She has bounced back a little, I topped up at $7.47 and then reviewed the reports to try and get a fix on what happened. A few things I took from the report:
1. At $9.34 (yesterday's close) IPH is a $1.7 billion company and has reported (half year) earnings of $32 million - if they report $64 million EBITDA for the year we have a p/e around 26 which is not obscene but probably needs some growth to justify - does the market believe the growth will happen? Based on today, some clearly do not.
2. Dividend of 11c per share (8.8c franked) announced. Do some sectors see this as a bad play? Possibly taking cash away from the growth and acquisition plan? Possibly but hard to fathom given they have $77 million cash, no debt and about $100 million undrawn bank facilities.
3. Money may simply be flowing out of stocks like IPH and into sectors offering a greater possible bounce (see resources/materials stocks) and this may be motivating some selling.
4. The margins IPH works with are incredible. I reviewed a report the other day for a company generating $3.4 billion earnings for about $250 million profit. Comparably - IPH generate $32 million earnings and yield $23.4 million profit.
I'm sticking with this LT.
IPH Price at posting:
$8.11 Sentiment: Hold Disclosure: Held