Opinions
Michael Sprung
AtkinsRealis Group
ATRL-TO
HOLD
Nov 27, 2024
Stock price when the opinion was issued
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Canadian engineering firms have a strong business model in Canada, and they're continuing to expand outside Canada; lots of opportunities to do well. He holds STN instead. Buy a bit now. If price goes up, you'll be happy you got in earlier. If price goes down, buy a bit more to average down.
When it comes to Canadian infrastructure investment, there are some good companies out there and already trading at attractive multiples. And that's before accounting for any additional investments. This company has really transformed. Nuclear is ~20% of its business and growing at 30% annualized.
Rebranded. Becoming a very large, global player in engineering and project management. Asset light. Not in construction anymore. Reasonable margins. Huge backlog. About $10B in revenue a year. Big infrastructure spending has to happen globally. Interest rates coming down is a good thing. Expertise in nuclear. Yield is 0.12%.
(Analysts’ price target is $91.23)The former SNC Lavalin which had a checkered history. He likes professional services companies, because there will always be a demand for them. The problem is that occasionally a CEO will take a fixed-price contract that could make a nice margin or lose 5-years' profits. ATRL has been through that. He likes where ATRL is heading. The market isn't afraid of its near-30x PE. Strong growth with 9% margins, which lag its peers like Stantec, but there's little margin of safety here.
They have a great opportunity on the nuclear energy side. Nuclear energy is needed as a stable energy source to power data base centres. As the nuclear component develops they are making decent money in the interim with its engineering services business. Has an internal free cash flow of 7.4%, much greater than the average and almost 7 times greater than the present TSX stock market. Also has an attractive PEG ratio. There was a 10% earnings surprise.
Buy 12 Hold 1 Sell 1
Came back from the dead to do extraordinarily well. Great environment for engineering and similar services. Nuclear division has also been a lot in the spotlight. ROE is ~10%. PE's of all these companies are getting up around 40x trailing earnings. Rather fully priced. Very good exposure to the US, and the USD is strong and likely to remain so for a while.
In a trade war, services may not be as badly affected as some products, so these companies could be somewhat of a haven.