When June and December, the two "deadest" months for news, roll around, you never can tell what'll get investors excited. Take the news this morning from Swedish auto safety specialist Autoliv (NYSE:ALV). Sure, a new seatbelt contract award is nice, but should the stock be up 4% or so on the news?
There's certainly nothing bad about the deal. It will be worth about $600 million over seven years, and according to the company, it's 40% larger than any prior seatbelt order. Shipments will start in 2008, and the contract is with an unspecified "leading vehicle manufacturer".
As far as sussing out who that "leading manufacturer" might be, good luck. Autoliv already runs the gamut, working with Ford (NYSE:F), Toyota (NYSE:TM), DaimlerChrysler (NYSE:DCX), Porsche, and practically every other U.S., European, Japanese, or Korean automaker.
The company did say that the contract involved systems with the company's new pretensioners and load limiters, which isn't an insignificant detail. Since Autoliv already serves such a huge portion of the developed world's car industry, growth is at least somewhat predicated on upselling customers to restraint and safety systems with newer, more advanced features.
By the same token, though, let's keep the announcement in perspective. Autoliv does about $6 billion in revenue a year; this deal amounts to less than 2% of that on an annual basis. Even granting that this contract could have a disproportionately better impact on profits (given its new technologies), I don't think there's any reason to go too crazy about it.
Then again, this is a high-quality company trading at a pretty attractive valuation. Though above-average exposure to Ford and General Motors (NYSE:GM) is a valid cause for concern, Autoliv does serve almost the entire industry, which makes the company stronger than your average auto-parts vendor. I'd like to see a higher return on capital, but I've got to admit that this stock does have some appeal for an international-minded Fool like myself.
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Fool contributor Stephen Simpson but has no financial interest in any stocks mentioned (that means he's neither long nor short the shares).
