Spent more time looking at $MFB today, went back thru all the Annual Reports back to 2017, the metrics for this business are outstanding, just hard to reconcile with a packaged food retailer operating in a tiny market (NZ).
Here is a grab from Uncle Stocks -
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The trouble is their most recent half yearly report, not only were sales, earnings and cash flow crushed as NZ came out of Covid, but there was an act of almost criminal capital management/allocation IMO, in that they continued to pay a dividend - despite having to take out an overdraft to cover it!
So the big question is what happened to all the cash from the IPO 2 years ago? The short answer is it all went on equity repurchase, debt reductions & IPO costs. The main purpose of the IPO actually seems to have been to provide majority holder, Waterman Fund an exit for its 66% holding at a very high premium!
At this point, despite the strength of the metrics from the previous years, the appalling capital allocation by management in funding the dividend with debt is a game stopper for me.
A friend on twitter sent me this -
https://fundamentalgoob.com/2021/10/19/nzxmfb-my-food-bag-bright-future-or-a-sinking-ship/Confirmation.
24/1/23 35c