Just as we often examine companies that may be rising past their fair values, we can also find companies trading at what may be bargain prices. While many investors would rather have nothing to do with stocks wallowing at 52-week lows, I think it makes a lot of sense to determine whether the market has overreacted to a company's bad news, just as we often do when the market reacts to good news.
Here's a look at three fallen angels trading near their 52-week lows that could be worth buying.
A blue-chip dip
Big pharma company GlaxoSmithKline (GSK +0.74%) may not be a traditional blue chip, but as one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world, it looks like a compelling value stock after its earnings-based swoon.
Source: Steven Depolo via Flickr.
GlaxoSmithKline shares tanked more than two weeks ago after the company reported less-than-impressive second-quarter results that saw unfavorable currency effects weigh down revenue 13% (a 4% drop in constant currency). Specifically, expenses tied with launching its newer chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) drugs have been costly, and revenue of key COPD drug Advair, which has long since been off patent, continues to drop and lose coverage by insurance providers in the U.S.
All told, GlaxoSmithKline's operating profit dipped 14% in constant currency terms, and its earnings per share fell well short of Wall Street's expectations. Furthermore, the company reduced its full-year outlook in the wake of higher costs and stymied sales. And, to add icing on the cake, Glaxo is still dealing with the bad press of an ongoing probe in China that alleges its employees bribed doctors and hospitals in order to boost its sales.
While none of these headwinds are good news for existing shareholders, I believe there is ample reason to consider Glaxo a value stock worth holding over the long term.
One reason Glaxo could shine is its deep product pipeline, fueled by high branded-drug margins and plenty of positive cash flow, as well as a bevy of newly approved drugs that have blockbuster potential. Both of its long-term maintenance COPD products, Anoro Ellipta and Breo Ellipta (known as Relvar in Europe), only combined for $32 million in sales in the first half of 2014. However, it can take time for insurers to transition from products like Advair to newer medicines like Breo and Anoro. Both Breo Ellipta and Anoro Ellipta are expected to deliver more than $1 billion in peak annual sales.
Source: GlaxoSmithKline via Flickr.
Glaxo has other tricks up its sleeve as well. The company's BRAF-inhibiting melanoma drugs Tafinlar and Mekinist, as well as its companion diagnostic test, are entering a crowded market, but combined, they could tally anywhere from $700 million to $1 billion in peak annual sales. These new therapies should eventually help GlaxoSmithKline offset the sales slump associated with Advair.
One factor investors should also keep in mind is that despite Glaxo's slump in Advair sales, it'll still be another two or three years before a biosimilar version makes it to market. The reason it's taking so long to get a biosimilar on pharmacy shelves relates to the fact that the Food and Drug Administration wasn't very forthcoming with the guidelines it was looking for in a biosimilar version of Advair until last year. For Glaxo, this means a few extra years of hefty profit potential.
Valued at just 13 times forward earnings and capable of generating $3 billion to $5 billion in cash flow annually, Glaxo isn't particularly expensive. Tack on a dividend yield that's inching ever closer to 5%, and income investors suddenly have an intriguing stock on their hands.
A golden opportunity?
With the McDonald's (MCD +0.10%) brand, which is among the most recognized in the world, you'd think anything was possible. However, when it comes to Arcos Dorados (ARCO +1.04%), the Latin and South American franchisee of McDonald's restaurants, growth has come at a premium for its shareholders in recent months.
As with GlaxoSmithKline, an abysmal second-quarter earnings report is the culprit that sent shares tumbling last week. For the quarter, Arcos Dorados reported a 7.2% drop in consolidated sales and reversed net income of $8.8 million in the year-ago period with a whopping quarterly loss of $99 million. Furthermore, commentary from CEO Wood Staton clearly spooked investors. Staton noted:
Expectations for economic and consumption growth across our territories have deteriorated substantially versus our original outlooks for this year. In response to the effect of the deteriorating macroeconomic conditions on our first half results, recent developments in one of our major markets [Brazil] and the short-term impact of the FIFA World Cup, we are revising our full year guidance.
Source: Mike Ross via Flickr.
Yet investors looking for a value stock with brand-name appeal could find quite the bargain in Arcos Dorados at these depressed levels.
For a number of quarters now, currency translation weakness -- not organic growth -- has been the culprit behind the company's sales and profit slump. In this past quarter, despite the 7% dip in sales, its organic growth advanced by 7.8%. If you tack on the additional 104 stores opened over the past year, you'll discover that Arcos Dorados' top-line growth in constant-currency terms is better than 10%! Generally speaking, currency-related problems are short-lived, and rarely does the blame of currency weakness lie with the company in question.
Along those same lines, the FIFA World Cup was a once-in-a-blue-moon event that removed traffic from its stores, and it probably shouldn't be a major source of investor angst, either.
The real allure of Arcos Dorados is its ability to rely on McDonald's branding and logo to drive sales over the long run as middle-class citizens in a number of emerging Latin and South American countries attain wealth and look for simple luxuries, such as eating out. Remember, visiting a McDonald's in many Latin and South American countries is different from hitting a McDonald's up the street for many of us in the U.S. In emerging-market nations, eating out is something of a luxury, so as these nations continue to grow, the long-term outlook for this globally recognized brand should improve. In other words, it's not a change that will happen overnight, but the trend toward emerging-market wealth is promising for Arcos Dorados' future.
Hang this up for the long term
Our final value stock that could be worthy of a rebound this week is Hanger (NYSE: HGR), an orthotic and prosthetic device and solutions provider that met the same fate as both Glaxo and Arcos Dorados when it reported its quarterly results.
Hanger losing one-quarter of its market value on Friday after missing Wall Street's EPS estimates by $0.14 and falling nearly $10 million shy of revenue estimates with $275.9 million in sales. Overall, Hanger produced a 3% year-over-year increase in sales, which was entirely fueled by acquisitions; same-center sales dipped 1.5% from the year-ago period.
Hanger attributed its same-center sales weakness to a slowdown in authorizations from payors (insurers), a slowdown in payments received, and a decline in discretionary spending by patients. A lot of this, I would suspect, has to do with the implementation of the Affordable Care Act. Healthcare premiums are still very much a question mark for consumers at the moment, and until more is understood by the general public about Obamacare and its premium pricing, we're liable to see citizens shying away from costly elective procedures.
Source: University of Salford Press Office via Flickr.
The end result was that Hanger reduced its full-year EPS forecast to a range of $1.60-$1.70 from a Wall Street consensus of $2.03 and now projects a full-year same-center sales decline of 1%-2%.
These results aren't what investors were hoping for, but there are also a lot of reasons to be excited about this sell-off. To begin with, long-term trends are firmly in place that favor orthotic and prosthetic procedures. Namely, the steady reduction in the number of people who are uninsured, coupled with a growing adult population, should result in a numbers game in which Hanger appears perfectly set up to win over the long run.
Further, I personally believe investors overreacted to Hanger's disappointing results. I'm not certain that a 1%-2% same-center sales decline should equate to a 25% share price drop when the company is still capable of delivering between $1.70 and $2 in EPS next year, in my best estimate. Hanger is taking steps now to reduce costs and potentially restructure or cut ties with noncore assets. This is not a company that will struggle to remain profitable, but it's being priced as if that were the case.
Given Hanger's reasonably low forward P/E and a game plan that includes both cost-cutting and staying the course to focus on the newly insured, I see no reason value-seeking investors shouldn't give this stock a closer look.
