Matalan - Much noise - Positioning
All,
Please find our only slightly updated model here.
We have been looking to do this for a while, but our thesis got another shot in the arm last week when Takko reported record results. Naturally, the recoveries of Takko and Matalan should be differently phased, but on the whole, we expect a similar return to strength at Matalan as at Takko and Pepco. Moreover, given the positive market and the time still being on Matalan’s side for another year, we see risk on the 2LNs as materially skewed to the upside in case of a reasonably strong Q2.
There is much noise in the market around bottlenecks and inflation. We are all looking for where this hammer falls. But in doing so, the market has placed discounts on entire sectors (anyone with high distribution and labour costs) and we don’t think that in the scheme of things, the hammer falls on Matalan to the point where it’s unable to demonstrate a return to £80m -£100m EBITDA in time for their refinancing.
Liquidity:
- The company had some £140m of cash in Q1 and had racked up £90m in arrears.
- Of the arrears, some £50m were rent, £6m were VAT deferrals and £35m were supplier arrears. We think those supplier arrears are probably flexible enough to allow us to calculate with net liquidity of £85m.
Supply Chain and Inflation:
- There is much noise in the market around bottlenecks and inflation. It is true that Matalan will be exposed to shipping delays, truck driver shortages, wage inflation and high cordon prices, but probably not as much as we might think:
- Shipping: As a major UK retailer, Matalan are naturally repeat customers with business booked long in advance. That is not so much the segment that is suffering from the much televised delays. The delays are primarily occurring in the “spot market” I.e. what if I need to ship something now. As a result, we expect the upheaval at Matalan to be noticeable, but limited.
- Truck Driver Shortage: This could indeed hurt some more, but it should be manageable with slightly lower supply frequency and slightly greater batch sizes.
- Wage inflation should hurt. Perhaps not yet, but it’s coming. For a retailer, wage inflation can ultimately have a positive demand effect, but that may only set in after the cost inflation. In line with what we’ve heard from Takko, we are not expecting Asian wage inflation to translate into goods prices.
- Cotton Prices: Again, those should come through only with some delay, and the longer the lead times, the longer that will take. Matalan, therefore, is reasonably well positioned in this context and should be comfortably able to pass those costs on in the general price hike we are expecting for next year.
Operating environment:
- The summer started well for Matalan, with the company reporting of good frequency and strong full-price demand. But management noted on the last call that the reopening of the HORECA segment had been driving customers back to the highstreet, suggesting that may have hurt retail park footfall. If that were not the case, we would be expecting extremely strong sales over the summer. With this in mind, however, we are making just strong plans.
- The stay-cation has kept many Britons from flying south this year and instead it seems to have each paid at least one visit to the long-forgotten DIY chains. Matalan is right next door and like Takko, we expect that Matalan will have seen stronger footfall over the summer than in previous years - all with full price demand - particularly for autumn/winter clothes.
- Last year’s back-to-school trade didn’t happen. But kids keep growing and so we are expecting stronger sales this year. Those technically fall into Q3, but we expect to hear of it on the call.
- Matalan still have a significant home ware business, which together with always-on kidswear and flush-with-savings ladieswear should have gone well enough.
Q2 and the PIKs:
- Given the company’s liquidity, it should be able to survive well into the latter half of next year before it realty has to refinance. So it has some time to get it right again.
- We think that strong Q2 results will send the PIKs flying into the 90s for a low teens yield (think Intralot). By contrast, we think that a negative result will not drop the PIKs as much yet. There will be another year to look forward to.
- So we see the optionality very positively skewed in the short term.
Refinancing / Restructuring:
- I am personally expecting a return to £100m EBITDA in the next 12 months. In such uncertain times, discount retailers are the natural destination for the recently amassed consumer savings. Also, see the notes on Operating environment.
- As Sarria, we are thinking that if EBITDA returns to a mere £80m, then with the above cash calculation the SSNs will be just over 4x leveraged and the SUNs 5x.
- We see no reason why 5x leverage would not be refinanceable - in this market anyway. Of course that requires a solution for the 2LNs.
- To restructure a mere £~90m of 2LNs we see also no incentive for the Hargreaves to labour a scheme of arrangement. 1/3rd of that would likely end up payable as fees and the reputational damage along with higher coupons would be deeply unattractive.
- If the 2LNs end up not refinanceable, we expect holders to chose a reasonable amend and extend compromise. If that results in 5-year paper at current prices that would still equate to a 20% PIK yield - on a good company with a bad balance sheet (we’d admittedly be at the weak end of that balance sheet) and in a negative real rate environment.
- We may be bullish, but we have the company making £115m recurring FCF in the 12 months post-pandemic before paying £50m rent arrears and thus making £40m recurring NCF. Someone is going to finance something.
- In all, we think that neither Hargreaves nor investors will let a few operating hick-ups get in the way of making long-term money.
Positioning:
We have been taking another 4% of NAV of the 2LNS to complement our 5% of NAV in the SSNs. While the upside is reasonably clear, downside comes from either another lock-down (we think unlikely), or a change in consumption patterns so profound as to prevent even Discounters (somewhat protected from the online wave) from returning to their pre-pandemic performance. If so, the downside for the 2LNs would in the short term lie in an amend and extend - which if extended at current conditions for 5 years would result in 20% yield paper - enough possibly to prevent all too severe a drop (after an initial sell-off). But more importantly - and as per thesis all along, we cannot see any discounters struggling anywhere.
Wolfgang
E: wfelix@sarria.co.uk
T: +44 203 744 7003
www.sarria.co.uk