Dialight tipped for rapid recovery

A series of crippling profits warnings blighted chief executive Michael Sutsko's early days in charge at LED lighting specialist Dialight, but his three-year strategic plan has had early successes and these full-year results are strong. They're so good, in fact, that house broker Investec Securities no longer believes the shares deserve to trade at a discount to peers, triggering a 26% hike in its price target.

"Phase one of the plan, to rebuild our operating model, is largely complete," said a confident Sutsko Monday. "Phase two of the plan - growth initiatives to capture the long-term opportunity in LED lighting - is underway, and on track to deliver against our strategic plan."

These corporate initiatives never come cheap, of course, and Sutsko's masterplan has wiped £16.4 million from Dialight's bottom line. "Operating model changes" include restructuring costs and impairment charges. It also covers over £5 million of redundancy costs as Dialight shifts UK production from Newmarket to US manufacturing partner Sanmina, and scales down its Mexican facility.

The company made a loss before tax of £3.8 million in 2016, similar to the year before. Add back one-offs and it's a different story, however. Dialight doubled underlying operating profit to £13.1 million, giving underlying earnings per share (EPS) of 26.9p.

That's on revenue of £182 million, up 13% which, admittedly, received a significant boost from translation of hefty dollar earnings back into weak pounds - Dialight made 71% of group sales in North America in 2016, up 20% year-on-year. Only 6% of revenue is generated in the UK. Operating profit received a £1.5 million currency boost. Strip out the currency effect and Dialight's top line grew by a more modest 2%.

Dialight said 16 months ago it was targeting annual revenue growth of over 25% by the end of 2018. An operating profit margin at the core lighting division nudging 10% is also well on the way to achieving the 15% target, Sutsko tells Interactive Investor.

Investec analysts Michael Blogg and Chris Dyett is convinced enough with the transformation to restate its earnings recovery profile, although it urges an element of caution given this is still early in the new financial year.

"In view of the excellent execution of the strategy so far, we have eliminated from our valuation the discount (formerly 15%) to peers' average 2017e-19e EV/EBITDA ratios," write the pair. "Our target price rises by 26% [from 850p to 1,070p] on peers' rerating and the increasing cash resources, and we reiterate 'buy'."

Sensible move

That's a sensible move. However, the market has been pricing in better times for a number of months, encouraged by a series of regular confidence-building progress updates.

Indeed, Dialight's share price has already more than doubled to a three-year high since bottoming out at below 400p a year ago, its lowest since summer 2010. The shares now trade on an EV/EBITDA ratio for 2017 of 11.3, dropping to 7.7 for 2018.

And, on Investec's estimates for adjusted EPS of 35.4p this year and 59.7p a year later, the price earnings (PE) ratio is 27 times, dropping to 16 in 2018.

Dialight shares have recently pulled back following a test of technical resistance at around 1,025-1,030p, which is unsurprising. Hit those achievable growth targets and there's good reason to believe in further recovery, though perhaps not at the pace investors have been used to in recent months.

This article is for information and discussion purposes only and does not form a recommendation to invest or otherwise. The value of an investment may fall. The investments referred to in this article may not be suitable for all investors, and if in doubt, an investor should seek advice from a qualified investment adviser.