Two overlooked bargain growth stocks I’d buy today

Alan Oscroft — Wed, 18 Oct 2017 06:00:38 +0000

I noticed a modest share price rise for Tatton Asset Management (LSE: TAM) after the firm released a trading update on Tuesday, ahead of interim results due on 5 December.

Not heard of it? The company offers discretionary fund management (DFM) and IFA and mortgage support services, and things sound like they’re going well. Funds under management on its DFM platform rose to £4.44bn, from £3.85bn at 31 March — and fund inflows are apparently running at more than £80m per month.

The firm’s IFA services arm, Paradigm Partners, has seen membership rising to 356 firms (from 352 in March), with Paradigm Mortgage Services seeing membership up to 1,143 firms.

Tatton doesn’t have much public history, having only floated on AIM as recently as July 2017, but analysts are already predicting good things.

Attractive valuation

The forward P/E for the end of this year might look a little high at around 21, but forecast rises in earnings per share would drop that to 17 by 2019, and indications of a strongly progressive dividend suggest a 2019 yield of 4.1%.

If that comes off, it will be a cracking start to life on the stock market.

Chief executive and founder Paul Hogarth spoke of “the increasing demand for a low cost DFM service to the mass affluent market place served by the IFA sector“, and that looks to me to be the company’s main attraction — it’s offering a range of closely related services which should feed into and support each other.

Despite the economic uncertainty we currently face (or perhaps even because of it), I reckon Tatton’s services should be in demand from its targeted clientele sector in the coming years.

Cash from rubber

Turning to a wildly different sector, I’m quite taken by the fundamentals exhibited by Anglo-Eastern Plantations (LSE: AEP). The company produces palm oil and rubber from plantations across Indonesia and Malaysia, and both of those commodities are in huge demand — though ethical issues regarding the destruction of rain forest in places like Borneo might put some investors off.

Over the last 12 months, the Anglo-Eastern share price has soared by 85% to 870p, with some of that surely due to impressive interim results.

Revenue in the half climbed by 70% to $146.9m, with pre-tax profit up 83% to $31.6m and earnings per share (EPS) more than doubling to 46 cents. Total net assets at 30 June stood at $470.6m (approx £357m) — and that’s more than the firm’s market capitalisation of £346m, so the shares are trading at a discount.

Discounted valuation

On the P/E front, the shares are looking attractively valued to me, despite their impressive appreciation over the past year. With EPS expected to grow by 83% this year, we’re looking at a multiple of only 7.2 and a PEG ratio of a mere 0.1 — growth investors usually get excited by anything under 0.7, but we do have to temper this with Anglo-Eastern’s erratic year-on-year earnings.

The business of investing heavily in new plantations and not seeing profit from them until a few years later would account for some lumpiness in earnings, but that really shouldn’t matter to long-term investors.

The company has several biogas plants up and running now which provide electricity that it will sell to the national grid, in Bengkulu, Kalimantan and North Sumatra, and that will add a little to the bottom line.

There could be environmental hurdles ahead, but the shares look good value to me.

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Alan Oscroft has no position in any shares mentioned. The Motley Fool UK owns shares of and has recommended Apple. The Motley Fool UK has the following options: long January 2020 $150 calls on Apple and short January 2020 $155 calls on Apple. Views expressed on the companies mentioned in this article are those of the writer and therefore may differ from the official recommendations we make in our subscription services such as Share Advisor, Hidden Winners and Pro. Here at The Motley Fool we believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors.

2 value stocks trading at deep discounts

Peter Stephens — Tue, 27 Jun 2017 14:01:12 +0000

With the FTSE 100 trading close to an all-time high, finding cheap stocks is becoming more difficult. Certainly, there are shares available which appear to trade at discounts to their intrinsic values. However, stocks which can be classed as ‘bargains’ are becoming few and far between. Despite this, here are two companies which seem to offer exceptionally wide margins of safety. Could now be the right time to buy them?

Low valuation

Reporting on Tuesday was palm oil and rubber producer Anglo-Eastern Plantations (LSE: AEP). It released a statement to coincide with its AGM. In the first five months of the year, the company’s own production of fresh fruit bunches (FFB) was 19% higher than in the same period of the prior year. FFB bought in was 105% higher when compared to the same period of the previous year, with the production of FFB and external crop purchases higher as the effects of drought and haze on the palm trees subsided.

The company’s new planting for the first part of the year was 809 hectares. New plantings remain behind schedule due to delays in finalising settlement of land compensation. The biogas plant in the Kalimantan mill has been completed. At the present time, the trapped biogas is flared while waiting for the final electrical works to be completed for the power generation.

Looking ahead, Anglo-Eastern Plantations is forecast to increase its earnings by 124% in the current financial year. This puts it on a forward price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio of just 5.5, which suggests that it trades on a wide margin of safety. Certainly, there is scope for its outlook to be downgraded. However, in the long run it could prove to be a worthwhile investment.

Growth potential

Also offering upside potential is fellow palm oil and rubber plantation operator MP Evans (LSE: MPE). Unlike Anglo-Eastern, it trades on a relatively high rating. For example, it has a P/E ratio of 27.4, which suggests that there may be limited upside ahead. After all, within the same sector it is possible to buy much lower-rated alternatives.

However, the P/E ratio does not take into account a company’s growth rate. In the case of MP Evans, it is forecast to report a rise in net profit of 52% in the current year, followed by additional growth of 26% next year. Both of these rates of growth are well ahead of the wider index. This could help to improve investor sentiment over the medium term.

Furthermore, when combined with the company’s P/E ratio, it puts the stock on a price-to-earnings growth (PEG) ratio of only 0.7. This suggests that there could be more upside ahead after the company’s 83% share price rise over the last year. Certainly, the production of any commodity can lead to high volatility and uncertainty in terms of the price received. But with a wide margin of safety, MP Evans seems to be a shrewd long-term investment.

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