ASPEN ANNOUNCES INTERIM RESULTS

If you’re a follower of my JSE movements you’ll know that Aspen Pharmacare Holding Limited is one of the stocks that I’ve invested in and have been patiently waiting on.

Let me tell you the story:

Several months ago I got a great feeling about Aspen and I wanted to buy shares (back in August 2013). The problem was that I was still very green (still am) and wasn’t brave enough to purchase the shares. Since that day onwards the share price grew and grew, if I’d bought I’d be smiling. I waited too long and finally decided to bite the bullet, but did so at a high point (October 2013) and the price promptly dropped substantially. Fortunately in the past week or two the share has gained again and I’m sitting at breakeven point, in fact, to be brutaly honest I’m sitting at a loss of 0.58% but a few weeks ago I was near 18% negative! Anyway, I’ve kept the faith and I still maintain that the share will continue to grow and I’ll see a good return.

If you look at August, October and today you’ll see what I mean:

Today, Aspen announced their interim results and from what I’ve read, investors seem happy. In comparison to last year the share is perform up almost 53%. Today Aspen traded at R284, just 90c off its record high! As I mentioned, I’m still learning but I wanted to share some of the facts that were announced today:

• Revenue up 33% to R12 Billion
• Operating profit up 16% to R2.9 Billion
• Offshore contribution increased to 71% of operating profit
• Normalised Diluted HEPS increased 14% to 424,2 cents
• EPS increased 15% to 423.4 cents

One of the reasons I really liked Aspen when I first learnt about them was their offshore interests and acquisitions. With the Rand trading badly and so forth, I figured that it would reach some great highs and hearing that 71% of their operating profit was for offshore, I feel really happy that I somewhat calculated the potential return, wish I’d just got in earlier!

Here is a look at Aspen’s recent transactions and acquisitions as provided by The Stock Shop:

1. Acquisition of the API manufacturing business, primarily in the Netherlands, from MSD for EUR31 million.
2. Acquisition of a portfolio of 11 branded finished dose form molecules from MSD in a related transaction for USD600 million.
3. Acquisition of the Arixtra and Fraxiparine/Fraxodi brands worldwide (excluding China, India and Pakistan) from GSK for GBP505 million became effective on 31 December 2013.
4. Acquisition of certain licence rights to infant nutritional intellectual property, net assets, including a production facility in Mexico, and shares in infant nutritional businesses in several countries in Latin America from Nestlé for a purchase consideration of USD180 million was completed with effect from 28 October 2013.
5. The acquisition from Nestlé of certain rights to intellectual property licenses and net assets of the infant nutritionals business presently conducted by Pfizer in certain southern African territories, including South Africa, has been approved by the competition authorities and became effective on 27 January 2014.

Unfortunately I need to do my research around all these acquisitions before breaking them down into positives or negatives so I’m going to have to end the post off there. I do still feel very confident that Aspen will have a great year ahead and I’m looking forward to seeing my shares move into the green and hopefully towards the 20% return mark as I have seen with BHP :-)