Report
Valens Research

Valens Equity Insights and Inflections - 2021 10 19

Hillenbrand (HI) has pivoted successfully to roll-up the industrial machinery industry in the past decade, giving the business greater growth potential and opportunities for asset efficiency. Uniform Accounting highlights these efficiency improvements that the market is missing, indicating equity upside.

Over the last decade, Hillenbrand has expanded its business from a casket business into
the industrial machinery industry, causing Uniform ROA to improve to stable 25%-28%
levels. It has acquired its way into industrial machinery, and while the market appears
concerned about its recent Milacron acquisition, its largest to date, up to this point it has
shown strong ability to integrate acquisitions, the Milacron integration process is going
well, and returns have remained solid.

Hillenbrand's management is closely aligned to focus on economic value added, which
along with its other metrics focus the team on both margins and asset turnover, the two
drivers of Uniform ROA.

TGT Q2 2021 Embedded Expectations Analysis – Market expectations are for Uniform ROA to improve, but management may have concerns about growth opportunities, margins, and partnerships

FFIV Q3 2021 Embedded Expectations Analysis – Market expectations are for Uniform ROA to recover, but management may have concerns about their growth, software business, and government client

MA Q2 2021 Embedded Expectations Analysis – Market expectations are for record-high Uniform ROA, but management may have concerns about their partnerships, growth, and the macro outlook

HI, FFIV, MA, TGT, ACN, AES, ATGE, BMY, DELL, FND, GO, ILMN, INTU, KTOS, NCR, PG, QCOM, SKT, SQ, TJX, VREX
Underlyings
Accenture Plc Class A

Adtalem Global Education Inc.

Adtalem Global Education provides educational services. The company's institutions and companies provide an array of programs across medical and healthcare, financial services and business and law. The company's segments include: Medical and Healthcare, which includes Chamberlain University and Medical and Veterinary Schools that provide educational programs in nursing and health professions, respectively; Financial Services, which includes Becker Professional Education that provides education serving the accounting and finance professions; and Business and Law, which includes Adtalem Education of Brazil institution that focuses in business, engineering, healthcare, law, management, medical and technology.

AES Corporation

AES is a holding company. Through its subsidiaries, the company operates a portfolio of electricity generation and distribution businesses. The first business line is generation, where the company owns and/or operates power plants to generate and sell power to customers, such as utilities, industrial users, and other intermediaries. The second business line is utilities, where the company owns and/or operates utilities to generate or purchase, distribute, transmit and sell electricity to end-user customers in the residential, commercial, industrial and governmental sectors within a defined service area. In certain circumstances, the company's utilities also generates and sells electricity on the wholesale market.

Bristol-Myers Squibb Company

Bristol-Myers Squibb is engaged in the discovery, development, licensing, manufacturing, marketing, distribution and sale of biopharmaceutical products. The company's products are sold worldwide, primarily to wholesalers, specialty distributors, retail pharmacies, hospitals, government entities and the medical profession. The company manufactures products in the United States and Puerto Rico and has manufacturing operations in two foreign countries. The company has products in the following therapeutic classes: hematology, oncology, cardiovascular and immunology. The company's pharmaceutical products include chemically-synthesized or small molecule drugs and products produced from biological processes, called biologics.

Dell Technologies Inc Class C

Dell Technologies is a holding company. Through its subsidiaries, the company designs, develops, manufactures, markets, sells, and supports a range of products and services. The company's reportable segments are: Infrastructure Solutions Group, which includes servers, networking, and storage, as well as services and third-party software and peripherals; Client Solutions Group, which includes desktops, thin client products, and notebooks, as well as services and third-party software and peripherals; and VMware, which provides compute, cloud management, networking and security, storage and availability, and other end-user computing offerings.

F5 Networks Inc.

F5 Networks is a provider of multi-cloud application services, which enable its customers to develop, deploy, operate, secure, and govern applications in any architecture, from on-premises to the public cloud. The company's application services are available as cloud-based, software-as-a-service, and software-only solutions supported for multi-cloud environments. In connection with its solutions, the company provides a range of services, including consulting, training, installation, maintenance, and other technical support services. The company's products and solutions include hardware platforms, software and software-as-a-service platforms, cloud-based managed services, and service provider solutions.

Floor & Decor Holdings Inc. Class A

Floor & Decor Holdings is a holding company. Through its subsidiaries, the company is a specialty retailer of hard surface flooring and related accessories. The company's customers include installers and commercial businesses, Do It Yourself customers and customers who buy the products for installation. The company's primary product categories include Tile, Wood, Laminate/Luxury Vinyl Plank, Natural Stone, Decorative Accessories, and Installation Materials and Tools. In addition to its stores, the company's website FloorandDecor.com showcases its products, provides informational training and design ideas and has its products available for sale, which a customer can pick up in store or have delivered.

Grocery Outlet Holding

Grocery Outlet is a holding company. Through its subsidiaries, the company owns and operates a chain of grocery stores in the United States. The company offers products in various categories, such as grocery, dairy and deli, produce, refrigerated and frozen, floral, beer and wine, general merchandise, and health and beauty care, as well as fresh meat and seafood; and natural, organic, specialty, and healthy products. As of Mar. 30, 2019, the company operates 323 stores across the West Coast and Pennsylvania, including the company's expansion into Southern California.

Hillenbrand Inc.

Hillenbrand is a global industrial company with several brands that serve a variety of industries. The company's segments are: Process Equipment Group, which designs, engineers, manufactures, markets, and services process and material handling equipment and systems for a variety of industries, including plastics, food and pharmaceuticals, chemicals, fertilizers, minerals and mining, energy, wastewater treatment, forest products, and other general industrials; and Batesville?, which is engaged in the death care industry in North America, where it designs, manufactures, distributes, and sells funeral service products and solutions to funeral directors operating funeral homes.

Illumina Inc.

Illumina is engaged in sequencing- and array-based solutions for genetic and genomic analysis. The company provides whole-genome sequencing, genotyping, noninvasive prenatal testing (NIPT), and product support services. Using the company's services, customers can perform whole-genome sequencing projects and microarray projects (including large-scale genotyping studies and whole-genome association studies). The company provides NIPT services through its partner laboratories that direct samples to the company on a test send-out basis in its Clinical Laboratory Improvements Amendments-certified, College of Pathologists-accredited laboratory. The company also provides support services to customers who have purchased its products.

Intuit Inc.

Intuit helps consumers, small businesses, and the self-employed prosper by delivering financial management and compliance products and services. The company also provides tax products to accounting personnels, who are main partners that help the company serves small business customers. The company organizes its businesses into three reportable segments: Small Business and Self-Employed, which provides QuickBooks financial management solutions to solve financial and compliance problems; Consumer, which includes TurboTax products and services to prepare and file income tax returns; and Strategic Partner, which includes professional tax offerings and serve professional accountants in United States and Canada.

Kratos Defense & Security Solutions Inc.

Kratos Defense & Security Solutions is a technology, intellectual property, proprietary product and system company focused on the U.S. and its allies' national security. The company operates in three segments. The Kratos Government Solutions segment is comprised of an aggregation of operating segments, including the company's microwave electronic products, space and satellite communications, modular systems and rocket support operating segments. The Unmanned Systems segment consists of the company's unmanned aerial system and unmanned ground and seaborne system businesses. The Public Safety and Security segment provides independent integrated solutions for government and commercial applications.

MASTERCARD INCORPORATED

Mastercard is a technology company in the global payments industry. The company's solutions enabling consumers to use electronic forms of payment instead of cash and checks. The company provides a range of payment solutions and services using its brands, including Mastercard?, Maestro? and Cirrus?. The company is a multi-rail network that provides customers one partner to turn to for their domestic and cross-border payment needs. The company has additional payment capabilities that include automated clearing house transactions. The company also provides offerings such as cyber and intelligence products, information and analytics services, consulting, loyalty and reward programs and processing.

NCR Corporation

NCR is a software- and services-led enterprise provider in the financial, retail, hospitality and telecommunications and technology industries. The company is an enterprise provider selling a portfolio of digital first software, services, hardware and payments. The company's segments include: Banking, which includes automated teller machines and payment processing hardware and software; Retail, which provides solutions that primarily include retail-oriented technologies, such as point of sale (POS) terminals and POS software; Hospitality, which provides solutions that include POS hardware and software solutions; and Other, which includes telecommunications and technology solutions.

Procter & Gamble Company

Procter & Gamble provides consumer packaged goods. The company's products are sold primarily through mass merchandisers, e-commerce, grocery stores, membership club stores, drug stores, department stores, distributors, wholesalers, baby stores, beauty stores, other stores and pharmacies. The company has five reportable segments: Beauty, which includes hair care, and skin and personal care products; Grooming, which includes shave care products; Health Care, which includes oral care and personal health care products; Fabric and Home Care, which includes fabric care and home care products; and Baby, Feminine and Family Care, which includes baby care, feminine care and family care products.

Qualcomm Inc

Qualcomm is engaged in the development and commercialization of foundational technologies for the wireless industry. The company's segments include: Qualcomm CDMA Technologies, which is a developer and supplier of integrated circuits and system software based on code division multiple access, orthogonal frequency division multiple access and other technologies; Qualcomm Technology Licensing, which grants licenses or otherwise provides rights to use portions of its intellectual property portfolio, which, among other rights, include certain patent rights essential to and/or useful in the manufacture and sale of certain wireless products; and Qualcomm Strategic Initiatives, which makes investments.

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.

Tanger Factory Outlet Centers Inc.

Tanger Factory Outlet Centers is a self-administered and self-managed real estate investment trust, which focuses on developing, acquiring, owning, operating and managing outlet shopping centers. The company's outlet centers and other assets are held by, and all of its operations are conducted by, Tanger Properties Limited Partnership and subsidiaries (Operating Partnership). The company owns the majority of the units of partnership interest issued by the Operating Partnership through its two wholly-owned subsidiaries, Tanger GP Trust and Tanger LP Trust. Tanger GP Trust controls the Operating Partnership as its sole general partner. Tanger LP Trust holds a limited partnership interest.

Target Corporation

Target provides its customers everyday essentials and merchandise. The company sells an assortment of general merchandise and food. The majority of the company's general merchandise stores provide an edited food assortment, including perishables, dry grocery, dairy, and frozen items. The company's small format stores provide curated general merchandise and food assortments. The company's digital channels include merchandise assortment, including various items found in its stores, along with a complementary assortment. The company also sells merchandise through periodic design and partnerships. The company's owned brands merchandise include: A New Day?, Archer Farms?, Art Class?, Ava & Viv?, Cat & Jack?, and Cloud Island?, among others.

TJX Companies Inc

TJX Companies is an off-price apparel and home fashions retailer. The company's segments comprised of: Marmaxx, which sells family apparel (including footwear and accessories), home fashions (including home basics, decorative accessories and giftware) and other merchandise; HomeGoods, which provides a range of home fashions, including home fashions, including furniture, rugs, lighting, soft home, decorative accessories, tabletop and cookware as well as pet, kids and gourmet food departments; TJX Canada, which operates the Winners, HomeSense and Marshalls chains in Canada; and TJX International, which operates the T.K. Maxx and HomeSense chains in Europe and the T.K. Maxx chain in Australia.

Varex Imaging Corporation

Varex Imaging is a designer and manufacturer of X-ray imaging components. In its Medical business segment, the company designs, manufactures, sells and services X-ray imaging components for use in a range of radiographic or fluoroscopic imaging applications including computed tomography, mammography, oncology, cardiac, surgery, dental, and computer-aided detection. In its Industrial business segment, the company designs, manufactures, sells and services X-ray imaging products for use in several markets, including security applications, such as cargo screening at ports and borders and baggage screening at airports, and nondestructive testing and inspection applications used in several other markets.

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