Orchard Funding – an impressive set of profit numbers

PUBLISHED: 09 Jun 2021 @ 00:52 | Comments (0) |

In the last newsletter I drew attention to Orchard Funding’s (LSE:ORCH) net current asset value, NCAV, per share, at 72p, being appreciably more than its share price of 56.8p. This was a good starting point for including it in my net current value portfolio. Other factors, mostly on the qualitative side, also came into play – to be discussed in future newsletters.

First I’ll show how Orchard might have fitted into my Modified cyclically adjusted price earnings ratio portfolio as well as the NCAV portfolio. As you can see in the table below for the last seven and a half years Orchard has produced impressive earnings per share numbers for a share valued by Mr Market at 56.8p (market capitalisation £12.1m). The average is 6.5p (if I include an annualised EPS for 2021).

Thus the cyclically adjusted price earning ratio is 56.8p/6.5p = 8.7, about one-half of that for the UK market.

My, admittedly thin, reasoning for allocating to the NCAV portfolio is merely that I only have seven and half years of data for earnings rather than the more conventional ten used for a CAPE ratio calculation. It really doesn’t matter which portfolio it goes into; simply that it is deep value investment likely to provide a good return. Having the reinforcement of fulfilling not just one but two strict criterion is comforting.

It’s also comforting to see such a high proportion of earnings flowing to shareholders in the form of dividends. The business is cash generative, growing steadily (until Covid-19) at a rate which doesn’t absorb a high proportion of the money it makes.

The directors, including the 53.3% holder, prefer to reward shareholders regularly – his dividends amount to more than a third of a million each year – rather than splurge on rapid expansion and speculative ventures.

Year end: 31^st July, £m	2012	2013	2014	2015	2016
Lending volume				44	49
Loan book at year end			19	18	22
Revenue (interest income)	2.7	2.9	3.0	3.4	3.5
Net interest income (i.e., after paying interest on funding)	1.8	1.9	2.1	2.5	3.2
Profit before tax	0.7	0.7	1.0	1.3	1.3
Profit after tax	0.5	0.6	0.8	1.0	1.0
Earnings per share			6.87p	8.77p	4.7p
Dividends per share				1.17p	2.81p

Year end: 31^st July, £m	2017	2018	2019	2020	H12021 x 2
Lending volume	63	69	73	66	60
Loan book at year end	28	31	32	30	28
Revenue (interest income)	4.6	5.2	5.5	5.3	4.6
Net interest income (i.e., after paying interest on funding, plus bank charges for 2020/21)	4.2	4.6	4.9	3.9	3.3
Profit before tax	1.6	1.9	2.0	1.6	1.2
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