RCB bestätigt Kauf-Empfehlung

Bene could not only beat our sales estimates for 3Q 07/08 but also surpassed our EBITDA margin estimate by presenting a margin of 10.5% (RCB est. 9.4%) or - in absolute terms - reported an EBIT of EUR 5.7 mn vs. our estimate of EUR 4.2 mn for 3Q 07/08. A closer look at past quarterly results reveals quite volatile margin movements. As the management already announced beforehand, the production for numerous projects which could only be invoiced in later periods and thus generates profits in 2H 07/08 was the reason why the performance in the first two quarters of 2007/08 was only lackluster. As we can not exclude this to happen again in upcoming periods we do not want to put too much weight on individual quarterly results in future but expect the yearly results to balance this effect.

Outlook:

As we do not reckon with a qoq sales increase again in 4Q 07/08 and expect an EBITDA margin of about 8.1% in the last quarter of 2007/08e we made only minor adjustments in our valuation model. We increased our sales estimates for FY 07/08 from EUR 240.3 mn to EUR 245.5 mn and also expect slightly higher revenues in 2008/09e and 2009/10e due to market share gains resulting from the current strong sales volume increase. As our EBITDA and EBIT margin assumptions did not change at all in our valuation the minor increase in net profit is the consequence of this sales increase.

Valuation:

Based on the average of three valuation methods (PER, EV/EBITDA, DCF) we calculate a fair value of EUR 6.40 (was EUR 6.55). Although we slightly increased our estimates based on a higher sales volume at constant EBIT margins the decline in prices in our peer group companies on rather constant consensus estimates led to this slight decline in our price target. Nonetheless because of the strong 3Q 07/08 figures and an expected FY 07/08 EBITDA margin of 8.3% that should increase to 9.2% in 2008/09e we see an upside potential of around 34% and reiterate our “buy” recommendation.