. Based on that information, I'd advise a thorough and cautious investigation to determine if Macquarie remains the great opportunity it has been in the past.
