Morningstar | Sealed Air Warns on Weaker Earnings in 3Q and 2018; Maintaining Our $47 FVE
On Oct. 17, Sealed Air issued a media release warning investors that it would miss its original earnings targets for the third quarter and year. Management reduced its adjusted diluted EPS and adjusted EBITDA guidance by 3% for the year. Accordingly, we've slightly trimmed our forecasts for the year to align with the updated guidance. We now expect 2018 adjusted diluted EPS of $2.44, down from $2.51. We now forecast adjusted EBITDA of $873 million, down from $891 million. Despite our near-term changes, our long-term outlook is intact. We maintain our $47 fair value estimate, and believe Sealed Air looks attractive in light of today's 8% sell-off. Our narrow-moat rating also remains unchanged.Sealed Air experienced higher than expected raw material and freight cost inflation during the third quarter--both of which seem likely to occur in the fourth quarter as well. Management also noted that global volume weakness will weigh on results. Although details remain sparse ahead of the full-quarter release on Nov. 1, an 8% stock price decline strikes us as over-reactive. The bulk of Sealed Air's products don't have immediate pass-through clauses, which can cause short-term margin contraction when input costs rise. However, its razor-and-blade model typically allows for it to pick up pricing over the longer term. This leads us to believe that Sealed Air should be able to drive margins higher again after this year in both product care and food care.
The company should also be able to generate fairly strong top- and bottom-line growth going forward, benefiting from both increased packaged meat consumption in emerging markets and the rising tide of e-commerce for its product packaging solutions. By embedding its products into the fulfillment process of customers, Sealed Air ensures a steady stream of higher-profit business as throughput grows. Sealed Air should also benefit from operating leverage as its own facilities process more volume.
Sealed Air is a global provider of packaging solutions for the food, e-Commerce, electronics and industrial markets. The company serves an array of end markets including food and beverage processing, food service, retail, commercial and consumer applications, by providing food safety and security, product protection and equipment. The company's segments include: Food Care, which serves perishable food processors, predominantly in chilled, smoked and processed meat, poultry and dairy-solid markets worldwide, and maintains positions in target applications; and Product Care, in which its solutions are designed to protect goods in shipping.
Morningstar, Inc. is a leading provider of independent investment research in North America, Europe, Australia, and Asia. The company offer an extensive line of products and services for individual investors, financial advisors, asset managers, and retirement plan providers and sponsors.
Morningstar provides data on approximately 530,000 investment offerings, including stocks, mutual funds, and similar vehicles, along with real-time global market data on more than 18 million equities, indexes, futures, options, commodities, and precious metals, in addition to foreign exchange and Treasury markets. Morningstar also offers investment management services through its investment advisory subsidiaries and had approximately $185 billion in assets under advisement and management as of June 30, 2016.
We have operations in 27 countries.
Unfortunately, this report is not available for the investor type or country you selected.
Browse all ResearchPool reportsReport is subscription only.
Thank you, your report is ready.
Thank you, your report is ready.