Projecting Growth at Patterson (PDCO)

Mark Robinson, founder and General Manager of Manifest Investing, recently posted his SSG of Patterson Companies (PRCO) at BI’s First Cut page.  Mark used several extraordinary SSG methods: he added two years of estimated annual data, source and details unknown,  which extended his projection of growth for the next 7 years out to 2015. 

Also, Mark’s projected High EPS shows as $2.05 of the SSGs front page, but mysteriously as $2.50 on the back. The additional estimated data changed the 5 year average and trend of PTPM as well as ROE, and also led to a projected Low Price option, Low PE x Low EPS, that was higher than the current price even after he lowered his projected Low EPS by 40%.  All of this is seriously strange and decidedly questionable..

In January, I critiqued Mark’s SSG for Stryker (SYK) and his SSG methods, https://arminfields.wordpress.com/2009/01/31/studying-stryker-syk-and-mulling-over-methods/

Here, Mark has some surprises which I discuss after the following comparative table.  Armin-1 uses all of Mark’s judgments except it does not add any estimated annual data.  Armin-2 is identical except it uses 10.00% estimated EPS instead of Mark’s 7.00%.

Patterson Companies (PDCO)	Mark        Robertson	Armin-1	Armin-2	Take            Stock
Date	7-10-09	8-7-09	Same	8-11-09
Source of Historical Data	S&P	Same	Same	Hemscott/ Morning-  star
Price	$21.01	$25.00	Same	$21.89
52 week High & Low Price	$33.85 &      $15.75	Same &         Same	Same &     Same	N/A
Last Quarter of Hist Data	Q4 ending       4-30-09	Same	Same	Same
Software Used	TK 5	Same	Same	Online TS
Years of Hist Data	2001-2008	1999 -2008	Same	Same
Years of Esti-mated Data	2009 & 2010 ESTIMATED	NONE	NONE	NONE
Source of Est Data	UNKNOWN	None	Same	Same
Project Growth from	UNKNOWN	Last Q       of Hist Data	Same	Last FY of    Hist Data
Sales Growth	6.00%	Same	Same	2.90%
EPS Growth	7.00%	Same	10.00%	0.30%
High PE	22.0	Same	Same	25.6
High EPS	$2.50	$2.37	$2.72	$1.66
High Price	$55.00	$52.10	$59.80       (9% > VL)	$42.56
Value Line Estimated High Price =$40-55 as of 5-29-09 and     $35-45 as of 8-28-09
Low PE	14.0	Same	Same	15.4
Low EPS	$1.75(down from $2.90)	$1.70            (TTM)	Same	$1.69
Low PE x         Low EPS	$24.50                (> current price)	$23.80         (< current price)	Same	$26.03         (> current price)
Final Low Price	$16.00(“other” option)	Same	Same	$26.03        (> current price)
Upside/Down	6.8	3.0	3.9	Impossible to calculate
Total Return	21.2%	15.8%	19.1%	11.3%
SSG Buy Under	N/A	$25.03	$26.95	$21.28
RV/PRV          (no outs)	69.9/67.3	60.5/56.6	Same/55.0	N/A
Quality	N/A	B+	Same	1.1 (un-acceptable)
PTPM – 5 yr ave	11.3%               (end est    2010, trend even)	11.7%           (end 2008, trend down)	Same	11.2%         trend N/A
ROE – 5 yr     ave                 End Equity	17.1%             (end est  2010, trend down)	17.4%           (end 2008, trend even)	Same	N/A
ROE – 5 yr ave                Start Equity	N/A	19.3%         (end 2008, trend up)	Same	19.3%         trend N/A
Debt to Equity – 5 yr ave	N/A	30.5%           (end 2008, trend up)	Same	N/A

Discussion

– Mark added two years of estimated annual data (2009 and 2010, source and details unknown) to his SSG which meant that 1999 and 2000 were eliminated because our Toolkit software only holds 10 years of data.  Then, he eliminated three more years (2001, 2002, and 2003) as outliers to arrive at a 6.00% quasi-historical sales growth rate that he used as his projected sales growth for the next seven years to 2015.

– Projected sales growth is important to Mark because it is the first element of the BI/NAIC Preferred Procedure which he uses “almost exclusively” to determine his projected EPS growth.  Sadly, he did not set forth the other elements of his PP (Pre-Tax Profit Margin, Tax Rate, and Shares Outstanding) which, in Mark’s case, all had to be projected for the next seven years.  A simple command, Alt-R, could have set forth the PP on the SSG’s front page. 

– If this scheme wasn’t convoluted enough, Mark’s High EPS shows as $2.05 on the SSG’s front page, but as $2.50 on the back page.  It’s supposed to be the same so this is a serious and major discrepancy, there’s no attempt at any explanation, and Mark’s SSG cannot be replicated, at least not without the secret code.

– Mark’s PP resulted in a 7.00% EPS rate ($2.05 or maybe 2.50 estimated High EPS in 2015).  Unlike Mark, I no longer use the Preferred Procedure because it involves too many estimates and too much guesswork even under normal circumstances.  See: Pondering the Preferred Procedure, https://arminfields.wordpress.com/2009/03/28/pondering-the-preferred-procedure/

– In his First Call write-up, Mark insists:

“It’s not the EPS growth rate that matters. It’s the 5-year estimate for EPS [AF: in dollars] that forms the core calculation on the SSG.” He adds: “(For those of you who teeter on the precipice of a nervous breakdown over the EPS growth rate, it’d be something on the order of 7% — but get over it, it’s the 5-year EPS value that really matters and I derive that almost exclusively using the preferred procedure.)”

** Overlooking this needless hectoring, Mark’s core calculation is seriously scrambled because it shows as $2.05 on his SSG’s front page and $2.50 on the back (it’s intended to be identical);

** Moreover, at four major websites, long-term EPS estimates are expressed only as a percentage rate (and not in dollars): Reuters, CNNMoney, Zacks, and YahooFinance.  Two others show an EPS estimate as a percentage rate and as a dollar amount: S&P and Value Line.  No website I know of  makes a long-term EPS only in dollars.  See: Estimating EPS, https://arminfields.wordpress.com/2009/03/05/estimating-eps/

– Perhaps the biggest disappointment is that Mark never even tried to explain why it was necessary to add ANY estimated data since the norm is to project the next 5 years based on actual data.  How did he project our current recession?  Which web site did he rely on and for what data? Why two years of estimated data and not one or three years?

– Lastly, the default for the projected Low EPS is no growth at all which, for Mark’s SSG, was $2.80 estimated (entered as 2010 actual).  Mark lowered this by 40% to $1.75 but, once again,  offered no explnation. With 6% growth for his projected High EPS and -40% for his projected Low EPS, Mark’s growth projections seem flaky and foolish, especially adding two years of estimated annual data.

CONCLUSIONS:

(A) It turns out that every one of Mark’s machinations were unnecessary.  Armin-1 duplicates all of his judgments with one exception: it does not add those two years of estimated data.  We both got a SSG Buy and satisfied the minimum 3.0 Upside/Downside and the 15% Total Return criteria.  Armin-1 would look even better if I used the same $21.00 price as Mark did.

(B) Mark’s 7.00% projected EPS, after his many maneuverings, is not even close to what the analysts were estimating.  When I did my SSG, the six long-term EPS estimates I always check averaged 12.70% with Value Line low at 10.00% and Reuters high at 14.40%.   Thomson/FirstCall via YahooFinance was 11.75%, Zacks.com was 12.67%, FactSet CallStreet via CNN Money was 13.00%, and Reuters.com was 14.40%. 

** Armin-2 used 10.00% estimated EPS, the lowest of the six analysts and also satisfied the SSG Buy criteria.

(C) The substantial variation among these six long-term EPS estimates demonstrates, I think, the wisdom of not using any estimated annual data in our SSGs.  Unlike actual data, you can never be certain with any estimate and one website’s estimate is no more accurate than another’s.  Moreover, our SSG wants six pieces of info for each year of annual data which are tricky to estimate.  Note the different trends on PTPM and ROE that Mark got with his estimated data and that I got with actual data.

(D) Whenever we share our SSGs, at a club meeting or with BI’s First Cut or at another web site, all of us should try to make clear what we did and why, especially when we do something out of the ordinary.  For example,  Mark added two years of estimated annual data (source and details unexplained), used the Preferred Procedure (unexplained), got a High EPS of $2.05 on the front page and $2.50 on the back (unexplained), lowered his Low EPS from $2.90 to $1.75 (unexplained), and got a Low EPS x Low PE that exceeded the current price (unexplained).

(E) I think Mark’s SSG and his unique methods are unreliable, and neither helped me understand PDCO.

 What do you think?

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Armin