World Precision Machinery - Undervalued Gem or another "S-cheat"?

Shareholders of World Precision Machinery (WPM) have suffered a torrid time owning this company. Since 2013, shares of WPM have tumbled from a price of $0.40 to $0.196. That’s a decline of 51% (before accounting for dividends).

What it does

In one sentence: WPM makes metal stamping machines for hundreds of customers in China ranging from automotive plants to household appliances brands. Stamping machines are machines which bends/folds/presses metal sheets into the desired form required by the user. There are two types of machines manufactured by WPM – i) Conventional stamping machines and ii) High end stamping machines.

Decline of business

So what contributed to WPM’s decline in share price? Well the answer is because of a deterioration in orders for its stamping machines. While China is “growing”, it seems the manufacturing side of China is in contraction mode. Many stamping plants including WPM have experienced a decline in orders for their stamping machines.

From its Annual Report 2016, we can see that demand for WPM conventional machines are declining, fortunately, its high end machines demand has been fairly constant. Table 1 and 2 are extracts of WPM's revenue and the demand for its conventional and high end stamping machines.

Table 1: World Precision Revenue/Profits and Conventional Machine Demand

Table 2: World Precision High End Machines Order and Dividend payout

Based on its AR16, we can see that the fall in WPM's revenue and profits is due to the a decline in demand for its conventional stamping machines.

Has the decline stopped?

This is a question which I posed. Based on WPM’s revenue and profit for the first 9 months of FY17, WPM’s revenue has grown by 16% as compared against the same period while it net profits has grown by 13.8%. It signals that the decline in profitability for WPM has stopped and perhaps one can start valuing WPM based on its current financial results.

I do not think WPM will continue to experience a drop in demand for its conventional stamping machines.

Strengthening Balance Sheet

One thing which attracted me to WPM is how the company has reduced its debts even during tough times. From a FY13 debt level of RMB 300mil, the company has reduced its debts to only RMB 38 million. The company’s cash level has reduced by about RMB 30 mil during this time (35mil to 5mil).

This was largely due to the cash flow generating ability of the company:

Period	Operating Cash flow (RMB)	Investing (RMB)	Free Cash Flow
FY13	273.6 mil	(125 mil)	148.6 mil
FY14	210 mil	(47.2mil)	162.8 mil
FY15	194 mil	(56 mil)	138 mil
FY16	150.8 mil	(38.6 mil)	112.2 mil

The strong cash generating ability of the company has been used to pare down debts and as dividends r shareholders.

Current results

As of now, WPM has RMB 38 mil of debts. In the current 9 months, WPM has already generated RMB 124 Mil in CAPEX with a cash outflow of RMB 44mil.

Extrapolating its current 9 month cash flow results, one can expect WPM to generate about RMB 100mil in free cash flow for this financial year. Translated to Singapore dollars, this means WPM’s business is generating about 5.1 Singapore cents per share. With such a strong cash flow generation ability, I am quite optimistic that WPM will be debt free by the end of FY2018.

Valuation

As of Q3FY17, the net asset value of WPM is 54 Singapore cents; this means it is selling at a rather low book value of 0.36. What is more tantalizing is the cash flow yield one can get now from acquiring this company. At a share price of 0.196, the cash flow yield for owning a share of WPM’s business is 26%.

Liquidity of WPM shares

WPM is a fairly illiquid shares on the company with 87.43% of the shares are held by the major shareholders. This makes purchase of the shares rather difficult. For me, I had to patiently monitor the buy/sell bids of the shares before purchasing it. Fortunately for me, I was able to obtain some at 0.196.

Dividends

While it is an S-chip, what surprised me was the amount of dividends WPM has been returning to shareholders. From Table 2, it can be seen that WPM has been constantly giving out dividends on shareholders since 2010. FY16 was the anomaly where dividends were stopped. Since it's listing in 2006, WPM has returned more dividends than the cash amount it raised during its IPO. This is a good sign for a Chinese Listed Company.

Given the cash generating ability of the company and low debt, I believe WPM will resume its dividends soon.

Is it an S-Cheat?

This to me is another issue. Being a Chinese company and the terrible reputation Chinese listed entities have here, one does not know if its financial accounts are real. However, given that the modus operandi of "S-cheats" is to raise money on the SGX and run away with the money, it does not make much sense that WPM has paid more dividends than it had raised nor the large shareholdings of its owners unlike the other frauds whose owners had a less than 50% stake.

In my opinion, it may be worth staking a small percentage of your portfolio; Sometimes you have to take a leap of faith first, the trust part comes later.

<The author is vested in World Precision Machinery>