Saturday, June 19, 2010

Abbott Labs

I had originally put out a post on Abbott labs about 2 year back when I added it in my portfolio. The link is enclosed below.
I had bought it around the Rs 540 mark when the markets were around the 16500 range. The stock ended today at 1134 with the index at 17,400 levels. Along the way I sold about 50% of my holding around the 735 mark and continued to hold the rest.
So on a like to like comparison Abbott has delivered me over 110% return as compared to the Index which delivered about 4% in the same period. ( I haven’t factored in the dividends that came thru and the share buyback that took place).

Thought process
1) My original premise on Abbott was the fact that it was a great business with high ROE and throwing out surplus cash every year. Though there are other pharma companies with a similar structure, what I liked about Abbott was the fact that the parent globally had a philosophy of returning cash back to shareholders in the form of dividend or share buybacks which made it more attractive as a holding.
2) I also along the way anticipated that the parent which was generating surplus cash would direct that surplus cash into acquisitions with a greater focus on emerging markets. Abbott acquired Solvay and followed up with its current acquisition of Piramal Healthcare making it the largest pharma company in the country.
The market has of course carried out a round of PE re-rating and assigned it a PE in sync with large MNC pharma companies from the tier 2 pharma company PE that it was getting.
Doesn’t all of the above make me sound like a great analyst?
I want to bring here the interesting concept of “Hindsight Bias”. To quote Wikipedia “Hindsight bias is the inclination to see events that have occurred as more predictable than they in fact were before they took place”. Simply put we believe that we predicted or were prepared for event that have happened in the past. Invariably most people will recognise hindsight bias when something goes wrong. For Ex Most people will tell you that they knew that the sub prime crisis was waiting to happen.
The real challenge of hindsight bias to recognise it when something goes right for you. For ex In Abbott’s case my hypothesis was based on point 1 of the thought process that I have listed above.
Point 2 of how I predicted that they would be acquiring companies in India and become the largest pharma company in the country is complete hogwash and a attempt at making me look very intelligent and insightful.
So the return that the stock generated from about Rs 540 to about Rs 725 was my stock picking skills but the return from there onwards to 1100 bucks is pure luck :-). But then I m not complaining.
I though however believe in a concept which I call “ Positioning for luck”. Will write a separate post on that.

9 comments:

valueinvestor2010 said...

Ninadji don't you think Abbott has massively overpaid for Piramal, Daichi paid 750 odd for a share Ranbaxy which has not recovered and Abbott has paid even more?

Ninad Kunder said...

Hi Valueinvestor

Yeah the deal had some aggressive pricing associated with it. For Abbott its a long term call to increase their fotprint into emerging markets and the fact thta they managed to attain market leadership.

Cheers

Ninad

sachin8778 said...

Hi Ninad,
Thanks for the post. Looking forward to your post on positioning for luck, sounds interesting.

Cheers,
Sachin

Ninad Kunder said...

Hi Sachin

Thanks for u r comments. Will be putting out a post on that.

Cheers

Ninad

Nandy said...

Hindsight bias is very interesting. How do you position for luck? That seems even more interesting...

Anonymous said...

Hi Ninad,
I have been analyzing Abbott and came up with its reducing EBITDA which has reached 11% for 2010. Do you still think its a fundamentally strong company to invest in...not at this price..even at any price??

Regards,
Satya

Ninad Kunder said...

Hi Satya

I think u need to look at the numbers more closely. The drop in margins has happenned because the company is increasing its sales and distribution strength. The management has stated this in all their results.

Other pharma companies like Novartis went thru a similar cycle where margins were depresssed as the employee and admin cost kept going up with the expansion plans. So I would presume that the benefits of enchanced sales & distribution network will start accruing over a period of time.

Having said all the above things, I m not recommending buying the stock at current prices.

Cheers

Ninad

Anonymous said...

Ninad,
Thanks a lot for the prompt reply and comments. Much needed. I wanted to have a direction in my analysis learning.

Have a few questions about equity analysis and sectors in general and their business models. Hope you can answer them as well.

Thanks,
Satya

Ninad Kunder said...

Hi Satya

Glad that I could be of some help.

Cheers

Ninad