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Canfor Pulp Products (CFX)

In today’s content analysis (Download), we will discuss Canfor Pulp Products, a leading producer and vendor of northern bleached softwood kraft pulp and paper. Canfor operates in two segments: Paper and Pulp, the latter being the main source of revenue for the company. It has been the highest rated Canadian company on our platform for a while and it currently holds an Spscore of 78%.

During the Q2 Earnings release on July 25th, CFX reported impressive results with an earnings surprise of 12.8% ($0.97 versus the market expectation of $0.86). In addition, sales were above expectations as well; $396.4M versus $346.5M leading to a surprise of 14.4%.

EVA Analysis

The company looks great from both a value and growth perspective. Although the stock price has been increasing dramatically (YTD return of 107% and 5-year average return of 32%), it is still trading at a discount of 36% given by the future-growth-value metric. This is due to the fact that the current operating value has been increasing at a quicker rate on average of 46% over the past 5 years and the market believes that the stock price isn’t fully reflecting this growth yet. In addition, NOPAT grew by 31% on average over the past 5 years leading to a current return on capital of 27% which is very impressive.

The economic performance is attractive as well. With a high return on capital and a respectively low cost of capital, the economic performance index is 3.71, hence, the company is generating returns for its shareholders at three times the cost incurred for raising that capital. Furthermore, the overall EVA trend is important when trying to identify if the company has potential to continue growing at the same speed or not, in our case the 5-year trend is positive and at a strong momentum.

Lastly, by glancing over the company balance sheets, the company seems to be quite healthy. This is concluded by rising net income and free-cash-flows, and stable dividend payout and total liabilities.

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