Why Australian Eagle believes CSL is a ‘dream company’
CSL Ltd (ASX:CSL) – which labels itself as a multinational specialty biotechnology company – has long been one of the stars of the Australian market. Since listing in 1994, CSL has not missed a beat, with its share price soaring a massive 25,000 per cent. It’s a long-term holding in the Australian Eagle portfolio and, with great management and a solid growth outlook, we continue to like what we see.
The only way a company can be a long-term holding for us is if they have elements of what we consider to be ‘dream companies’. That is, companies with a strong competitive advantage, which operate in a growing market and are run by strong, accountable management that takes care of minority shareholders.
Australian Eagle’s investment philosophy and process has been operating for over 18 years and the investment team has been tracking companies in its investment universe for even longer. Looking a bit further back into the history of the company provides us with something to compare the current state of the company to and, most importantly, assess the likelihood of further success.
Starting its journey in 1916 as an Australian government-owned vaccine manufacturer called Commonwealth Serum Laboratories, CSL Ltd has evolved significantly over its 100+ year existence. After listing on the Australian Securities Exchange in 1994, CSL had become one of the most efficient plasma producers in the world. In the early 2000s, CSL acquired two large blood products businesses to become one of the world’s largest manufacturers of plasma products. These purchases allowed them to not only be large but improve shareholder returns by extrapolating Australian efficiencies and research and development to their now global base.
The focus on vaccines came back to the spotlight with an astute purchase of one of the world’s largest influenza vaccine businesses from Novartis early in the 2016 Financial Year. Despite the business losing over US$300m each year as part of Novartis, management achieved a fast integration with their existing influenza vaccine division (bioCSL) with over US$70m in cost synergies and broke even less than two years later in the 2018 Financial Year. Management have repeatedly demonstrated their ability to successfully acquire new expertise in addition to building on existing capabilities.
Just like most other dream companies, management turnover has been very low. Internal promotions to the top job have been a hallmark of well-run companies with stable culture and CSL has been no different. Succession planning has been taken very seriously with the newest CEO rising from the Chief Operating Officer position and chosen as the right person to lead the company through its next phase of growth.
Due to the large amounts of infrastructure and sophisticated technology needed to efficiently produce blood products and vaccines, the barriers to entry have been constantly growing because of CSL building new manufacturing facilities and plasma collection centres around the world. In addition to an expanding footprint, research and development expenditure is well over US$1bn per annum and still growing.
Most recently, CSL completed the acquisition of Vifor Pharma in August 2022. At first glance, Vifor Pharma is seemingly unrelated to CSL’s existing operations with products focused mainly on kidney diseases, dialysis and iron deficiency. However, the growth opportunity presented by acquiring the industry leader in an under-penetrated and growing market presents an attractive addition to the stable of existing, innovative products offered by CSL. Now called CSL Vifor, the division is expected to grow at over 10% each year and have access to the group’s strong commitment to constant improvement through research and development.
Given CSL’s excellent track record with integrating large acquisitions and its exciting pipeline of new and existing products in multiple growing markets, we trust that management will continue to be good stewards of capital and provide strong returns for shareholders for many years to come.
The Montgomery Funds own shares in CSL. This article was prepared 24 April 2023 with the information we have today, and our view may change. It does not constitute formal advice or professional investment advice. If you wish to trade CSL you should seek financial advice.
Sean Sequeira jointly established Australian Eagle Asset Management in 2004. Sean was appointed Australian Eagle’s Chief Investment Officer in 2016. In addition to stock selection and analysis, Sean is responsible for all aspects of the investment process. Sean is head of Australian Eagle’s portfolio risk committee and process integrity committee. He is also one of the three investment team members that make up the portfolio construction committee.
This post was contributed by a representative of Montgomery Investment Management Pty Limited (AFSL No. 354564). The principal purpose of this post is to provide factual information and not provide financial product advice. Additionally, the information provided is not intended to provide any recommendation or opinion about any financial product. Any commentary and statements of opinion however may contain general advice only that is prepared without taking into account your personal objectives, financial circumstances or needs. Because of this, before acting on any of the information provided, you should always consider its appropriateness in light of your personal objectives, financial circumstances and needs and should consider seeking independent advice from a financial advisor if necessary before making any decisions. This post specifically excludes personal advice.
Wes Horn
:
Hello Sean
As an individual investor I don’t have the resources to assess whether a company still has good growth prospects, or whether there is realistically enough market for it to keep growing, e.g. Harvey Norman grew from a small business and through franchising it was very successful. However, in my humble opinion and observation it reached its peak many years ago, such that it can never be considered a growth company again. It’s at the mercy of the economy. Let’s face it, the only way it could ever grow again is if it were to reawaken its franchising model and take it fully global (which doesn’t mean it would be successful, and that’s probably why it hasn’t been pursued).
So, to my point…realistically do you think CSL has the capacity to grow its business, without saturating its market, such that one day its shares could be worth $1000, for example? As an investor I want to at least target shares that might double my investment, with the ideal situation being to get a multibagger. If you were to indicate, no, CSL might be looking to get to $500 from here, I might be saying yes that’s creditable, but I might be better off looking elsewhere.
We all know CSL is a great business and has been a great success story, but as a hard-nosed investor is it worth pursuing after all the huge growth it’s already had? Maybe we’re better off researching the smaller companies that might “do a CSL”. You see what I’m driving at? Your thoughts?
Wes Horn.
Sean Sequeira
:
Hi Wes,
Investing in equities is inherently risky so the investment team here manages a portfolio of stocks to try and protect the portfolio from any significant stock specific loss. Whenever I write a blog entry on a particular stock, it is always in the context of a portfolio of stocks.
In saying that, we also are not stockbrokers and do not provide stock recommendations to anyone. If you do want further information on stocks beyond our general commentary, I would suggest you seek financial advice tailored to your situation as it seems you have specific financial goals in mind.
Ken
:
Do you think that CSL might try to buy Mesoblast (MSB)?
Sean Sequeira
:
Hi Ken, thank you for your comment and support. Unfortunately, we are unable to comment on takeover speculation as this goes beyond our license restrictions. All the best.