Belle Int’l (1880, $9.20) 12M Target $14.55 BUY
Event: Belle proposed to acquire all outstanding shares of Mirabell Int’l (1179, $5.21) at $6.00 per share.
Belle proposed to spend approximately $1.7bn to acquire all issued shares of Mirabell at $6.0 per share.
The offer price represents a 15% premium to previous closing price of Mirabell and values the footwear distributor at 12.8x 2008 earnings. Belle is currently trading at 30x 2008 earnings.
Mirabell owns footwear brands of Mirabell, Joy&Peace, Fiorucci, Inshoesnet and Geox. It operates a total of 329 outlets including 207 in Mainland China and the rest in Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan.
Due to lack of economy of scale, the operating margin of Mirabell was relatively low at 6.6% in the first half of 2007. Leveraging on extensive network of Belle, we believe the operating margin of Mirabell can improve significantly in the long run.
As a consolidator of footwear industry, we are still bullish on Belle. Maintain BUY with target price of $14.55