The long-suffering shareholders in Ebos Group Ltd (ASX: EBO) might be very happy to know that, as far as the team at Macquarie is concerned, the company's shares are quite undervalued at the moment.
The shares in the company, which has divisions across human and animal healthcare, are trading at $22.30 at the moment, not far off their 12-month lows of $21.61, and well below their highs over the period of $38.23.
The company's shares took a tumble around the time of their full-year results release last year.
Since then, they have drifted lower, despite some optimistic remarks from management at the annual general meeting in late October.
Image source: Getty Images
Reset underway
Chair Elizabeth Coutts pointed out at the time that the company "operate(s) in attractive markets with supportive megatrends across both our healthcare and animal care segments and EBOS' diversified portfolio positions us well for long term growth''.
She added:
Having said that, we are operating in an environment influenced by near-term macro pressures which we do need to work through.
Ms Coutts said the company was "a leading pharmaceutical wholesaler in Australia, and the largest in New Zealand, and one of New Zealand and Australia's largest healthcare-focussed contract logistics providers''.
We are New Zealand and Australia's largest hospital medicines wholesaler, and one of the largest independent medical technology distributors across New Zealand, Australia, and Southeast Asia. In Animal Care, we operate New Zealand and Australia's largest dry dog food brand by volume in the pet specialty category, and leading vet wholesale businesses in both countries.
But Ms Coutts warned that after a solid result in FY25, "the current financial year is set to be a year of transition, as we manage the near-term macro pressures''.
She added:
We will focus on positioning our business for the future by making considered and disciplined investments and achieving operational efficiencies from our investments, enabling us to continue to meet market growth and gain market share. As we then look to FY27 and outer years, we will see the benefits of our distribution centre renewal program which will be substantially completed this year.
Shares looking cheap
Macquarie has issued a research note on the business ahead of its results on February 25, and the analyst team said they believed the company was well-placed to pleasantly surprise the market.
The Macquarie team said risks around catalysts were "skewed to the upside'', and benefits from investments in distribution centres would begin to flow in the current half year.
Macquarie has a price target of NZ$39.78 ($34.16) for the dual-listed company's shares, and, when combined with a dividend yield of 5%, they expect a total shareholder return of 60.5%.
