On Tuesday, 22 new 52 -week hollows on the New York Stock Exchange, compared to 69 new 52 -week heights. Among the 22 companies that strike new stockings, British producer Frozen Foods, Nomad Foods (Nomd), drew my attention.
The company, whose frozen food brands include Birds Eye, Findus and Iglo, slipped to its 18th below 52 weeks Tuesday. He exchanged this hollow in October 2023.
Trade on the stock market since 2014, the shares varied between $ 10 and $ 31.85 (May 31, 2021, all time). Although the company has experienced difficulties in the past year, with its shares decreasing by 25%, the company’s shares should attract investors looking for good deals for several reasons.
Here’s why I feel that.
Nomad became a public in April 2014 as a SPAC (acquisition company for special purposes), raising $ 500 million in its first public public call, a merchant on the London Stock Exchange. Like most spaces, it has been trained to acquire an operational business within a specific time.
The SPAC made its eligible acquisition in June 2015, paying 2.6 billion euros ($ 3.04 billion) for Iglo Food Holdings Limited, a main European company Frozen Foods. This brought the marks of birds of birds and iglo into the fold.
Five months at the end of November 2015, he acquired the Findus group for 500 million British pounds ($ 677 million), paid with 415 million British pounds ($ 562 million) in cash and issuing 8.38 million shares. This brought the Findus brand to the growing frozen food sector.
Nomad issued the initial SPAC actions at $ 10 in April 2014. They were struck off in London on January 11, 2016, passing their list in New York the next day. The share price closed its opening day at $ 12.30. They have increased only 15% during the decade since then. Fortunately, for the first investors, he paid an attractive dividend, or the annual return would be appalling.
However, one of the founders of the Spac was Martin Franklin, the best known as the CEO who grew up Parden Corp. From nothing over 14 years old, selling the Newell Brands (NWL) in April 2016 for $ 15.4 billion ($ 60 per share), which included $ 2.2 billion in convertible debt.
Franklin probably wishes to have obtained more than $ 21 per share for the cash part of the agreement, given the way in which Newell’s bad actions have performed over the years. However, it sold its actions in 2017 and 2018 when they were much higher than today, due to disagreements with the management and the board of directors.
I always liked the way Franklin thinks. He co -founded the Nomad Spac and still holds 6.7% of his stock and is co -chair of the board of directors. It’s a good thing.
Nomad delivered its results from T2 2025 in early August.
They were nothing to write with sales of 0.8% to 747 million euros ($ 875 million), compared to $ 753 million ($ 882 million) a year earlier. Meanwhile, its operating profit was 88 million euros ($ 103 million), or 13% less than 101 million euros ($ 118 million) in T2 2024.
Looking at the end of 2025, the company revised its higher and lower capacities due to the first difficult semester. He now expects organic sales to go from all year round to the other at a few lower percentage points. Previously, the advice was 2% higher stable. In the end, the Nomad BPA estimate in 2025 is 1.70 euros ($ 1.99) an action in the middle of its directives, against 1.86 euros per share ($ 2.18) before.
Despite the drop in directives, it still plans to convert 90% of its profits adjusted to cash flows available in 2025. Based on 152.6 million shares in circulation, which represents around $ 304 million in available cash flow.
Between the third quarter of 2022 and the T2 2025, the company’s net debt remained between 2.15 billion euros ($ 2.52 billion) and 1.74 billion euros ($ 2.04 billion). It ended in the second quarter at 1.84 billion euros ($ 2.16 billion), well in historical standards.
Meanwhile, its net debt is 3.5 times the EBITDA (profit before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization), a relatively low multiple of the 10 years of the company as a public company. Financially, despite an Altman Z -SCORE in difficulty of 1.40 according to S&P Global Market Intelligence – The score indicates the probability that a company will undertake a bankruptcy procedure in the next 24 months – it is one of the highest since the registration of the NYSE in 2016.
Financially, his head is above the water.
The company faced several winds contrary to the first half of 2025 which retained its organic growth. One of these opposite winds is exceptionally hot in most of Europe. In the United Kingdom, for example, spring temperatures were 18% higher this year than historical averages. This has led to lower consumption of frozen foods.
However, the frozen food market should be one of the most reliable areas of growth in the food sector in the years to come.
“The Frozen category has exceeded the global food industry of almost a percentage in the past decade, and on our four main markets where we can access the total data of the industry, not just frozen food data, we have seen the Frozen category exceeding the overall sales of the food volume of last food by 60 basic points, despite the supporting weather time,” said the CEO Deschemaeker, as part of the R2 2025 conference.
Nomad’s current corporate value of $ 4.28 billion is 1.31 times its last 12 -month -old sales. This multiple has never been lower. The same for one of its financial measures focused on profits. They are also at historical stockings.
For each argument that is made on frozen foods that are not healthy for you, there is an opposite argument, in particular with the fruits, than freezing them in the fields keeps more nutrients than the so -called “fresh” products that you find in the grocery store.
Although I am not an expert, I don’t see frozen foods disappear anytime soon.
On September 3, Nomad announced an efficiency program over the next three years which will see it generate annual operational savings of 200 million euros ($ 234 million) by the end of 2028. Combined with annual growth of 1 to 3% in adjusted Ebitda and 15% growth in free cash flows, the current assessment seems exceptionally low.
Provided that Nomad responds to his plans for the next three years, receiving a dividend yield of almost 5% while waiting for him to reach his medium -term objectives is a reasonable risk / reward proposal.
At a 52 -week hollow, nomadic stock is a purchase.
On the date of publication, Ashworth did not (directly or indirectly) have positions in any of the titles mentioned in this article. All information and data of this article are only for information purposes. This article was initially published on Barchart.com
