Alimentation Couche-Tard (Symbol ATD, was ATD.B)

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Re: Alimentation Couche-Tard (Symbol-ATD.B)

Post by FinEcon »

westcoastfella wrote:I no longer hold ATD.B - I started to divest my holdings last fall when it was near all-time highs of $60 for diversification reasons, and completely divested in early 2016 at around $58 per share.

My reasons were along the same lines as you have suggested - its valuation got out of whack, and I didn't see a lot of additional upside in holding it. I decided to take my profits (nearly 200% in just a few years) and re-deploy the money into other companies that, at the time, were beaten down.
I wish you well and good luck but you're going to need it. I have been down this road many times in my head and I can only come up with one other business in Canada that shares the same easy expansionary growth potential in a simple scalable business as Couche Tard and that is MTY Group. Almost anyone who can grow like MTY or Couche Tard is in a risky, complex or technology based business.
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Re: Alimentation Couche-Tard (Symbol-ATD.B)

Post by FinEcon »

AltaRed wrote:Historical valuations. If you look at http://quote.morningstar.ca/Quicktakes/ ... &ops=clear

You will see 5 year averages being considerably below current values. Price would have to fall back to circa $47 or so to get a P/E circa 19 and P/CF back to 12.5. That would still make it rich at $47. Theoretically, it would need to drop back to circa $40 to get into S&P/TSX index levels BUT because it has good prospects for continued growth, some credit needs to be given for that.

FWIW, analyst forward projections are useless. They project the future from the recent past and it cannot be assumed the successes of the recent past will be repeated, and indeed, likely won't be.
Growth platform companies are a bitch to value because they won't stand still. Couche Tard's most recent filing states approximately 1200 new sites acquired in the last 12 months or so.
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Re: Alimentation Couche-Tard (Symbol-ATD.B)

Post by brad911 »

cn_habs wrote:How did you come up with that 47 or 48/share? Thanks in advance.
I used a DDCF calculator along with a qualitative assessment (helps with the growth assumption) and about a 35% margin of safety. 35% is the most I'm comfortable losing on that type of investment.
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Re: Alimentation Couche-Tard (Symbol-ATD.B)

Post by AltaRed »

FinEcon wrote:Since I'm rambling now I'll split up my thoughts into multiple posts but to answer your last question absolutely do not use Valero as a comparable, ATB is it's own beast.
Fair enough. Valero has too much of its business in refining, relative to its fuel and convenience store sales. However, I don't buy 'the sky is the limit' on this business. Consolidation has been going on for at least a few decades and it is my view future acquisitions won't be nearly as accretive.

Another reason is I have to sell something to buy something, so unless I see enough running room, there is no reason to make a move. Good discussion though to see who is cheerleading and who is not and why.
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Re: Alimentation Couche-Tard (Symbol-ATD.B)

Post by FinEcon »

AltaRed wrote:
FinEcon wrote:Since I'm rambling now I'll split up my thoughts into multiple posts but to answer your last question absolutely do not use Valero as a comparable, ATB is it's own beast.
Fair enough. Valero has too much of its business in refining, relative to its fuel and convenience store sales. However, I don't buy 'the sky is the limit' on this business. Consolidation has been going on for at least a few decades and it is my view future acquisitions won't be nearly as accretive.

Another reason is I have to sell something to buy something, so unless I see enough running room, there is no reason to make a move. Good discussion though to see who is cheerleading and who is not and why.
I definitely do not believe sky is the limit for this business, hopefully the wording in my post did not cause anyone to think that. I do think the growth runway is very long but that's due market penetration being in the low single digits in each of the major regions coupled with the industry dynamics. In a nutshell, a shrinking pie, ownership consolidation, a known pipeline of opportunities, and no significant institutional competition. Aside from valuation stretches or management straying from its track record of disciplined acquisition, things that concern me with this business are oddball things like:
- a gas station REIT like Getty stating it wishes to vertically integrate and expand by acquisition
- lottery tickets being sold/managed thru an app
- not being able to well participate or even complete failure to get on the charging station bandwagon
- draconian cigarette or liquor sales rule changes
- ridesharing and/or driverless cars negatively impacting non fuel sales
- drug stores, such as Shoppers, CVS, etc becoming de facto convenience stores

I don't feel that I'm cheerleading Couche Tard at all. I like the business a lot but I have thought of selling at times. The main reasons I didn't was stated earliuer. Heck I even named the firm I compare it to and why.
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Re: Alimentation Couche-Tard (Symbol-ATD.B)

Post by AltaRed »

P.S. I did not mean 'cheerleading' in a bad way. Just my way of characterizing enthusiastic support/happiness with this company. I think it will do well too. Hence my reason for testing the waters on who and why.
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Re: Alimentation Couche-Tard (Symbol-ATD.B)

Post by westcoastfella »

FinEcon wrote:
westcoastfella wrote:I no longer hold ATD.B - I started to divest my holdings last fall when it was near all-time highs of $60 for diversification reasons, and completely divested in early 2016 at around $58 per share.

My reasons were along the same lines as you have suggested - its valuation got out of whack, and I didn't see a lot of additional upside in holding it. I decided to take my profits (nearly 200% in just a few years) and re-deploy the money into other companies that, at the time, were beaten down.
I wish you well and good luck but you're going to need it. I have been down this road many times in my head and I can only come up with one other business in Canada that shares the same easy expansionary growth potential in a simple scalable business as Couche Tard and that is MTY Group. Almost anyone who can grow like MTY or Couche Tard is in a risky, complex or technology based business.
The upside I was referring to was the stock price, not necessarily the future aspirations of the company. Its richly priced based on simple P/E, I didn't see it going much higher in the short term, and the dividend isn't large enough to compel me to hold on while I ride out the doldrums. On the other hand, I had other stocks that had been beaten down in the early part of the year, that I wanted to invest more money into, and made an opportunity decision.

I trust that you have done a fair amount of diligence, I won't argue with your view of their growth prospects. I also don't rule out re-investing in ATD in the future... if the price comes down.
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Re: Alimentation Couche-Tard (Symbol-ATD.B)

Post by FinEcon »

westcoastfella wrote: The upside I was referring to was the stock price, not necessarily the future aspirations of the company. Its richly priced based on simple P/E, I didn't see it going much higher in the short term, and the dividend isn't large enough to compel me to hold on while I ride out the doldrums. On the other hand, I had other stocks that had been beaten down in the early part of the year, that I wanted to invest more money into, and made an opportunity decision.

I trust that you have done a fair amount of diligence, I won't argue with your view of their growth prospects. I also don't rule out re-investing in ATD in the future... if the price comes down.
My bad, I often forget that people often focus on the share price and not business performance and/or prospects. It's funny because it seems we both had the same dilemma, where to allocate the funds from a sale of Couche Tard that is likely to yield a result worth making the trade. Where did you allocate the capital? Do you believe that allocation will outperform in business results, share price or both on a go forward basis.

I'm hardly the last word on Couche Tard or any other firm but I do a lot of research because I run a concentrated portfolio. Any opinions or oberservations, particularly non-predictive quantitative or qualitative ones would be greatly appreciated by everyone on the board.
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Re: Alimentation Couche-Tard (Symbol-ATD.B)

Post by like_to_retire »

FinEcon wrote:I run a concentrated portfolio.
[OT] What does this mean?
Do you own stocks in a sector that you believe will do well, and then switch those stocks to another sector when you feel another sector is becoming hot? [/OT]

ltr
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Re: Alimentation Couche-Tard (Symbol-ATD.B)

Post by westcoastfella »

FinEcon wrote: My bad, I often forget that people often focus on the share price and not business performance and/or prospects. It's funny because it seems we both had the same dilemma, where to allocate the funds from a sale of Couche Tard that is likely to yield a result worth making the trade. Where did you allocate the capital? Do you believe that allocation will outperform in business results, share price or both on a go forward basis.

I'm hardly the last word on Couche Tard or any other firm but I do a lot of research because I run a concentrated portfolio. Any opinions or oberservations, particularly non-predictive quantitative or qualitative ones would be greatly appreciated by everyone on the board.
I ended up investing the proceeds of this sale into top ups on BNS, BCE, and POW, which were (at the time, and IMO) unfairly beat up. They've all rebounded nicely while ATD has dropped, and my overall dividend yield has increased, so at least in the very short term its worked out. I don't really know if BNC/BCE/POW will do better than ATD in the long run, but for me the opportunity to get additional money into long term core holdings at the prices I did was a more than fair trade off.

But you're right about having a hard time finding a home for the money - had we not had the mini crash/recession/correction around the beginning of 2016, I would likely still be an owner of ATD. And if the price comes down enough, I may be an owner once again :wink:
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Re: Alimentation Couche-Tard (Symbol-ATD.B)

Post by AltaRed »

Not much mention of this stock lately but 3Q17 results this morning resulted in a dip in stock price today. Results were slightly better Q on Q and year on year BUT hardly enough it seems to warrant its multiple. Have to wonder whether the size of this company is now making it much harder to move the needle OR maybe more ominously, much of its results depend on fuel margins. Is this a stock that might go the way of the buggy whip as European and North American gasoline demand shrinks and intense competition shrinks margins?

I missed the opportunity last summer when stock price dipped to the $52 range, or maybe I didn't if there is more consolidation to come. Thoughts from those holding the stock or have it on their Watchlist?
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Re: Alimentation Couche-Tard (Symbol-ATD.B)

Post by westcoastfella »

I said back in 2016 that I'd consider re-investing if the price came down and I meant it. Its still on my watchlist, although I didn't look today until I saw your post. Thats quite a fall...

I too wondered about connection to gas stations, although not in relation to fuel margins - rather, the fact that gas stations themselves seem to be disappearing. I'm not sure about other locales, but here in the GVA, urban gas stations have been closing down at a very high rate over the last couple of years. I live in Burnaby, there used to be 10 gas stations within a 5km radius of my home, now there are 3, and other areas seem to be the same. Could be lots of reasons for this: urban land is too valuable to have gas stations, demographics are changing (my wife works at a company with a lot of 20 somethings, and almost none of them have their drivers licenses because they don't feel they need cars), cars are getting more efficient and need less gas (I fill my car up once a month at most), or don't need gas at all (electric).

ATD seems to have a lot of revenue tied to gas stations and the retail outlets that coexist with them. When the gas station goes away, so does the Circle-K/Macs/store that lived with it.
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Re: Alimentation Couche-Tard (Symbol-ATD.B)

Post by AltaRed »

Which is why I am thinking the sellers of these things to ATD may be the wise folks after all. Dunno, but I guess I will keep this thing on my Watchlist for now, but am thinking an entry price should still be a lot less than it is now. ATD surely is not paying anyone much of a dividend to wait.
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Re: Alimentation Couche-Tard (Symbol-ATD.B)

Post by Lazy Ninja »

There may well be some truth to all that, and I can't speak for whoever was selling today and exactly what they didn't like about this latest report, but, at a glance, it didn't look all that bad to me. Revenues are up over 22% versus the same quarter last year which hardly seems in line with this buggy whip/disappearing gas stations conjecture. I was curious as to why profit growth was limited to 4.7% so dug into the numbers a little bit.

The two biggest factors looked to be an increase in SG&A expenses, and the impact of lower fuel margins in the U.S. SG&A increased 10.3% quarter over quarter which the company attributes mainly to one-time expenses largely related to acquisitions. They say expenses were up 1.9% with that stripped out. They reported a quarterly profit of 287 million this year versus 274 million last year. The acquisition-related SG&A costs alone reduced said profit by over 95 million dollars. Gross profit for the quarter would have been closer to 383 million (up almost 40% yoy) without them.

Fuel revenues in the U.S. were up nearly 12%, but gross profit on said revenue was down nearly 7% as the net profit margin fell from roughly 10.1% to about 8.4%. If they'd held steady (which, of course, they never do) that would have added another 81 million dollars to the quarterly profit. Over the last eight quarters, gross margins for fuel in the U.S. have ranged anywhere from about 11.3% to 21.5%, which does cause a fair bit of noise from quarter to quarter. The company says only that "road transportation fuel margins in the United States can be volatile from one quarter to another but tend to normalize in the long-term". See page 11 here

FinEcon addressed this rather eloquently in the last post of page 2 in this thread:
FinEcon wrote:Variations in the fuel margins, particularly the US, are short term volatile but not worth worrying about. There are many moving parts, fuel margins, fuel volumes, product mix (across the fuel grades) and all of these things are constantly changing in each area they operate often down to the neighbourhood level in some cases. The convenience store has the exact same conundrum, product margins, product volumes, product mixes, etc. All of these things are happening in a several currencies. They combine in a myriad of ways and tend to offset one another in so many ways in my view, it's not worth consideration.
At any rate, net of those two factors, it looks to me like quarterly profit would have been up nearly 70% versus the same quarter last year. Not exactly something that's hugely concerning to me. Of course that doesn't explain why it was down nearly 5% today, so I may well be missing something important....
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Re: Alimentation Couche-Tard (Symbol-ATD.B)

Post by Thegipper »

Sometimes the market is very difficult to comprehend. Looks like another good buying opportunity.
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Re: Alimentation Couche-Tard (Symbol-ATD.B)

Post by AltaRed »

Lazy Ninja wrote:At any rate, net of those two factors, it looks to me like quarterly profit would have been up nearly 70% versus the same quarter last year. Not exactly something that's hugely concerning to me. Of course that doesn't explain why it was down nearly 5% today, so I may well be missing something important....
I scanned down to per share data which is what really matters. 16 week earnings/share were slightly higher this Q than same Q in 2016, but 40 week earnings/share was down versus a year ago. Strip SG&A out and earnings/share would improve a bit of course, but debt ratio is up and both ROE and ROCE are down on a 40 week basis. I think it is those numbers than disappointed the market.
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Re: Alimentation Couche-Tard (Symbol-ATD.B)

Post by ig17 »

Highly accretive*** CST deal is on track to close in fiscal Q1 2018 (calendar Q3 2017). ATD closed today where it traded before CST acquisition, never mind 17% jump after the deal announcement. It's as if the market have forgotten about CST.

*** per a couple of sell-side reports I looked at.
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Re: Alimentation Couche-Tard (Symbol-ATD.B)

Post by Lazy Ninja »

I scanned down to per share data which is what really matters. 16 week earnings/share were slightly higher this Q than same Q in 2016, but 40 week earnings/share was down versus a year ago. Strip SG&A out and earnings/share would improve a bit of course, but debt ratio is up and both ROE and ROCE are down on a 40 week basis. I think it is those numbers than disappointed the market.
I'm willing to overlook the debt for now (and I don't like debt, believe me). One has to willing to accept variations in debt levels for serial acquirers (as long as they've earned a reputation for doing it well). I prefer to see long term debt levels under five years of net income for all companies that I own. ATD is well under that level. I'll still be looking for them to chip away at that a bit before we see another acquisition though.

I'll be interested to see what TD has to say tomorrow. They seem to be perennial cheerleaders for the stock. ATD has been on their action list for four and a half years, and they have an $87 price target on it. Their price target always seems to be about 50% above the market price. If they have anything negative to say about this quarter, then maybe I really should be concerned :roll:
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Re: Alimentation Couche-Tard (Symbol-ATD.B)

Post by Lazy Ninja »

Lazy Ninja wrote:I'll be interested to see what TD has to say tomorrow.
They actually removed it from the 'action list' for the first time in almost seven years (I thought it was only four and a half)! Downgraded to buy and price target lowered to $75.

Still no cause for concern here.
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Re: Alimentation Couche-Tard (Symbol-ATD.B)

Post by FinEcon »

No need to further belabour my opinion on fuel margins, that's already spelled out in this thread.

The reason ATD is in a great position is because they are the dominant player in an asset space that has been shrinking for decades (gas stations) and is now quickly consolidating with reduced ownership and the increasing importance of financialization. There used to be many more physical sites with many, many more owners, now the opposite is true and becoming more so every year. The industry consolidation is not done yet, not by a long shot. You know your in a good spot when you've achieved enough penetration in various local markets that the Competition Bureau plays a role in your acquisitions (ATD, PKI, and Esso's disposition of its Canadian retail network).

Since this thread last quieted down, ATD has all but completed the swallow up of Valero's convenience store spin off CST and they did it on the cheap. ATD tried for years to buy the store network from Valero but were turned down. Well it turned great for ATD because post spin out, CST went full retard with acquisitions and then got swallowed up when it inevitably went bad. If you care about this story, convenience store trade mags have done articles on it.

People always ponder the price of ATD and I don't blame them, you have to value ATD on a go forward basis and it's more work to value than a stock of a typical simple business. One last note of importance IMO is to ignore anything that is not a 'fact' in research reports because ATD is one of the big 5 IB's better Canadian customers, particularly in the non commodity space.

Who's next Casey's or Murphy? Barring that I may be forced to learn something about this space in the EU market to see the paying field further out.
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Re: Alimentation Couche-Tard (Symbol-ATD.B)

Post by AltaRed »

Well, I reached a bit this morning and bought at near the morning low of $57 and change. We shall see if buying above my $54-56 target range will play out over time. I tend to agree there is room to run yet in this space in the USA in particular. Europe may be more problematic with the chaos going on now in the EU with populist and nationalist feelings but that may also be an opportunity.

P.S. As far as consolidation goes, I agree there is more of this to come The old style stations are closing and the new ones have way more pumps and have more stores attached to them, and not just convenience stores. Liquor stores, fast food, etc.
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Re: Alimentation Couche-Tard (Symbol-ATD.B)

Post by Arby »

A little off-topic, but when I'm snowbirding in Florida I often get gas at Wawa, which is a gas and convenience store chain. Their gas prices are usually the cheapest, and they are the only place that offers free air for tires (I hate paying $1.50 at other gas stations to pump air into my tires). I'm always impressed by the Wawa stores - very clean and modern, and very busy at the gas pumps and inside the stores. I was so impressed I thought Wawa might be a good investment, but unfortunately they are privately owned, with 41% employee ownership.
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Re: Alimentation Couche-Tard (Symbol-ATD.B)

Post by Peculiar_Investor »

AltaRed wrote:Thoughts from those holding the stock or have it on their Watchlist?
Depending on the day, this is still my #1 or #2 individual stock holding. I haven't crunched the numbers yet from yesterday's earning release but based on a quick review of the Q3 release and my last update of my analysis after the Q2 numbers were released, my investment thesis on this company remains intact. HIstorically this company has had bumps along the quarterly earnings road, but viewed long term they continue to execute well. That's why I'm a shareholder.

They've got a great management team who are very experienced operators and consolidators in their space. As others have mentioned, they seem to be the go-to group when someone else wants to exit the space and they know when to walk away if the price is too rich (i.e. Casey's General Stores in 2010).

There are many good points made by previous posters that I would suggest anyone considering this stock should review and understand. This stock always seems to be a goldilocks type stock, valuations always seem just a bit stretched, but never even to generate a sell and just high enough to suggest that adding or buying is a bit on the rich side. I bought long ago, my ACB is in the $8 range. I wouldn't know how to guide someone considering becoming a shareholder on what a good entry price would be, that's an exercise left to the reader.
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Re: Alimentation Couche-Tard (Symbol-ATD.B)

Post by Profit not Prophet »

Even when more electric cars arrive...there arn't many of the 'fast' charging spots. I wonder how many owners will meander into the store and pass time buying stuff.
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Re: Alimentation Couche-Tard (Symbol-ATD.B)

Post by brad911 »

I agree with everyone!

I've never been able to justify the valuation BUT if I were to see them develop a plan for implementing charging stations or infrastructure for EV's then I could justify the current valuation easily. Long-term companies are going to need to offer fuel in various forms and the locations will be key.
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