Report
Valens Research

Valens Equity Insights and Inflections - 2021 05 04

Current market expectations for AYI are overly pessimistic. Markets expect UAFRS-based ROA (Uniform ROA or ROA') to drop to levels not seen since 2009-2011.

The market is not recognizing how Acuity Brands is positioned to be a leader in the adoption of the Internet of Things, and that points to strong secular demand tailwinds, and premium returns. While the market is pricing the company for declines, it appears positioned to see a ramp in profitability, just as it had 10 years ago when it led another replacement cycles with new technology innovation for lighting.

On top of this, management's alignment, focused on maintaining and improving return on
assets, means they're likely to execute on their high return business plan, not see returns fade like investors are expecting.

Also, management is confident in its Internet of Things business strategy, and its business
model to drive growth for the business, highlighting the company's tailwinds.

Considering low market expectations, the company's strong position and strategy, macro
tailwinds, and confidence about executing on their strategy for the business, current low
equity valuations appear unreasonable, spelling potential for equity upside.

KO Q4 2020 Embedded Expectations Analysis – Market expectations are for record-high Uniform ROA, but management may be concerned about their portfolio, product launches, and market share

OTEX Q2 2021 Embedded Expectations Analysis – Market expectations are for Uniform ROA to remain near lows, but management is confident about experience cloud, Cloud Editions, and their leverage ratio

PYPL Q4 2020 Embedded Expectations Analysis – Market expectations are for Uniform ROA to expand, but management may have concerns about their wallet functionality, revenue growth, and travel and event spending

AYI, KO, OTEX, PYPL, ACN, AVGO, CRM, GTN, HPP, JW.A, KRC, MRNA, NKE, ORCL, PLNT, PPC, SITC, SQ, TMUS, UDR, WBT
Underlyings
Accenture Plc Class A

Acuity Brands Inc.

Acuity Brands is a provider of lighting and building management solutions and services for commercial, institutional, industrial, infrastructure, and residential applications. The company's lighting and building management solutions include devices such as luminaires, lighting controls, controllers for various building systems, power supplies, prismatic skylights, and drivers, as well as integrated systems designed for various indoor and outdoor applications. In addition, the company provides services across applications that primarily relate to monitoring and controlling lighting and building management systems through network technologies and the commissioning of control systems.

Broadcom Inc.

Broadcom, via its subsidiaries, is a designer, developer and supplier of a range of semiconductor and infrastructure software solutions. The company develops semiconductor devices with a focus on digital and mixed signal complementary metal oxide semiconductor based devices and analog III-V based products. The company provides products that are used in end products such as enterprise and data center networking, home connectivity, set-top boxes, broadband access, telecommunication equipment, smartphones and base stations, data center servers and storage systems, and factory automation. The company has three segments: semiconductor solutions, infrastructure software and intellectual property licensing.

Coca-Cola Company

Coca-Cola is a nonalcoholic beverage company. The company owns or licenses and markets nonalcoholic beverage brands, which it groups into the following category clusters: sparkling soft drinks; water, enhanced water and sports drinks; juice, dairy and plant-based beverages; tea and coffee; and energy drinks. The company's nonalcoholic sparkling soft drink brands are Coca-Cola, Diet Coke, Fanta and Sprite. The company markets, manufactures and sells beverage concentrates and syrups, including fountain syrups; and finished sparkling soft drinks and other nonalcoholic beverages. The company's segments are Europe, Middle East and Africa; Latin America; North America; Asia Pacific; Global Ventures; and Bottling Investments.

Gray Television Inc.

Gray Television is a holding company. Through its subsidiaries, the company is a television broadcast company that owns television stations and digital assets. The company broadcasts separate program streams, including affiliates of the ABC Network (ABC), the NBC Network, the CBS Network (CBS) and the FOX Network (FOX). In addition to affiliations with ABC, CBS and FOX, the company's secondary channels are affiliated with numerous networks and program services including, among others, the CW Network or the CW Plus Network, MY Network, the MeTV Network, This TV Network, Antenna TV, Telemundo, Cozi, Heroes and Icons and MOVIES! Network. The company also broadcasts local news/weather channels in some markets.

Hudson Pacific Properties Inc.

Hudson Pacific Properties is a holding company. Through its subsidiaries, the company is a self-administered and self-managed real estate investment trust focused on acquiring, repositioning, developing and operating office and studio properties in submarkets throughout Northern and Southern California and the Pacific Northwest. The company owns its interests in all of its properties and conducts substantially all of its business through its operating partnership, Hudson Pacific Properties, L.P. The company has two segments: office properties, which are located in Northern and Southern California and the Pacific Northwest; and studio properties, which are located in Southern California.

John Wiley & Sons Inc. Class A

John Wiley & Sons is a global research and learning company. Co. has three segments: Research segment, which provides scientific, technical, medical, and scholarly journals, as well as related content and services to libraries and individual researchers, among others; Publishing, which provides scientific, professional, and education books and related content in print and digital formats, test preparation services and course workflow tools, to libraries, corporations, students, professionals, and researchers; and Solutions, which provides online program management services for higher education institutions and learning, development, and assessment services for businesses and professionals.

Kilroy Realty Corporation

Kilroy Realty is a self-administered real estate investment trust engaged in premier office and mixed-use submarkets along the West Coast. The company owns, develops, acquires and manages real estate assets, consisting primarily of class A properties in the coastal regions of Greater Los Angeles, San Diego County, the San Francisco Bay Area and Greater Seattle. The company owns its interests in all of its real estate assets through Kilroy Realty, L.P. (Operating Partnership) and Kilroy Realty Finance Partnership, L.P. and conducts substantially all of its operations through the Operating Partnership. The company's stabilized portfolio of operating properties include stabilized office and residential properties.

Moderna Inc.

Moderna is creating a new generation of medicines based on messenger RNA to improve the lives of patients. The company uses its platform to identify and develop new mRNA medicines. When the company identifies a combination of platform technologies or programs across mRNA technologies, delivery technologies, and manufacturing processes that can enable shared product features across multiple potential mRNA medicines, it groups those programs as a modality. The company has created six modalities including prohylactic vaccines; cancer vaccines; intratumoral immuno-oncology; localized regenerative therapeuctics; systemic secreted therapeutics; and systemic intracellular therapeutics.

NIKE Inc. Class B

NIKE is engaged in the design, development and marketing and selling of athletic footwear, apparel, equipment, accessories and services. The company focuses its NIKE Brand product offerings in Running, NIKE Basketball, the Jordan Brand, Football (Soccer), Training and Sportswear categories. The company markets products designed for kids, as well as for other athletic and recreational uses such as American football, baseball, cricket, golf, lacrosse, tennis, walking, and other outdoor activities. The company has license agreements that permit unaffiliated parties to manufacture and sell, using the company-owned trademarks, certain apparel, digital devices and applications and other equipment designed for sports activities.

Open Text Corporation

Open Text is a provider of a suite of software products and services that assist organizations in finding, utilizing, and sharing business information from any device. In addition, Co. provides solutions that facilitate the exchange of information and transactions between supply chain participants, such as manufacturers, retailers, distributors and financial institutions. Co. provides software through on-premise solutions, cloud solutions or a combination of both on-premise and cloud solutions. Co.'s enterprise information management offerings include: content services, business process management, customer experience management, discovery, business network, and analytics.

Oracle Corporation

Oracle provides products and services that address enterprise information technology (IT) environments. The company's products and services include applications and infrastructure offerings. The company's cloud and license business engages in the sale, marketing and delivery of its applications and infrastructure technologies through cloud and on-premise deployment models including its cloud services and license support offerings; and its cloud license and on-premise license offerings. The company's hardware business provides Oracle Engineered Systems, servers, storage, industry-specific hardware, operating systems, virtualization, management and other hardware-related software to support diverse IT environments.

PayPal Holdings Inc

PayPal Holdings is a technology platform and digital payments company that enables digital and mobile payments on behalf of consumers and merchants worldwide. The company's combined payment solutions include its PayPal, PayPal Credit, Braintree, Venmo, Xoom and iZettle products and services. PayPal's payment solutions enable the company's customers to send and receive payments. PayPal helps merchants and consumers connect, transact, and complete payments, whether they are online, on a mobile device, in an app, or in person. The company provides proprietary payment solutions accepted by merchants that enable the completion of payments on the company's Payments Platform on behalf of its customers.

Pilgrim's Pride Corporation

Pilgrims Pride is primarily engaged in the production, processing, marketing and distribution of fresh, frozen chicken products to retailers, distributors and foodservice operators. The company's primary product types are fresh chicken products, prepared chicken products and export chicken products. The company's fresh chicken products consist of refrigerated (nonfrozen) whole or cut-up chicken, either pre-marinated or non-marinated and prepackaged case-ready chicken. The company's case-ready chicken includes various combinations of freshly refrigerated, whole chickens and chicken parts in trays, bags or other consumer packs labeled and priced ready for the retail grocer's fresh meat counter.

Planet Fitness Inc. Class A

Planet Fitness is a holding company. Through its subsidiries, the company is engaged as a franchisor and operator of fitness centers. The company's stores include co-branded cardio equipment, free weights, strength machines, a workout area, a small retail area and a drink cooler. The company operates and manages its business in three business segments: Franchise, which includes operations related to its franchising business in the U.S., Puerto Rico, Canada, the Dominican Republic and Panama; Corporate-owned stores, which includes operations with respect to all corporate-owned stores throughout the U.S. and Canada; and Equipment, which includes the sale of equipment to franchisee-owned stores in the U.S.

Salesforce.com inc.

Salesforce.Com is engaged in customer relationship management technology. The company's Customer 360 is an integrated platform that unites sales, service, marketing, commerce, integration, analytics and more to give companies a single, shared view of their customers. Through its platform and other developer tools, the company also enables third parties to develop additional functionality and applications, or apps, that run on its platform, which are sold separately from or in conjunction with the company's service offerings. The company's cloud service offerings include sales cloud, service cloud, marketing and commerce cloud, and salesforce platform and other.

SITE Centers Corp.

SITE Centers is a self-administered and self-managed real estate investment trust (REIT), engaged in the business of acquiring, owning, developing, redeveloping, expanding, leasing, financing and managing shopping centers. The company's portfolio consisted of shopping centers (including shopping centers owned through joint ventures). These centers are principally in the Southeast and Midwest, with significant concentrations in Georgia, Florida, North Carolina and Ohio.

Square Inc. Class A

Square is a commerce ecosystem that combines software with hardware to enable sellers to turn mobile devices and computing devices into payment and point-of-sale solutions. With the company's offering, a seller can accept payments via magnetic stripe, Europay, MasterCard, and Visa, or Near Field Communication; or online via Square Invoices, Square Virtual Terminal, or the seller's website or app. Also, sellers can gain access to reporting and analytics, next-day settlements, digital receipts, payment dispute and chargeback management, security, and Payment Card Industry compliance. The company's Cash App enable individuals to send and receive money electronically to and from individuals and businesses.

T-Mobile US Inc.

T-Mobile US provides mobile communications services, including voice, messaging and data, under its brands, T-Mobile and Metro? by T-Mobile, in the United States, Puerto Rico and the United States Virgin Islands. The company provides mobile communications services using its 4G Long-Term Evolution network and its 5G technology network. The company also provides various wireless devices, including handsets, tablets and other mobile communication devices, and accessories for sale, as well as financing through Equipment Installment Plans and leasing through JUMP! On Demand?. The company provides reinsurance for handset insurance policies and extended warranty contracts offered to its mobile communications customers.

UDR Inc.

UDR is a real estate investment trust that owns, operates, acquires, renovates, develops, redevelops, disposes of, and manages multifamily apartment communities generally located in markets located throughout the United States. In addition, the company has an ownership interest in completed or to-be-completed apartment homes through unconsolidated joint ventures or partnerships, including apartment homes owned by entities in which the company hold preferred equity investments. The company's operating partnership, United Dominion Realty, L.P., has a consolidated real estate portfolio that includes communities located in several markets.

Welbilt Inc

Welbilt is a commercial foodservice equipment company. The company designs, manufactures and supplies food and beverage equipment for the commercial foodservice market. The company's products are used by commercial and institutional foodservice operators including restaurants, quick-service restaurant chains, hotels, resorts, cruise ships, caterers, supermarkets, convenience stores, hospitals, schools and other institutions. The company's portfolio of brands includes Cleveland?, Convotherm?, Crem?, Delfield?, Frymaster?, Garland?, Kolpak?, Lincoln?, Manitowoc? Ice, Merco?, Merrychef? and Multiplex?. The company's products brands are supported by FitKitchen?, KitchenCare?, and KitchenConnect?.

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