Biotech idt-results released 51% increase eps
IDT released their results 3pm today, (supposed to be released tommorrow) profits and eps up 51%,revenue up, 6.5%. These numbers on the surface may look odd, how can a company grow profit by such a degree, when sales have hardly moved?.
The answer is straight forward, 4 years ago over 90% of this companies revenue was generated through generic drugs which required a high spend on raw materials and consumables, as we all know most of this industry is now off shore, in the last 4 years IDT has been replacing this income stream with a new one. It now generates most of its revenue through specialised drugs such as cancer treatment drugs, and by providing clinical trials for new drugs research ( a fee for service income stream) additionally to the manufacture of such drugs once they have received FDA approval. This new income stream carries a much lower cost for raw materials and consumables. Thus the huge increase in profits is due to a large reduction over the last 4 years in raw materials and consumables costs. This company now has a new set of profit margins going forward, it has in essence while staying in the same industry, recognised and moved successfully into a niche within that industry, developing a service and products much more profitable than before.
The development and manufacture of these requires a specialist team of highly educated and skilled staff and special containment facilities, IDT uses CMAX (a clinical trial facility in Melboune). This creates high barriers to entry regards competition. Additionally IDT has a strong reputation with the FDA and is therefore the service provider of choice for companies like Pfizer, one of its largest clients.
Anyway don't want to bore you too much, this company is covered by about 2 analysts, and neither of them pay much attention to it (though I think thats about to change), so it has gone largely unnoticed by the investment industry, this accounts for its low share price. It has been the ugly duckling for the last 4 years but is now changing into a swan.
The management team are remarkable, many other companies in the generic drugs industry in Australia have simply dissapeared, so full respect to DR Blackman (CEO and founder) for his successful restructure and tenacity.
Yes I am the kind of boring person who follows the same company for four years, but this strategy has served me well, my most successful investment to date being Cochlear (also started investing in this appx 3 years ago). I like to invest in companies that not only go up but stay up, atleast for most of their lifetime.
Anyone out there interested in this style of investing, I'd love to hear from you.