Gordon Reid Charles River Labs Intl CRL-N TOP PICK May 03, 2016

Is undervalued and has been left behind because the market focused on Covid. CRL is in the same sector as Thermo Fisher, a sector that he likes. 

CRL provides drug discovery and safety testing services and is now trading at 22.6 times' Forward P/E (historical averages range from 19x to 33x). In the last five years, revenue growth was quite healthy, averaging around 12% on average, largely driven through acquisitions. The balance sheet is slightly leveraged, with net debt of $2.8B and net debt/EBITDA of around 2.7x. The company has been growing and repurchasing shares over the last few years. It is a solid company in our view, but as might be expected the valuation is a little expensive given the high quality of the business (not excessive though at 22X earnings).  Based on consensus estimates, sales are expected to grow by 2% this year and then normalize to around 7% over the next few years. Overall, an interesting name with strong growth and healthy cash generation. We would be comfortable owning it. 
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