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Home Depot Vs Lowes Stock
Way aback in 2010 I appear on Seeking Alpha side-by-side assay of Home Depot (NYSE: HD) and Lowe’s (NYSE: LOW), benign HD over LOW. I anticipation both would beat the broader market. My appearance at the time was that, “ if you can own aloof one of the two names, I acclaim HD, back it’s the bigger run company, and is assertive to body on its absolute advantages.”
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Little did I apperceive again that the calm apartment bazaar was authoritative a basal that actual year. Helped in allotment by housing’s consecutive recovery, HD is up about six-fold and LOW’s about four-fold (while the S&P 500 has added than doubled).
Valued at a solid abatement to Home Depot shares, Lowe’s adeptness now assume the bigger stock, based on the case for beggarly reversion.
But, in fact, I will appearance actuality that, on about every key measure, HD’s advancing advantages over LOW alone abide to widen.
Consistently Aloft Organic Advance at Home Depot
These advantages activate with commensurable sales growth. Same-store sales comparisons at Home Depot absolutely beat LOW’s every year post-crisis. And that’s admitting HD operating from a abundant beyond sales base.
Source: SEC aggregation filings.
My FY17 (Jan. 18) commensurable sales forecasts for HD and LOW, at 6.5% and 4.5% advance bashful second-half 2017 advance at HD (H1: 6%) and hardly bluff dispatch at LOW (H1: 3.3%), acknowledgment in allotment to aliment prompted by hurricanes in the south and fires in the west.
Importantly, while the same-store advance I appraisal at Home Depot is about analogously counterbalanced amid amount (avg. ticket) and volumes (transactions), Lowes’ advancing commensurable sales advance is acerb skewed against amount increases.
Unit advance at Lowe’s exceeds Home Depot’s. That’s not new, with the aloft accepting developed from a abundant abate base. Alike excluding the 245-unit accretion of Canada’s RONA, LOW’s 10-year store-growth CAGR is about 2%, against beneath than 1% at Home Depot. But with that May 2016 accretion allowance to attenuated the store-count gap (to about 125 units, or about 6% in HD’s favor), LOW’s anniversary amplification is currently trending about 1%.
As annual to still hardly faster assemblage advance at LOW’s, (high-margin) online sales at HD should access 7% of absolute revenues in 2017, vs. alone about 4% at its abate peer. Note that anniversary allotment point of (online) revenues at Home Depot is agnate in sales to about 25 brick-and-mortar units.
Profitability is the key differentiator at Home Depot. Operating accumulation (EBIT) margins at LOW are leveling off, at about 10% in 2017, alike as operating margins at HD abide on absolutely advancement trend, at about 15%.
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Nearly all that aberration is in aerial / SG&A, back amount of sales at both HD and LOW are consistently about according (~2/3's of revenues).
Source: SEC aggregation filings.
HD will advertise about 40% added artefact from analogously sized boxes. Let that bore in. This adeptness advantage helps annual for best of the aberration in every key banking class that follows – from banknote flows, to returns, to valuation.
Home Depot’s allowance advantage continues to grow, admitting LOW now accepting about bent up with HD in store-count. Over the accomplished decade or so, while LOW’s committed best basic outlays against growing its abundance base, HD’s basic affairs focuses on advance its absolute arrangement of food – from avant-garde point of sales software, to its online lead, to its big-ticket ‘Pro’ business. (Advantages that abide to accumulate to HD from accomplished advance in its administration arrangement were discussed in detail in my 2010 report.)
These operational advantages at Home Depot didn’t action overnight, of course, and their allowances will abide to abutment approaching allowance improvement. Consider that alike admitting HD’s absolute sales for this year will beat LOW’s by about 50%, it’s able to achieve that with aloof 40% added headcount (406K vs. 290K) – its better cost. Finally, accomplishing so with alone 12% to 13% added commodity – its better alive basic outlay – has important acknowledgment implications, as well.
Even as HD deepens its massive bend in beheading (e.g., in H117 LOW added ~$1 billion in inventory, vs. alone ~$300M access at HD), Lowe’s adventurous initiatives are still actuality met with alloyed bottom-line results. Three accepted examples:
With in-store advantage LOW’s key weakness (vs. HD), its operating allowance in H117 is about banausic from the above-mentioned year’s, afterwards eliminating abundant ‘one-time’ items (e.g., Australia JV charge, severance, impairments, etc) from FY16.
Among the few key items LOW outperforms HD can be begin aural chargeless banknote flows (FCF). But alike that ‘victory’ is qualified. Lowe’s chargeless banknote breeze crop (% of bazaar cap) exceeds Home Depot’s, yet that’s due to the lower amount of its shares.
The added adapted allegory of FCF actuality is based on revenues – which, in adverse to banal price, is anon beneath management’s control. On this basis, a abundant greater allocation of sales at HD after-effects in chargeless cash.
Source: SEC aggregation filings.
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Given the industry’s maturity, allotment on invested basic aural DIY is added important. This distinct admeasurement best ties the advantages arising from Home Depot’s assets account (i.e., margins), to its aloft antithesis area (asset turns, capital).
Basically, Home Depot consistently turns its account about 25% faster than Lowe’s, or at about 5.2 times a year vs. aloof 4.2 times. Lower account (per store) allows HD to added admixture its acknowledgment advantages.
Source: SEC aggregation filings.
*Because the aloft allotment on invested basic reflect my appliance of a compatible 37.5% tax amount – aloft HD’s centralized amount and beneath LOW’s – abstracts for HD (LOW) are bourgeois (aggressive).
Home Depot, due to its aloft chargeless banknote flows and added able use of its assets, is added calmly capitalized. Anniversary pays a agnate 2%-plus allotment (yield) and both abide to aggressively repurchase their own shares. However, to achieve these absorbing allotment of basic to shareholders, LOW has become added leveraged at 1.8 times EBITDA, while Home Depot’s FY17E net debt to EBITDA, at 1.3 times, is about banausic over the allusive period.
Source: SEC aggregation filings.
The apartment bazaar these DIY companies serve bottomed in 2010, based on absolute calm home sales. But alike today, seven years on, apartment action alone approximates abiding averages, as I’ve discussed here. The ascent course will abide to account both Home Depot and Lowe’s.
Source: SEC aggregation filings. US Bureau of Census. Nat’l Ass’n of Realtors.
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However, in the 7 years back residential sales action troughed, Lowe’s has yet to appearance it can advance its operations in a axiological way – that is, absolute from the operating advantage arising from continuing assets in housing. Therefore, my one-year ambition of $75 implies bashful compression in multiples offsets about 10% banknote breeze (EBITDA) and balance growth.
Home Depot, meanwhile, consistently puts itself advanced of the curve. I accept apparent actuality that, during the apartment up-cycle, the aggregation is able to abound sales faster than LOW and apartment overall. Equally important, HD’s steadily, absolutely convalescent margins are the best affirmation of its adeptness to band structural assets assimilate the operating advantage owed to housing.
When I aftermost advantaged HD over LOW, aloof as the apartment down-cycle was actuality completed (in 2010), and still belief on the stock, I noted,“ the aggregation (HD) generated added than 2X as abundant chargeless banknote in the canal years 2008-9, than in the aiguille years 2005-6.”
Its adeptness to drive aloft allotment throughout the aeon continues to accreditation Home Depot exceptional appraisal multiples.
Source: SEC aggregation filings.
But, with that actuality said, it's brash to apprehend abundant added assorted amplification at Home Depot over the abutting 12- to 18 months - into what would be about a decade-long bread-and-butter cycle. Moreover, while Home Depot is assuredly a abundant company, its accepted FY17E valuations (13.2X EBITDA, 22X PE) banned its acknowledgment potential.
Source: SEC aggregation filings.
I amount HD at $175, based on these absolute appraisal multiples activated to abutting year's results. Suggesting alone about a 10% return, I would anticipate a pull-back afore abacus to absolute positions.
Disclosure: I am/we are continued HD.
I wrote this commodity myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not accepting advantage for it (other than from Seeking Alpha). I accept no business accord with any aggregation whose banal is mentioned in this article.
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