UDG Healthcare (LSE: UDG) has ducked to its cheapest since late August in Tuesday trade, the share falling 5% following the release of full-year trading numbers.
Today’s reversal means that UDG has seen its market value shrink by 15% since it set record tops of 958p per share just three weeks ago. However, I reckon this is a great opportunity for savvy long-term investors to pile in.
Indeed, market makers should have been punching the air following today’s impressive release. The FTSE 250 business announced that revenues galloped 13% higher — or 17% higher at constant exchange rates — to $1.22bn in the 12 months to September 2017.
As a consequence, it saw pre-tax profits leap 17% year-on-year to $92.8m, and the company is confident that its transformation programme should continue to deliver meaty returns (it spent $270m on six acquisitions in the last fiscal year alone).
Chief executive Brendan McAtamney commented: “All of our divisions delivered good underlying profit growth, supplemented by the benefit of acquisitions… these acquisitions enhance and broaden the range of capabilities we offer our healthcare clients.”
And he added: “We are well positioned to continue to deliver organic growth and our strong balance sheet will enable us to execute further strategic acquisition opportunities as they arise.”
In good health
City forecasters are certainly predicting exciting things over at UDG, the share expected to keep growing earnings at a double-digit rate in the near term at least. A 16% earnings improvement is predicted for the year to September 2018 alone.
And this projection makes the share a pretty-tasty value pick. Sure, a forward P/E ratio of 25.1 times may not be much to shout about. But a corresponding PEG readout of 1.6 suggests the firm is actually pretty reasonably priced relative to its growth trajectory.
Meanwhile, the bright profits picture provides plenty for dividend investors to get excited about as well.
Last year the Dublin firm hiked the shareholder payout 7% year-on-year to 13.3 US cents per share, and City analysts are expecting this to swell to 15.2 cents in the current period. This projection yields a handy little 1.4% yield.
Investors should expect the healthcare giant to make good on this estimate too, what with dividend coverage ringing in at 2.9 times, comfortably above the widely-considered security benchmark of 2 times.
Intercontinental champ
SThree (LSE: STHR) is another share expected to deliver exceptional earnings and dividend growth as business takes off across the globe.
There is no hiding the troubles the company is enduring at home as the economy cools, weakness which saw aggregated gross profits in the UK and Ireland dive 10% during July-September. But strong conditions elsewhere are helping profits to continue to grow. Indeed, a 20% rise in US profits, and a 6% rise in its core market of Europe, helped group gross profits rise 5% in the quarter.
Reflecting this exceptional progress, not to mention its impressive cash flows, City analysts are expecting profits at SThree to increase 13% and 11% in 2017 and 2018 respectively, and current predictions make the business excellent value for money.
It rocks up on a forward P/E ratio of 14.5 times as well as a corresponding PEG reading of 1.1.
And to keep income chasers happy, forecasted dividends of 14p per share this year and next throw out a monster yield of 4%.
All things considered, I reckon SThree is a terrific share to snap up today.
