TGIF. No, not the restaurant silly. FRIDAY. I am ready for a weekend...and what a GREAT close to the week. The Feds report that 57,000 new jobs are created and the market EXPLODES. IMHO, there must be a lot of pent-up buying demand out there...maybe some of those Billions of dollars sitting in money market accounts paying less than 1% are moving into the market!
Anyhow, actually NOT too many of our kind of stocks on the lists of biggest movers. I guess in a BIG rally, there is INDISCRIMINATE buying of stocks....just go into that retail joint and buy some stocks....ANYTHING. (Am I shouting too much?)
Bentley (BNT), on the AMEX, does pretty much fit into our scheme but not perfectly. But I am lately willing to overlook a blemish or two on an otherwise drop-dead gorgeous investment.
BNT is having a nice day...trading at $15.69 as I write, up $.71 or 4.74%. According to money.cnn.com, BNT "...is engaged in the manufacturing, marketing and distribution of pharmaceutical products in Spain, with limited product distribution in the U.S."
On July 30, 2003, per PRNewswire-FirstCall as reported on NYTimes on the web, Bentley reported their second quarter results for the period ended June 30, 2003. Total revenues were up 38% when adjusted for exchange rates to $16.8 million compared to $9.9 million last year (70% when not adjusting exchange rates). Net income for the 2003 second quarter grew to $1.5 million or $.07/diluted share compared to $519,000 or $.03/diluted share last year. Approximately $500,000 (or a third) of the net income this year was favorably impacted by exchange rates...but still would be up nearly 100%...$1 million vs. $.5 million last year.
Morningstar.com shows a fairly steady improvement over the last 5 years...although further out the company had been shrinking its revenue...revenue increased from $15.2 million in 1998, $20.2 million in 1999, dipped to $18.6 million in 2000, back up to $26.4 million in 2001, $39.1 million in 2002, and extrapolating the current quarter would get us to over $60 million in 2003.
The company turned profitable in 2001 and has been improving the profit picture since then. Free cash flow is still negative, although a small figure at best: ($4) million in 2000, ($1) million in 2001, ($2) million in 2002, and ($1) million in trailing twelve months.
Assets and liabilities look good with $25.3 million in cash reported per Morningstar.com, more than enough to cover both the current liabilities of $19.7 million and the $2.8 million in long-term liabilities. In addition, BNT has $24.2 million in other current assets.
Market cap, per Yahoo.com, is a small $278.18 million. The trailing p/e is a bit steep at 74.90, but the company is JUST turning profitable and the PEG ratio is low at 0.80. The price/sales is also a bit steep at 5.13. There are 17.76 million shares outstanding with 17.10 million of them that float. There are 1.07 million shares out short as of 9/8/03, representing 7.4 days of trading or 6.28% of the float. If the stock continues strong, this may result (?) in a short squeeze.
In 1995 the company had a reverse split of 1:10. Clearly their fortunes have been improving recently!
I do like this stock. It is small enough to continue its remarkable growth and the revenue picture is nice. I would like to see the cash flow a little positive....and I am a little leary at its 'prior life' when the company was doing so poorly it needed to implement a reverse split.
I do not own any shares of this company, nor am I planning to jump right in but if you are interested, this might be a good one for you!
If you have any questions, comments, or words of encouragement, please let me know at bobsadviceforstocks@lycos.com
Bob