SDAX Newcomer Stratec

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Todays' company is Stratec SE who has established itself as a market leader in the field of lab automatization. Especially in the field of in-vitro diagnostics and life science, they are a leading player.

In-vitro diagnostics are tests done on samples such as blood or tissues that have been taken from the human body.

The reason why it came up on my list, is not that is a newcomer in the German Small Cap Index, rather it was the biggest loser today in the SDAX with a negative 4.21% and the closing price at €113.80!

We always start with the chart to get a feeling of where we are

The 52-week high was €145 and the 52-week low was €74.50, which means we a very close to the €145 mark, which I now see is the all-time high mark - I already know now that I will not buy it! ❌

If I look at the bottom of the chart above, I see the development of the last 1,3,5 and 10-year, which is +36%, +65%, +143%, +298%! 

The 10-year chart will give us an long-term understanding

What a graph - a nice long upward since 2013-2014, with a kick in early 2020 which accelerated stock prices. I would guess that you can use their tests to detect something in connection with the virus - you see as well that the trading volume has increased a lot! ✅

If we watch it closer, the 1-year chart is here

Here we see the steeper shorter upward trend bouncing of the supporting line, something at around €110, which technically would be a good start to buy at!

Who is owning this company

This is a family-owned company, majority owner is the Leistner family with over 40% ownership due to the existence of treasury shares, the company was founded by Hermann Leister in 1979. I like few big owners or start funds, here we have both ✅

Balance Sheet and Assets first

The assets side has grown the last 5 years, as has the cash ("Kassenbestand") - nice development!

On the other side, we have the Equity & Liabilities

The Shareholder Equity has grown as well, almost at the same rate as the assets - the debt-to-equity ratio is somewhere around 50% - very healthy. The Current Assets ("Summe Umlaufvermögen") is 4 times as big as the Current Liabilities ("Summe kurzfristige Fremdkapital") - extremely strong "liquidity"!✅

Income Statement

The growth in Revenue ("Umsatz") the last 5-years is good, but not great - I was maybe expecting more as in the chart at the beginning of the post, the stock climbed a mountain. Next, we find that the EBIT ("Operatives Ergebnis") has doubled in 2020 compared to 2019, what a strong sign, especially if we keep in mind that the assets 2019 and 2020 are not that different! ✅

Last but not least, the company is paying out a small dividend of €0.90 per share, which is with Earnings-per-share of €2 almost 50% as payout ratio, but the dividend yield is at today prices only 0.8%

Summary: It is really a great small-cap company, with one big problem, which is the price

This one we will remember, and if it comes down or has problems, we are ready to re-evaluate it again!