Reality distortion field set to spin

By Longwave Capital CIO, David Wanis

Steve Jobs pioneered the reality distortion field (RDF), an “…ability to convince himself, and others around him, to believe almost anything with a mix of charm, charisma, bravado, hyperbole, marketing, appeasement and persistence”.

Like every good technology, adoption spreads and management presentation of results in February has seen broad adoption of the power of the RDF. Even when the objective results themselves are terrible, which many in February were, only the positives are put forward – as inconsequential as they may be to the fortunes of shareholders.

Analysts, armed with a quiver of “How should we think about…?” questions try to penetrate the spin, but management are hard to push off script. A few brave souls held management feet to the fire, and while they probably question the career risk, they would make fine investors with the approach of looking for the truth instead of the narrative. Consensus 12 month forward EPS estimates for the S&P / ASX Small Ordinaries Index were downgraded about 3%. About a third of this came from higher interest expenses rather than operating downgrades.

Six months ago, we noted our disappointment in not finding many investible bargains among the stocks hit hardest since late 2021. This reporting season confirmed those concerns – many of these businesses are still trading on stories and have yet to demonstrate attractive unit economics, the foundation of every great business. Large swathes of the small cap market remain un-investible in our view.

Accounting shenanigans are alive and well. The euphemism “earnings quality” protects commentators from defamation – and we saw numerous examples in these results. During February ASIC announced they are suing the former CEO and CFO of Freedom Foods alleging disclosure failures and breaches of director and officer duties.

Source: ASIC

What we learned in February

Travel & Leisure: The post COVID recovery in travel and leisure continues, arguably held back by capacity constraints and not expected to reach pre COVID levels of activity until 2025.

For those surviving players, there appears to be greater market share and less competition than pre-COVID, although the survivors are not themselves unscathed. For a number of companies (Corporate Travel, Flight Centre, Tourism Holdings, Auckland Airport) their current enterprise values (the value the market puts on their businesses) are within 10% of pre COVID levels, but the expected EBIT in 2025 (once fully recovered) looks like it will be anywhere from 20% (FLT, AIA) to 100% (CTD, THL) higher than F2019 EBIT.

For investors who prefer not to invest in pre-production mining companies, another way to invest in the increasing penetration of EVs has emerged. Thanks to recent government subsidies, consumers can purchase an EV through a novated lease at significantly reduced prices.

The two largest listed novated leasing providers (McMillan Shakespeare and SmartGroup) are seeing a significant pickup in interest and demand. They are both high quality, cash producing, high ROE businesses with strong balance sheets.

Employment: Companies were more consistent in their comments regarding tight labour markets, echoing what we all see in the very low unemployment statistics. Some companies felt opportunities are being missed due to a lack of available workers.

Inflation, margins and working capital: Cost inflation remains. Those who moved early and have pricing power have largely sustained margins. Those late to move on prices or lack pricing power are having trouble catching up and seeing pressure in their margins, both gross and operating. We also saw low market power businesses take the hit through their balance sheets, as customers and suppliers flexed trading terms. Working capital terms (receivables, inventories, payables) are a hidden source of pricing power when thinking about return on capital not just margins.

Balance sheets: For several companies, the state of their balance sheets has deteriorated shockingly quickly. Healius is a case in point, where only six months ago they talked about their “Fortress Balance Sheet”, funding acquisitions and share buybacks, and here we are today looking at the shrinking distance to bank covenants.

We have seen this movie before and although alert to the risk and underweight levered businesses, we have not been without investments whose balance sheets have become far worse, far more quickly than we expected.

Disclaimer:

This communication is prepared by Longwave Capital Partners (‘Longwave’) (ABN 17 629 034 902), a corporate authorised representative (No. 1269404) of Pinnacle Investment Management Limited (‘Pinnacle’) (ABN 66 109 659 109, AFSL 322140) as the investment manager of Longwave Australian Small Companies Fund (ARSN 630 979 449) (‘the Fund’). Pinnacle Fund Services Limited (‘PFSL’) (ABN 29 082 494 362, AFSL 238371) is the product issuer of the Fund. PFSL is not licensed to provide financial product advice. PFSL is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Pinnacle Investment Management Group Limited (‘Pinnacle’) (ABN 22 100 325 184). The Product Disclosure Statement (‘PDS’) and Target Market Determination (‘TMD’) of the Fund is available at https://longwavecapital.com/funds/small-companies-fund/invest/. Any potential investor should consider the relevant PDS and TMD before deciding whether to acquire, or continue to hold units in, the Fund.
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