Morningstar | WestRock's Year Shaping Up as Expected Following Kapstone Acquisition; Maintaining $53 FVE
There were no major surprises in WestRock's fiscal second quarter, as sales rose 18% to $4.62 billion and adjusted segment EBITDA rose 17% to $757 million from the year prior. The increase was mostly due to the purchase of Kapstone earlier in the fiscal year. The company took nearly 200,000 tons of economic downtime to counter weakening box demand, similar to that taken by the other major industry players. As the year goes on, we expect conditions to grow more challenging for the corrugated business, as weaker benchmark prices begin to weigh on segment results. However, with the year progressing largely as we expected thus far, our $53 per share fair value estimate and no-moat rating remain unchanged.In the corrugated segment, lower volumes weighed on both revenue and EBITDA after adjusting for the Kapstone acquisition. Substantial maintenance and economic downtime was taken, which primarily affected export volumes in the quarter, while management noted a slight increase in organic box shipments. We think tepid demand growth, increased capacity, and fewer exports will begin to affect the segment later this year as lower benchmark prices roll through contracts. However, despite our expectation that operating margins will contract by nearly a third through 2023 because of increased price competition, we still believe shares are worth $53. With shares trading well below that, we think current prices present a potential buying opportunity.
Consumer segment adjusted EBITDA fared reasonably well during the quarter, with higher benchmark prices and better productivity more than offsetting rising costs. One drawback will be a handful of outages as management pursues additional productivity enhancements that are leading to short-term outages, weighing on results. As we move into 2020, we see room for margin expansion as the outages fall off and the improvements begin to aid the bottom line.
WestRock is a provider of paper and packaging solutions for consumer and corrugated packaging markets. The company partners with its customers to provide paper and packaging solutions. The company's operating and business locations are in North America, South America, Europe, Asia and Australia. The company's segments include: Corrugated Packaging, which consists of the company's containerboard mills, corrugated packaging and distribution operations, as well as its merchandising displays and recycling procurement operations; Consumer Packaging, which consists of the company's consumer mills, food and beverage and partition operations; and Land and Development, which sells real estate primarily in the Charleston, SC region.
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.
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