According to Polish daily Parkiet the privatization of state-owned Metalplast-Zlotow, a major Polish producer of fixtures and fittings used in aluminium or wood joinery, is being delayed. The state treasury is selling up to a 85% stake in Metalplast Zlotow. Out of eleven originally interested entities, five were short-listed. After these five short-listed companies (including two WSE listed players Kety and FAM) posted their offers last week, the state treasury immediately asked them to correct the offers, without giving further specification. The state treasury reconsiders whether to short-list one company to further negotiations, or whether to choose more. No final date for the privatization process has been set, although it was speculated that it could finish in Autumn.
Our view: We believe the news could only be slightly negative for Kety, as although we believe that the company suits Kety’s business model, delays in the privatization process seem common nowadays. According to Kety, the target’s sales revenues for 2005 came in at PLN 45m and net earnings at PLN 3-4m. In 2004, Metaplast Zlotow had sales revenues of PLN 45.8m (+34% y/y), EBIT of PLN 5.8m (operating margin of 12.6% vs. 12.7% of Kety in 2005) and net earnings of PLN 4.0m (+22% y/y). We believe that Kety would merge this company with its subsidiary, Metalplast Karo, which supplies the aluminium profiles division internally with fittings and fixtures and has annual sales revenues of PLN 13m.
To our knowledge, fixtures and fittings are high-margin and constitute up to 30% of the value of aluminium profiles contracts. We believe the acquisition would enable Kety to fully supply its needs internally and also sell to other entities. We would view this potential acquisition as providing a good opportunity to strengthen the competitive position of Kety, in the growing aluminium profiles business, and lengthen the company’s value chain. Given the highly competitive privatisation process, we would expect the P/E ratio of the Metalplast Zlotow transaction to be higher than in case of the acquisition of Aluprof (2005 P/E of 10.7x).