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Business Description: Austal Limited (ASB) designs and manufactures customised aluminium defence and commercial vessels and its customers include many of the world’s leading ferry operators and defence forces. Austal’s product range includes passenger and vehicle-passenger ferries, patrol boats, theatre support vessels, combat ships, multi-role vessels and luxury private live-aboards. Austal is also an established provider of worldwide vessel maintenance and management services.
Strategy Analysis: ASB offers a diversified range of vessels across a wide geographic market. Its current focus is on commercial and defence shipbuilding but a strong A$ and soft European ferry market is forcing a scale down in commercial shipbuilding in Australia and a refocus on defence work. The newly acquired Philippines shipyard will focus on constructing smaller commercial vessels at a more competitive cost. Recent defence contract wins should lessen earnings volatility, as they tend to span over a few years. The establishment of a Service business with long-term maintenance contracts will also provide another stable revenue stream.
Austal reported NPAT of $5.4m for the half-year ended 31 December 2012. Revenues from ordinary activities were $389.41m, up 45.6% from the same period last year. Diluted EPS was 2.14 cents compared to (1.26) cents last year. The net operating cash outflow was $20.92m compared to an outflow of $2.9m in the pcp. No dividend was declared.
The Age 19/06/2013 |
The bullish sentiments on the sharemarket earlier this year have been challenged by a correction that has taken the All Ordinaries Index down about 10 per cent from its May highs. Many investors are now asking how deep the current correction is likely to be.
The Age 19/06/2013 |
Done well, value investing is a successful, safe way to invest. The logic of the approach - buying an asset for less than its underlying value - is irrefutable.
The Age 19/06/2013 |
Snowballing debts and no means to repay them ... going bankrupt is the last-ditch option for those in a financial hole too deep to climb out from.
The Age 19/06/2013 |
One of the weapons an individual has over institutions is time, and with real value emerging at the micro-cap end of the market, smaller stocks are an area worth holding on to.
The Age 19/06/2013 |
Spending 10 days in Japan gives one a good overview of what they call "Abenomics" and its impact, and that includes also being here for one of the biggest drops on the Japanese market in weeks.
The Age 19/06/2013 |
Lend Lease has moved to allay investors' concerns with the issue of a formal profit guidance of between $540 million and $550 million for the full year, despite the weakness in the construction sector.
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