Criterion: ‘Outstanding' value is emerging in the small caps sector, but investors need to kiss a lot of frogs
Yarra Capital Management insists on meeting management and walking the shop floor in its selection process
The firm likes stocks that service the mining, energy and data centre sectors
A confluence of factors including the weak Australian dollar has created 'outstanding' opportunities in the small caps sector, according to Yarra Capital Management's chief minnow whisperer.
One compelling reason is that the flailing Aussie dollar is likely to result in more takeovers – a trend that already has become apparent.
The other is that a weakening currency is linked to expectations of imminent interest rate cuts – another tailwind for the sector.
'The last couple of years have been tough for the sector generally,' says Yarra's microcaps portfolio manager Joel Fleming.
'When rates go up, people avoid risk assets.
'Now there's some outstanding value on offer, with some great companies doing great things.'
Merger mania takes hold
Fleming says small caps already have been a 'wonderful hunting ground' for mergers and acquisitions.
This week, online broker SelfWealth (ASX:SWF) was taken over by Syfe group after a three-way contest.
Smartpay has attracted a non-binding offer from Tyro Payments (ASX:TYR).
Mayne Pharma (ASX:MYX) is almost certain to be subsumed by US dermatology company Cosette, while Pointsbet (ASX:PBH) has fielded offers from Mixi Australia and Bluebet (ASX:BBT).
As Fleming puts it, there are 'good, bad and indifferent' small caps, with the latter two categories outweighing the former.
Have a crack, not a croak
So how do astute investors identify the next Fortescue (ASX:FMG), Pro Medicus ProMedicus (ASX:PME) or Afterpay (subsumed by US payments giant Square, Block Inc (ASX:SQ2), for $39 billion in 2021)?
Within an hour he will know whether the company can achieve greatness by observing how happy and engaged employees appear to be.
'It's about sitting down with management and working out what they want to achieve and whether they have the skills and balance sheet in place to go and have a crack,' he says.
'You need to kiss a lot of frogs.'
'Agnostic' approach
Yarra is agnostic in terms of sector or size, with its investments range from a $250 million market cap to as little as $50 million.
Fleming says this market sector is a great space for value sniffers, as it gets little or no analyst coverage. Usually, management is up for a chat.
As a result, discrepancies between a company's valuation and its 'real' worth have not been exploited.
The firm embraces resource stocks, but will baulk at biotechs and explorers, which rely on a binary outcome such as a positive trial or drilling result.
The fund currently around $100 million under management across 50 stocks.
Yarra's tips
Fleming cites Energy One (ASX:EOL) which provides software to the energy utilities – notably in Europe.
'As electricity networks evolve, it is creating opportunities as the market changes,' Fleming says.
A provider of software to the mining industry, RPM Global (ASX:RUL) has tie ups with some of the world biggest miners.
Fleming adds the company is more focused after selling its expert report (consulting) business for a tidy sum.
The data centre sector has run hard and Yarra was an early investor in NextDC (ASX:NXT) and Global Data Centre Group (ASX:GDC), which held an investment in Airtrunk (acquired by Blackstone last year for $24 billion).
These days, Yarra prefers tangential exposures such as Southern Cross Electrical Engineering (ASX:SXE), which provides electrical services to these digital repositories.
What's more, the 'picks and shovels' Southern Cross has a diversified exposure to other sectors needing in-demand sparkies.
We failed
Fundies are notorious for crowing about their successes and sweeping their failures under the Axminister carpet.
Fleming says his worst failure was investing in NextEd Group (ASX:NXD), which provided education for global students.
NextEd got caught out in the pandemic and then missed changes in government policies aimed at stemming migration. The stock has lost 97% of its value over the last five years.
Happily, Yarra's portfolio princesses outnumber the warty toads.
Managed by Yarra, the UBS Microcaps Fund returned 21% in the yar to March and has yielded 12.7% since its inception in August 2014.
Over that time the ASX small-ordinaries index has returned 6%.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Age
3 hours ago
- The Age
Record clean energy surge set to break Australia's coal reliance
The threat of blackouts hitting Australian homes and businesses once the next wave of coal-fired power stations retire has been downgraded significantly as official forecasts now expect enough new renewables, batteries and transmission lines will be available to keep the lights on. Over the past 12 months, more wind, solar and storage capacity was added to the eastern seaboard's electricity grid than in any year before, the Australian Energy Market Operator says in an update to be released on Thursday. It also forecasts that the year's record investment in 4.4 gigawatts of generation and storage will be surpassed by even bigger increases in the years ahead. AEMO anticipates between 5.2 gigawatts and 10 gigawatts to come online annually from now to the end of the decade, aided by government schemes underwriting the financing of billions of dollars of new projects. 'The 10-year investment pipeline to manage energy reliability is healthy,' AEMO chief Daniel Westerman said. Australia is experiencing one of the world's fastest energy transitions as polluting coal-fired generators, which still supply most of the grid's electricity, reach the end of their lives, while wind and solar farms and household rooftop solar panels are expanding their role in the grid every year. Loading But officials, including AEMO, have long been worried that the build-out of large-scale renewables and storage, and the thousands of kilometres of new power lines to link them to major cities, was still lacking the speed necessary to compensate for further coal closures without heightening risk of power shortages or price spikes. Critical projects have been running into problems including permitting delays, soaring construction costs, equipment shortages and significant pushback from rural and regional communities worried about impacts on farming practices, property values and the environment. Nervous about the lagging pace of the rollout, the NSW government last year cut a deal with Origin Energy to keep the giant Eraring coal-fired power plant operating until 2027, a timeline some in the industry think may need to be pushed out further still. The Victorian government, meanwhile, has agreements to ensure two of its biggest coal generators – EnergyAustralia's Yallourn and AGL's Loy Yang A – do not shut prematurely.
Sydney Morning Herald
3 hours ago
- Sydney Morning Herald
Record clean energy surge set to break Australia's coal reliance
The threat of blackouts hitting Australian homes and businesses once the next wave of coal-fired power stations retire has been downgraded significantly as official forecasts now expect enough new renewables, batteries and transmission lines will be available to keep the lights on. Over the past 12 months, more wind, solar and storage capacity was added to the eastern seaboard's electricity grid than in any year before, the Australian Energy Market Operator says in an update to be released on Thursday. It also forecasts that the year's record investment in 4.4 gigawatts of generation and storage will be surpassed by even bigger increases in the years ahead. AEMO anticipates between 5.2 gigawatts and 10 gigawatts to come online annually from now to the end of the decade, aided by government schemes underwriting the financing of billions of dollars of new projects. 'The 10-year investment pipeline to manage energy reliability is healthy,' AEMO chief Daniel Westerman said. Australia is experiencing one of the world's fastest energy transitions as polluting coal-fired generators, which still supply most of the grid's electricity, reach the end of their lives, while wind and solar farms and household rooftop solar panels are expanding their role in the grid every year. Loading But officials, including AEMO, have long been worried that the build-out of large-scale renewables and storage, and the thousands of kilometres of new power lines to link them to major cities, was still lacking the speed necessary to compensate for further coal closures without heightening risk of power shortages or price spikes. Critical projects have been running into problems including permitting delays, soaring construction costs, equipment shortages and significant pushback from rural and regional communities worried about impacts on farming practices, property values and the environment. Nervous about the lagging pace of the rollout, the NSW government last year cut a deal with Origin Energy to keep the giant Eraring coal-fired power plant operating until 2027, a timeline some in the industry think may need to be pushed out further still. The Victorian government, meanwhile, has agreements to ensure two of its biggest coal generators – EnergyAustralia's Yallourn and AGL's Loy Yang A – do not shut prematurely.
ABC News
3 hours ago
- ABC News
Bigger properties occupied by smaller households in major housing mismatch, Cotality finds
In a reminder of how broken housing affordability and access is, new analysis highlights a major mismatch between the size of Australian homes and the number of people living in them. While the vast bulk of Australian housing is built for larger families, property research firm Cotality has found more than 60 per cent of households are made up of just one or two people. It reveals a misalignment between "who lives in our homes and the kinds of homes we're building", Cotality's head of head of Australian research Eliza Owen said in the report. "Of the lone-person households in Australia, the data suggests around 40 per cent are aged 65 and over," Ms Owen said. "The highest share of households is two people, but the highest share of housing has three bedrooms. "While there's nothing wrong with more bedrooms than people in a dwelling, there could be some inefficiencies in the way housing is being allocated," Ms Owen said. "After all, a 'traditional' family of four may have more need for a three-bedroom dwelling than a household of two people." The report cited data from the 2021 Census, which showed there were more two-person family households in three-bedroom dwellings (about 1.3 million), than three or four-person family households (about 1.1 million). Ms Owen has suggested a way to fix the "efficiency question", which she knows is not politically appealing — send a price signal. "Governments could make it more expensive to have more housing than you need, and cheaper to live in smaller housing," she wrote in her research note. She said that logic often leads to calls for tax reform including abolishing stamp duty to cheaper to move between housing, replacing it with a broad-based land tax (which raises costs the more land you own). "These options are both politically difficult as it would involve moving from a tax that applies to a small amount of voters each year who purchase property to one that will tax two thirds of voters (property owners)," she noted. Independent housing researcher Cameron Kusher, speaking to The Business in July, argued high transaction costs, namely stamp duty, discourage moving to a "better sized property" and can lead to people purchasing larger homes than they need to begin with. "People just feel like if I can get a better and bigger home sooner, that's a better outcome," he said. "If we look at what is being built, it's usually very large houses, four or five bedrooms, taking up most of the land on these new housing sites," Mr Kusher said. "A lot of it comes down to how much a piece of a property, [and] how much the land and the house, costs. "I think a lot of people are building bigger homes, thinking 'I'll spend a little bit more up-front and my family will grow into this home'. "It might just be a couple grandkids, or they're planning to have a couple of kids." He noted the effects of rapidly increasing property prices, which can leave people priced out of re-entering the market, and the fact that larger properties can be more likely to appreciate in value at a faster pace. Cotality's Ms Owen said other policy options to encourage people to move into appropriately sized homes could include reforming pension asset tests to include the value of the family home. "Strides are already being taken on the supply side to establish well-located apartments in our larger cities, that can accommodate smaller households. "But shifting demand through tax reform could help the take-up of these new homes." The government has accepted it is not on track to meet the target to build 1.2 million homes in five years, but Treasurer Jim Chalmers has stood by the ambition, despite Treasury advice it would not be met. In another recent note, Ms Owen questioned the focus of state and federal governments on speeding up building approvals to boost housing supply, warning that the construction industry simply cannot keep pace. "With completion times already above average and construction costs elevated, it seems an odd time to be incentivising more dwelling approvals and commencements," she said. Cameron Kusher argued past experience could be a guide on how to approach today's housing problems and ease the construction crunch. "Maybe we need to go back to how things were 30 or 40 years ago, where you have smaller homes and you make them easy to renovate," he told The Business. "Over time, people can actually add bedrooms, bathrooms, car parks, verandahs and all these sorts of things to add value to the home.
