Back in the second quarter of 2017 I wrote a four-part series of posts on the bricks and mortar retailing sector (Part 1: department stores - DDS & KSS | Part 2: mall owners - SKT & SPG | Part 3: balance sheet strength | Part 4: possible LBOs - JWN, DDS, URBN) focused on how Wall Street was pricing many companies as if they were essentially finished as profitable businesses.
Here we are after a strong holiday shopping season where online and bricks and mortar stores shared in the cheer and investor sentiment has shifted dramatically. This is notable because the businesses are the same today as they were back in May and June.
While the mall operators are largely unchanged, aside from above-average dividend payouts, profitable retailers with strong balance sheets have been on a tear. For example, Kohl's (KSS) is up nearly 100%, hitting $67 today on an analyst upgrade. Similarly, Urban Outfitters (URBN) has doubled from $17 to $34 and Dillards (DDS) has jumped nearly 50% from $48 to $70.
The Kohl's situation is interesting because the stock is jumping $2 today after a Jefferies analyst raised his price target by a whopping 50% to $100 per share (from $66). If that sounds like a crazy number, it is. While I was positive on the company in the $35-$45 area, after a move into the 60's it warrants a skeptical eye going forward.
I had been using a $60 fair value estimate, based on 6x EV/EBITDA and 10x free cash flow. After all, this is a department store chain that will report lower revenue in 2017 ($19.0 billion) than it had five years ago in 2012 ($19.3 billion) and I wanted to use conservative estimates. Profitable and stable off-mall retailer? Check. Solid balance sheet with lots of owned properties to offer a margin of safety? Check. Growth company that stands to take market share? Not so much.
Slow/no growth department stores (JCP, DDS, M, KSS) have traditionally traded for 6x EBITDA. Unless you believe KSS can grow their business materially, a $100 stock price seems overly aggressive at 9x EBITDA and 17x free cash flow.
Although retail sales will continue to rise in the low single digits thanks to inflation and population growth, department stores will likely still cede market share slowly over time to online channels, as well as new store concepts. That trend likely explains KSS's flattish five-year sales performance.
After a huge run, investors now believe that these companies will survive and do decently well, which is a huge shift in sentiment from 6-12 months ago. I consider many of the stocks trading at/near a fair price today, especially considering that revenue growth will still be hard to come by. In addition, the odds are low that media headlines focusing on the Amazon threat, dead malls across the country, and bricks and mortar bankruptcies are a permanent thing of the past. Like many trends in the financial markets, I suspect we will get another good entry point in traditional retailers down the line when sentiment shifts yet again.
As for riding KSS from $67 to $100, I will leave that bet for Jefferies to make, as the stock is far less attractive today from a risk-reward perspective than it was at $36 last year. Most of these stocks seems like contrarian, sentiment-timed intermediate term trading vehicles more than multi-year, buy-and-hold investments.
Full Disclosure: Long shares of AMZN common, DDS debt, JWN common, KSS common, and SKT common at the time of writing, but positions may change at any time.I have been selling down existing positions in KSS recently, although not every share has been sold yet.