Qiagen Looks Like a Future Fallen Angel
> >
> By Vito J. Racanelli
> 'If you've never seen a halo removed, keep an eye on Qiagen over the next
> few quarters. Its stock has been one that investors have loved to love
> over the past couple of years because the European firm is in one of the
> faster- growing sectors of health care -- tests and tools for DNA
> research, genomics and drug research. The affair might end soon, warns
> Nicolas Mathys, a fund manager at Zulauf Asset Management in Zug,
> Switzerland. He points to recent management guidance suggesting that
> revenues could grow as little as 16% in the first quarter of 2002 and 25%
> in the second, well below the company's 30% target for 2002. Qiagen
> management has insisted it will make up that shortfall with new product
> sales in the third and fourth quarters.
>
> But, as Merrill Lynch points out in a recent report, estimated 2002 growth
> of current products is about 17%. So given the first-half shortfall, to
> achieve 30% for all of 2002 it will likely have to grow sales about 45% in
> the second half, which Mathys finds unlikely.
>
> For one thing, some 15% of Qiagen's total sales go to other biotech
> companies, many of which are young, not-yet-profitable firms recently
> brought public. Some of these customers are running out of IPO cash and
> not likely to get more soon from the capital markets, so "it's hard to see
> them increasing spending by 30% or more" this year, asserts Mathys, who
> has recently shorted Qiagen's stock. Another 35% goes to pharmaceutical
> companies and 50% to universities, but are they going to ramp up spending
> during these tough times?
>
> Credit Suisse First Boston listed its concerns in a February 11 report
> that Qiagen will be relying heavily on new products sales in the second
> half to get some $30 million in sales that would bring 2002 sales to $345
> million, or 30% above 2001.
>
> There is some risk attached to the timing and success of the new product
> introductions, and without them, sales growth would be 20% -- and far
> below market expectations, CSFB notes. "If the company's sales fall
> substantially short ... for a few quarters, the quality of earnings may be
> questioned by some investors," CSFB wrote, and Qiagen's "premium valuation
> may not be sustainable in the present difficult environment."
>
> A bet against Qiagen is essentially one that asserts management is simply
> too optimistic about the second half of 2002, and given its rose-tinted
> glasses last year, that seems fair. It forecast 40% sales growth in 2001
> and will miss by a country mile when it reports fourth-quarter results
> this week. "I expect earnings downgrades in the first half of 2002. Once
> they start missing estimates, the market will find the stock too
> expensive," says Mathys, who opines the shares could reapproach September
> lows.
>
> A company spokesperson counters that Qiagen is confident about its 30%
> revenue- growth target and says that biotech companies might cut back on
> big-ticket items but not on the Qiagen tools needed for important
> research.
>
> The latter seems plausible but it's hard to believe that every single new
> Qiagen product will be a hit. With such a high valuation, it will take
> only one or two product disappointments to pressure Qiagen's shares. At
> $17, its shares are up 70% from September lows and down 50% from year-ago
> levels. Even so, Qiagen still trades at almost 50 times 2002 consensus
> estimates.
>
> When it posts 2001 results Tuesday, Qiagen is now generally expected to
> show $260-$280 million in sales, or 20%-29% growth, far below the 40%
> growth it emphatically predicted one year ago for 2001. The likelihood of
> achieving 30% sales growth this year also seems optimistic.
>
> Those wacky German bankers
>
> Where would journalists be without the German banking industry, which
> seems always ready to provide a three-ring circus just when things look
> dull? The latest show combines Bavarian politics; Rupert Murdoch; and a
> clutch of banks holding the roughly euro6 billion debt of Leo Kirch, the
> German media impresario. The latter's travails, brought on by
> overextending himself with debt to overpay for media assets, deserve a lot
> of space, but there are far more investors exposed to his liquidity woes
> through the publicly traded banks that have lent to Kirch Group.
>
> Last week, rumors flew about various salvage plans as Kirch and his
> creditors began talks. Kirch owes roughly 1.9 billion euros to Bayerische
> Landesbank; euro700 million to Deutsche Bank; 500 million euros to HVB
> Group's HypoVereinsbank; 460 million euros to Dresdner; 300 million euros
> to Commerzbank; 750 million euros to JPMorgan Chase; and 250 million euros
> to Lehman Brothers, among others.
>
> From a political view, the state of Bavaria, which controls the Bayerische
> Landesbank, doesn't want either its bank or Kirch, an important local
> employer, to fail. This is all the more crucial since Edmund Stoiber, head
> of the Bavarian state government, seeks to unseat German Chancellor
> Gerhard Schroeder in elections later this year. Murdoch, meanwhile,
> through his News Corp., has an option to sell back its 22% stake in
> Kirch's unprofitable pay-TV business, Premiere, to Kirch for 1.7 billion
> euros. The prospect of a wily foreigner like Murdoch possibly leveraging
> Kirch's weakness into control of Premiere has set off alarm bells among
> German politicians and media companies.
>
> Yet the strangest and potentially most painful twist of all, perhaps, for
> shareholders of the banks involved is a proposal made last week by HVB to
> buy Kirch's 40% stake in Axel Springer Verlag, one of the biggest European
> newspaper publishers. The market value of such a stake is about 940
> million euros, yet HVB has offered 1.1 billion euros. HVB shareholders
> should ask themselves why their bank would undertake such a huge deal,
> overpaying for media assets during a slump, even if the aim is to improve
> the situation of an important credit. The answer isn't pretty.
>
> Metzler Bank analyst Guido Hoymann asserts that such a deal is not driven
> by economic or shareholder value, but is rather "politically driven. There
> could be some commercial value, but it isn't a reasonable investment." HVB
> isn't in the media business and shouldn't be, even briefly, and it could
> end up holding the Axel bag for quite a while. For if that 40% stake were
> so valuable, there would be buyers stepping up already and HVB wouldn't
> have to take it on. Moreover, the history of similar German bank bailouts
> of failing companies isn't particularly encouraging.
>
> What's most galling to HVB shareholders is that while trying mightily to
> save Kirch's hide, HVB hasn't been too good at the banking business
> lately, notes Yann Goffinet, a Vontobel portfolio manager. Its return on
> equity in 2001 was only about 4%, pretty weak compared to the European
> average, he points out. Getting to its 15% ROE target in 2003 is
> essentially impossible now. HVB shares dropped over 40% last year and
> trade at about 80% of book value, also far below the European average,
> though this is true of German banks in general. "I would avoid the stock,"
> says Goffinet.
>
> So, it's no wonder that HVB showed up last week as the top abuser of
> shareholders on the annual list of corporate laggards published by Union
> Investment Gesellschaft, a German mutual- fund company. "HVB has no clear
> strategy on how they will achieve adequate returns on the capital
> employed," notes a Union spokesman.
>
> The Kirch crisis is far from over, and HVB's proposal may yet come to
> nothing, but what's clear is that the shareholders' interests of the banks
> involved, particularly HypoVereinsbank, won't be served. Instead, it will
> be the traditional German clubby way of triage. HVB's investors would be
> better served by a management more attuned to shareholder value.
>
> By the way, the others on the Union list of shame included Deutsche
> Telekom, Preussag, Endesa, France Telecom and Alcatel.
>
> Bourses gain 2%
>
> Last week, the Dow Jones Stoxx pan-European index rose about 2% to 289.70,
> and the DJ Stoxx 50, which tracks 50 European blue-chip shares, finished
> at 3547.68, up 2%.
>
>
> --------------------------------------------------
> ------
>
> E-mail: vito.racanelli@barrons.com
>
> February 18, 2002 12:01AM
>
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