AALBERTS INDUSTRIES: The weather forecast

An update on the development of end markets.

Summary:
A scan of various end markets suggests that growth in Industrial Services will slow down in 2012. The European construction segment within Flow Control should have another mixed year, just like in 2011, but that has not prevented Aalberts from delivering strong organic growth. We have tweaked our sales and margin estimates and we changed our dollar input, which on balance has resulted in circa 4% lower EPS estimates. To reflect this, we lower our TP to € 19 from € 20. Buy rating maintained

Industrial Services faces slower growth in 2012:
Our scan of end markets that represent circa 70% of sales, reveals that 2012 growth should be slower than previously anticipated, albeit still slightly positive. In response, we have lowered our estimates for organic salesgrowth.

Flow Control should face similar markets as in 2011:
No statistic fully captures the diversified mix. However, construction is an important segment at circa 60% of sales. Euroconstruct data reveal: 1) R&M has become more dominant than new build, so the mix should have become more resilient, 2) Flow Control producers gained market share in 2010-2011E as organic growth strongly outpaced sluggish market growth, and 3) Aalberts captured more market share than its nearest competitors. We have not made significant changes to our estimates.

Stronger dollar benefits sales and earnings:
The impact is mainly translation. Dollar-denominated debt should slightly push up interest costs. We now use a $ /€ rate of 1.28 (was 1.42).

Estimates and TP slightly reduced:
On balance, we lower our EPS estimates by around 3-4% for 2012 and beyond. In response we trim our TP to € 19 (from € 20). Buy rating reiterated.