Using the financial statements in the earnings announcement and the more detailed 10-Q , we have now updated our usual set of Cash Management, Growth, Profitability and Value metrics. This post reports on the metrics and the associated financial gauge scores.
Watson Pharmaceuticals develops, manufactures, and sells generic and, to a lesser extent, branded pharmaceutical products. Some background information about Watson and the business environment in which it is currently operating can be found in the look-ahead.
In summary, Watson's latest quarterly results produced the following changes to the gauge scores:
- Cash Management: 10 of 25 (down from 12 in June)
- Growth: 3 of 25 (down from 11)
- Profitability: 10 of 25 (unchanged)
- Value: 5 of 25 (down from 8)
- Overall: 29 of 100 (down from 38)
| Cash Management | Sep 2009 | Jun 2009 | Sep 2008 | 5-Yr Avg |
| Current Ratio | 4.3 | 1.4 | 3.3 | 3.6 |
| LTD/Equity | 43.2% | 6.7% | 40.2% | 36.4% |
| Debt/CFO (years) | 2.4 | 2.1 | 2.0 | 2.0 |
| Inventory/CGS (days) | 119.2 | 117.0 | 122.4 | 122.5 |
| Finished Goods/Inventory (1) | 57.8% | 59.2% | 68.6% | 57.7% |
| Days of Sales Outstanding (days) | 47.6 | 45.3 | 42.8 | 51.0 |
| Working Capital/Invested Capital | 58.2% | 20.3% | 36.6% | 40.0% |
| Cash Conversion Cycle Time (days) | 77.3 | 67.2 | 74.3 | 84.2 |
| Gauge Score (0 to 25) | 10 | 12 | 8 | 13 |
In August 2009, Watson refinanced much of its debt -- an action for which we had been waiting -- when the company issued $450 million in five-year notes and $400 million in 10-year notes.
The combination of cash from the debt offering and the redemption of the debt that had been due within one year caused the Current Ratio and net Working Capital to bounce back from temporarily depressed levels to above-normal figures.
Inventory had been slowly decreasing in an encouraging trend. However, the trend ended in the September quarter. The small increase does not presently worry us because the finished goods inventory category continued to fall.
| Growth | Sep 2009 | Jun 2009 | Sep 2008 | 5-Yr Avg |
| Revenue growth | 5.4% | 6.5% | 1.1% | 14.0% |
| Revenue/Assets | 70.1% | 71.7% | 71.9% | 65.3% |
| Operating Profit growth | 41.5% | 37.9% | 23.7% | 21.9% |
| CFO growth | 0.1% | 4.4% | 5.7% | 12.5% |
| Net Income growth | 0.5% | 24.8% | N/A | 10.4% |
| Gauge Score (0 to 25) | 3 | 11 | 5 | 9 |
The Operating Profit rate is the annualized rate of growth in Operating Profit after Taxes over the last 16 quarters.
Revenue growth is not torrid, but new generic and branded pharmaceutical products are starting to contribute to sales.
Bottom-line gains, whether measured by Cash Flow or Net Income, are tepid when the last four quarters are compared to the four previous quarters. To some extent, this has been due to one-time charges (such as acquisition costs) and non-operating expenses (such as debt refinancing).
| Profitability | Sep 2009 | Jun 2009 | Sep 2008 | 5-Yr Avg |
| Operating Expenses/Revenue | 85.8% | 86.7% | 86.7% | 87.5% |
| ROIC | 9.2% | 9.2% | 8.6% | 7.5% |
| Free Cash Flow/Invested Capital | 13.9% | 14.1% | 13.3% | 14.7% |
| Accrual Ratio | -1.9% | -2.1% | -3.7% | 0.0% |
| Gauge Score (0 to 25) | 10 | 10 | 13 | 9 |
Operating expenses as a percentage of Revenue were reduced 90 basis points over the last year. This is impressive given that lower-margin generic drugs are responsible for a growing proportion of overall sales.
The small improvement over the last year in ROIC and its Free Cash Flow equivalent is encouraging in the current economic climate. It's possible that restructuring and refinancing activities interfering with comparisons between current and historical returns on investment.
The rise in the Accrual Ratio, relative to its value 12 months ago, suggests some degradation to Earnings Quality. To be specific, it indicates that less of the company's Net Income is due to Cash Flow from Operations; therefore, more is due to changes in non-operational Balance Sheet accruals.
| Value | Sep 2009 | Jun 2009 | Sep 2008 | 5-Yr Avg |
| P/E | 19.4 | 17.4 | 15.3 | 22.8 |
| P/E vs. S&P 500 P/E | 0.9 | 0.9 | 0.8 | 1.3 |
| PEG | 0.5 | 0.5 | 0.6 | 1.5 |
| Price/Revenue | 1.6 | 1.5 | 1.3 | 1.7 |
| Enterprise Value/Cash Flow (EV/CFO) | 10.8 | 10.3 | 9.3 | 10.1 |
| Gauge Score (0 to 25) | 5 | 8 | 15 | 9 |
In the year ending 30 September 2009, Watson shares increased in price 28.6 percent, from $28.50 to $36.64. Since the company's operating results rose much more modestly, the contrarian Value gauge is reacting negatively.
| Overall | Sep 2009 | Jun 2009 | Sep 2008 | 5-Yr Avg |
| Gauge Score (0 to 100) | 29 | 38 | 47 | 40 |
We had thought the gauge scores would improve after a successful debt refinancing, but declines in the Growth and Value scores predominated in the third quarter.
These results need to be taken with an extra dose of skepticism. Our ability to assess Watson using historical results has been made much more difficult by the company's concurrent acquisition of Arrow Group, business restructuring, and the issuance of $850 million in new debt. It may take a few quarters for the view ahead to clear.
Note: We thank Yahoo! Finance for making the share price chart available.
Full disclosure: No position in WPI at the time of writing.
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