Exco Technologies Ltd. (XTC.TO) Analysis

Whilst looking for a new dividend grower, I came upon XTC.TO, a small-cap stock on the TSX:

Exco Technologies Limited, together with its subsidiaries, designs, develops, manufactures, and sells dies, moulds, components and assemblies, and consumable equipment for the die-cast, extrusion and automotive industries. It operates in two segments, Casting and Extrusion Technology, and Automotive Solutions. The Casting and Extrusion Technology segment designs and engineers tooling and other manufacturing equipment for automotive and other industrial markets. The Automotive Solutions segment produces automotive interior components and assemblies primarily for seating, cargo storage, and restraint for sale to automotive manufacturers and tier 1 suppliers. It operates in the United States, Europe, Mexico, Canada, South America, Asia, and other countries. Exco Technologies Limited was founded in 1952 and is based in Markham, Canada.

Source: Yahoo Finance

Based on my recommendation criteria, listed below, I would base XTC.TO as a hold, mainly driven by its current valuation at the end of F2015. However, based on current prices and forward EPS, I rate it as a buy, and I explain this below.

The above criteria are based off of the F2005-F2015 annual reports:

On a 10 year basis, I like this company. Both EPS and dividend have trended upwards since F2005, although EPS was hit rather hard during the financial crisis. As XTC.TO is a provider for various discretionary industries (e.g. automotive), this is not really a surprise. However, the management team managed to keep the dividend afloat, even when they were facing a loss of $0.43/share in F2009, and they were quickly able to grow it again the following year by 14.3% from $0.08/share to $0.09/share. Reviewing the 10 year growth, on a compounded basis (i.e. CAGR), dividend growth has been 14.9% and EPS growth has been 15.3%: EPS is growing faster than the dividend, which means there is plenty of room for continued increases. And this shows, in their dividend payout ratio (discussed below), which has generally been low (less than 30.0% since 2010, with a peak of 81.2% in 2007 during the entry into the financial crisis). Moreover, if we review the company since the financial crisis, EPS is on a clear upward trajectory: form a loss of $0.43/share in F2009 to a positive EPS of $0.96/share in F2015. The following following chart illustrates this:

XTC.TO Dividend, EPS, and Free Cash Flow per Share

One element of minor concern is the F2011 dip in free cash flow per share: for the period of F2011 it dropped into negative territory, which forced the dividend payout ratio per free cash flow share (FCFPS) to be in negative territory as well. What this means is that the XTC.TO paid cash out (via dividend), but also had net cash flows out of the firm as well, which is something I typically do not like to see. If a company is in a net-negative cash flow position, I question what the source for dividends is. However, reviewing the F2011 statements, XTC.TO comments that this overspending in capital expenditures (which ultimately reduces FCFPS) was due to their Allper acquisition, as well as some other miscellaneous spending. True to their word, FCFPS has been on a generally upward trend since then. There was another minor blip in F2013 where there was positive FCFPS, but the dividend payout ratio to FCFPS was greater than 100% (e.g. dividends/share > FCFPS), but again this was related to acquisitions and upgrades to existing facilities.

Reviewing the 10 year history of dividend payout ratios against EPS and FCFPS, there have been some extreme peaks and valleys:

Payout Ratios against EPS and FCFPS

However, if we exclude negative EPS and the FCFPS outliers, a healthier picture is presented:

XTC.TO Dividend Payout Ratios against EPS and FCFPS Excluding Outliers

Payout ratios in general against EPS are generally below 35%. More importantly, dividend payout ratios against FCFPS are generally at or below 50%. In other words: the increasing dividend is coming from an increasing free cash flow, leaving plenty of room for dividend increases in the future. While XTC.TO has not made an outright statement as to their dividend policy, if history is any indicator of the future, there should be healthy dividend increases to come.

With regards to valuation, P/E, P/BV, and P/E × P/BV have been generally healthy, illustrated below:

P/E, P/BV, and P/BV × P/BV

In the early 2000s the company was generally over-valued, but since the financial crisis the P/E has remained consistently low at less than 15 (edging to 15.1 in F2015), and price to book value has also been somewhat decent, peaking at 2.5× in F2015. Based on the F2015 fiscal results, the company was overvalued with a P/E × P/BV exceeding our threshold of 22.50. However, that was based off of a F2015 closing share price of $14.54. The price is currently trending around $12.00, and if we review the forward EPS from analysis ($1.14 for F2016 based on 3 analysis, as listed by BMO InvestorLine’s equity research), and the historic P/BV ratio of 1.32, we get:

Based on a forward view, XTC.TO is undervalued.

Of course, there are some risks with this firm, the biggest one being the share price. If you are looking for a growth opportunity, where you will see plenty of consistent capital appreciation, this is not the stock for you; here is the 10 year price chart, with volumes, from Big Charts:

10 Year Weekly Close Price with Volumes

As you can see, there has generally been an upward trend, but it there are also some valleys to take into consideration. This means that if you need your capital back in a hurry, you may be selling during one of the downturns. Moreover, due to the low liquidity, bid-ask spreads may be very wide, which could have a negative effect on any selling activities.

As a final recommendation, I place this stock as a buy based on the current stock price, and the forward EPS. As a dividend income stream for my portfolio I feel it will do well over the long term, evidenced by its healthy 14.9% 10 year dividend CAGR, and consistently low dividend payout ratio—against both EPS and FCFPS—since the financial crisis. One final note is that the fiscal year end is September 30, 2016, so I will certainly be taking a closer look when the F2016 annual report comes out in a few months, to see how well the firm has performed this year.

Disclosure: Long XTC.TO as of Sep 16, 2016.