Hello friends! Thanks again for stopping by. I hope that some of my thoughts are contagious (and not the cold I am fighting off)....and that all of our understanding of investing improves. Anyhow, today was not a day for our kind of investing...our trading portfolio was flat on the day while the market moved ahead....and there weren't too many of our kind of stocks on the highest %-gainers list. This evening, scanning the NASDAQ again, I came across SFBC International (SFCC). I do not own any shares and in fact have not heard of this stock before today.
According to money.cnn.com, SFCC "...is a contract research organizatin that conducts clinical trials and provides related services to pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies and other contract research organizations." SFCC had a GREAT day today, closing at $30.25 up $3.35 or 12.45% on the day.
On August 4, 2003, per BUSINESS WIRE, as reported on the NYTimes on the Web, SFBC International reported their second quarter results for the quarter ended June 30, 2003. Revenue for the second quarter was $22.5 million an increase of 53% compared to $14.7 million in the prior year. Net earnings for the quarter increased 49% to $2.0 million compared to $1.36 million for 2002. Per diluted share, this came in at $.27, a 50% increase over the $.18 reported in the same quarter last year.
Morningstar.com shows SFCC with steady growth from $5.9 million in revenue in 1998, $8.3 million in revenue in 1999, $19.7 million in 2000, $31.5 million in 2001, $64.7 million in 2002, and extrapolating the current quarter would get us over $80 million in revenue for 2003.
Free cash flow, while unexciting, has been improving with ($1) million reported in 2000, $1 million in 2001, and $0 million in 2002. The assets/liabilities reported in Morningstar shows $8.8 million in cash and $26.6 million in other current assets, easily covering the $14.6 million in current liabilities and $2.8 million in long-term liabilities.
SFCC is a small company with a market cap of $234.92 million. The trailing p/e is reasonable at 22.23, the PEG ratio is cheap at .71, and the price/sales is moderate at 2.56. There are only 7.77 million shares outstanding ant only 6.00 million of them that float. There are 351,000 shares out short, representing 5.85% of the float or 1.773 trading days.
There are a lot of things I like about this stock. We have had good luck with small cap stocks like this with reasonable valuation (low p/e), good balance sheet, steady revenue growth, and low # of shares that float. If I find some cash tomorrow, I might consider picking up some shares. If so, they will show up in the trading account. I would prefer to make sure the correction is over before adding to our equity positions.
Regards to all of my friends!
Bob