AIG’s Bond Sale is No Cause to Celebrate

December 17, 2008 — John Appel

The latest installment of the American International Group (AIG) “Bailout” is not the good news that one might imagine from reading AIG’s press release.   It does not provide as much financing as originally anticipated. More importantly, it is a reminder that, so far, the U.S. government has done much more to minimize losses for AIG’s counterparties than to maximize value for AIG.

AIG and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York announced on Tuesday that Maiden Lane II, an entity owned and controlled by the NY Fed, has purchased nearly $40 billion of mortgage-backed securities (RMBS) from AIG subsidiaries.  This was part of the revised U.S. government bailout announced on November 10th.  I described these arrangements in my article last week entitled, “AIG’s Bailout Needs a Bailout: A $150 Billion Problem.”

Edward M. Liddy, AIG Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, said: “AIG’s highest priority is the full repayment of the federal loan facility with interest. The creation and launch of this financing entity will eliminate the liquidity issues associated with AIG’s U.S. securities lending program, which will facilitate our repayment plan. Although we have more work ahead of us, this is an important step forward. We appreciate the support of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York in implementing this transaction.”  This seems to imply that this ‘financing entity’ is a new development that frees up AIG capital that otherwise would have gone to satisfy securities lending payables.

While the transaction is a means of financing AIG’s securities lending payables, it is part of the bailout plan and does not provide any capital beyond that anticipated in the bailout.  In fact, it provides somewhat less.  The illustration in AIG’s November 10th 10-Q1 filing shows a purchase price of $23.5 billion, based on fair market values on September 30th.  The actual transaction was based on lower values as of October 31st, and the purchase price was $19.8 billion instead of $23.5 billion.

In my previous analysis, I assumed, based on the 10-Q disclosure, that $23.5 billion would cover substantially all of the securities lending payables, and the financing would provide $22.5 billion, leaving $1 billion to be paid by AIG.  In the final deal, these payables required $24.9 billion – the $19.8 billion of sale proceeds plus a $5.1 billion capital contribution from AIG.  In other words, the final deal required an additional $4.1 billion from AIG.

The real bad news here is not that the value of these RMBS securities fell by $3.7 billion, or 15.7%, in one month; nor is it that AIG had to contribute $4.1 billion more to wind down its securities lending business.  The bad news is that until the deal was finalized, the NY Fed had the ability to make it a more effective tool for saving AIG, and now that chance is gone.

The NY Fed has purchased a portfolio of mortgage-backed securities for 50 cents on the dollar.  This price is more reflective of the lack of liquidity in the market than default rates.  It is likely that a price of around 80% of par would have more closely approximated the ultimate recovery if the securities were held to maturity.2 The NY Fed’s agreement to share a small portion3 of the gains with AIG after its loan to Maiden Lane II is repaid does little to help things today.  This should turn out to be a nice investment for taxpayers.

While some of the legal details have yet to be ironed out, it is clear that the U.S. government controls AIG.  The U.S. government can choose to maximize the long-term value of AIG’s most important assets – its reputation and its people – or it can focus on the salvage value of its financial assets.  Its actions to date indicate that it is focused more on the latter than the former.

So far, the U.S. government has made sure that banks, investment banks and other parties to AIG’s credit default swaps and securities lending agreements are made whole, even though these parties do not have the most senior rights as creditors.  Now that a partial list of the beneficiaries of these transactions has been made public, it is becoming clear that if these institutions had been forced to bear some loss as part of a negotiated deal outside of bankruptcy, the financial system would not have buckled.  The U.S. government made a policy decision to help certain members of the financial system that had transacted business with AIG, and has handed the bill to AIG.  Whether or not the policy decison is justified, forcing AIG to bear the entire cost is not.

Nearly all of the $170+ billion bailout has gone to fund losses on securities that are no longer on AIG’s balance sheet and have nothing to do with AIG’s go-forward business, so nearly all of the bailout funding arguably should have been funded off-balance sheet.  Instead, only about $50 billion is being funded off-balance sheet through Maiden Lanes II and III.

As a result, AIG is saddled with over $270 billion of debt and high dividend preferred stock, compared to under $150 billion in 2006.  As I explained in my analysis last week, the $270 billion needs to come down to around $120 billion before AIG’s balance sheet will truly be stabilized, and deserving of its ratings.  The plan is to achieve this through asset sales, but this is fallacy.  The current value of the assets targeted for sale is probably less than half of the amount needed.  Besides, the operating income from the targeted businesses4 may represent nearly half of AIG’s total normalized operating income, so if they were sold, the amount of debt that the remaining businesses could support would be far less than $120 billion.

AIG can limp along on “life support” for several years, since interest and dividends on $100 billion of the financing can just accrue instead of being paid in cash, but this just adds to the bill down the road.

The industry and AIG’s employees know that AIG’s current situation is not sustainable, and it is starting to show.  AIG disclosed in its 10-Q that its business is being negatively impacted by its financial instability.  And the company’s loss of senior executive Kevin Kelly to a competitor last week is just one example of what will happen to AIG’s executive ranks if things are not stabilized soon.

It is not clear if the U.S. Government cares about this, or if the intent is to break up the business, run-off the assets, and hope to recover at least the debt portion of the bailout funds.  It is not too late to choose the growth strategy over the wind-down strategy, but if growth is indeed the goal, the current course must change quickly.

Footnotes:

1 Please see the “Subsequent Events” section of AIG’s Q3 form 10-Q filed on November 10, 2008 (page 45).
2 As of September 30th, AIG’s RMBS included $14 billion each of Alt-A and subprime loans (the bulk of the rest was Agency and Prime). In October, 18.2% of all U.S. subprime loans were in foreclosure or REO, and another 10.4% were 90+ days past due (download data). Of all Alt-A loans, 9.3% were in foreclosure or REO and 4.8% were 90+ days past due (download data). Assuming that all of these end up in default and that the net recovery is zero, the total loss averages 21.3% between the Alt-A and subprime. The bulk of the RMBS were rated AAA, so they probably had about 10% subordination below them. Thus, assuming the securities sold to the NY Fed were evenly divided between Alt-A and subprime, the loss would be roughly (21.3%-10%)/90%, or 12.6%. This implies that a price of about 85% of par, or perhaps as low as 80% to allow a cushion, would have been a reasonable figure for the NY Fed to pay if the goal were to maximize the support of AIG while minimizing the loss to taxpayers. Instead, the NY Fed took advantage of the current dysfunction in the capital markets to buy the RMBS at a low price (for a scholarly article on how current market prices for mortgage-backed securities are below fundamental values, click here).
3 After the NY Fed loan is repaid, the first $1 billion (plus interest) of gains is paid to AIG subsidiaries, then the remainder is split 5/6 to the NY Fed and 1/6 to AIG subsidiaries.
4 Please see “Segment Information” on page 149 of AIG’s 2007 form 10-K for the operating income of AIG’s Life and Retirement Services businesses and aircraft leasing business.

(Disclosure: The author has no positions in AIG.)
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Cott Corp. – Could go Far, But Somebody Needs to Grab the Wheel

October 15, 2008 — John Appel

Cott Corp. is the world’s largest supplier of retailer brand soft drinks, and the fourth largest nonalcoholic beverage maker.  Given the recent growth trends in private label, Cott should be doing well.  Unfortunately, in 2006, when faced with slowing growth and shrinking margins, instead of striving to become a better and more efficient producer, the company abandoned its historical business plan and entered the uncharted territory of enhanced waters and energy drinks – with its own brands.  This plan failed miserably: Cott alienated its core retail customers; healthy profits turned to losses; and debt mounted to the point that the company can barely service it.

In May 2006, Cott’s board pushed out its CEO, John Sheppard, who had built EBITDA to roughly $200 million through acquisitions and a focus on efficient manufacturing, and brought in a new CEO, Brent Willis, to execute the new plan.  From then until March 2008 when Willis departed, Cott’s stock dropped from $15 to $2 per share, wiping out nearly $1 billion of equity value.  Today, it trades at around $1.00 per share, less than tangible book value.  As I explain below, this could be an $8.00 stock if the company successfully implements its plan to cut costs and return to its roots.  But it is a long, long way from here to there.  If the company does not get capable leadership soon, it may never get there.

Crescendo Shakes Things Up

Activist investor Crescendo Partners must have seen the upside opportunity when it purchased 8.7% of the company’s stock between March and May of this year.  Crescendo installed four new directors and proposed that the former VP of Canadian Operations and Global Sourcing for Cott, Csaba Reider, become CEO.  Crescendo then pushed the company to slash costs and get back to basics.  On June 19th, the company announced its plan to increase cash flow by $39-43 million by refocusing on its core business, cutting G&A expense, and improving the efficiency of its bottled water operations.  The cost cuts started with the elimination of several senior executives.

Unfortunately, the damage done by Cott’s management may have been worse than even Crescendo realized, and the path to profitability looks pretty long and bumpy.  It may take complete board control, not just the influence of an activist investor, to steer this company back into the clear.

Highly Leveraged – The Natives Must Be Restless

With debt approaching 5x run-rate EBITDA – and 8x run-rate EBITDA less normalized CapEx[1] – the company’s balance sheet may force some sort of recapitalization, or reorganization, before the company is able to execute this plan.  Cott’s $269 million of 8% Senior Subordinated Notes are due in just over three years.  Its new ABL facility ($131 million drawn as of 6/28/08 ) also comes due at that time if the 8% Notes are not refinanced before then. The 8% Notes, which were recently downgraded by both S&P and Moody’s and trade at a significant discount, will not be easy to refinance.

A patient lender, with confidence in management, would give the team the runway to execute a turnaround.  But who would trust this team?  The quality, consistency and transparency of its financial reporting, the reliability of its communications to investors, and the execution of its current turnaround plan have all been disappointing.

Crisis of Confidence

It’s hard to believe in a company when you can’t rely on its financial statements.  Cott’s auditors have sited significant internal control issues affecting the accuracy of its financial statements, and state that “management oversight… could not be relied on to mitigate [these issues].”[2]   Recent events indicate that despite management changes earlier this year, things have not gotten better.

In its second quarter earnings call on July 31st, management said that it expected “adjusted operating profit” for 2008 to be 50% to 70% above 2007’s figure of $36.3 million.  On the call, an analyst challenged this assertion, stating that given that adjusted operating profit for the first six months was approximately zero, “something fairly heroic has to happen in the next six months” to meet those projections.  Management defended its position.  However, less than a month later, on August 26th, the company said it would not hit these targets and revised its 2008 guidance downward dramatically, saying that adjusted operating profit would range from down 5% to up 28% versus 2007. I think this is still optimistic.[3]

On July 31, management said that the reduction in shelf space at Wal-Mart didn’t seem to be having a material negative impact on sales; that they were on track to deliver their cost savings plan; that their “water project,” which was to deliver over half[4] of the roughly $40 million in cash flow increase from the turnaround plan, was going smoothly; and that they and a commodity cost advantage over their competition this year.  By August 26th, they said that the sales decline was more severe than anticipated due to heavy promotional activity by competitors; their savings targets for this year would not be met; the water project was hampered by cost overruns and delays; and commodity costs were squeezing margins.

If management gives us positive news on the October 25th Q3 conference call, will they retract it a few weeks later? [Update – I have been told the call will now be in November]

The Clock is Ticking – With Lenders And Customers

Cott needs to move immediately to assure its customers that it is a capable, long-term partner, and assure its lenders and investors that it has a handle on its business.  This means hiring a CEO who will inspire confidence, and making the other management changes necessary to insure that the company can provide some reliable visibility into its future performance.  It is not clear that Crescendo’s CEO candidate is the right person for this situation.  Rather than somebody with no prior CEO experience, I would like to see a seasoned company leader with real turnaround experience at the helm.

If the company does not act quickly, its customers and lenders will lose confidence completely, taking the company into a downward spiral from which it may not be able to recover.  Its retailer customers need a manufacturer for their store brand beverages, but Cott is not their only choice for private label production.  Dr Pepper Snapple Group (NYSE: DPS) and National Beverage (Nasdaq: FIZZ)[5] also have meaningful private label operations and capacity.  It is not clear if they have enough capacity to service Wal-Mart and all of Cott’s other customers, but if Cott were to lose Wal-Mart, DPS and National Beverage could buy whatever additional capacity they needed from Cott’s lenders for pennies on the dollar.

Low Stock Price Does Not Mean Good Value

At $1.00 per share, Cott’s total equity value is about $72MM and the enterprise value is approximately $500MM, as shown below.  (This value assumes that any discount one could get on the company’s 8% subordinated notes is offset by non-debt liabilities not included in this enterprise value calculation.)

Enterprise Value at $1.00 Share based on 6/30/08 Balance Sheet ($MM):


At this price, the enterprise value is 5.4x my estimate of adjusted EBITDA for the twelve months ended 6/28/08, and 5.7x my estimate of run-rate adjusted EBITDA (see “Financial Summary” below for EBITDA calculations). If one believes in the turnaround, the price is low, because it is only about 4x pro forma adjusted EBITDA after turnaround savings.  If one has completely lost faith in management, the price is high and does not reflect negative sales trends and significant default risk.  The current market price seems to suggest that the turnaround upside and default risk downside roughly offset each other.

Current Stock Price Still has Big Downside Risk

If confidence is not restored soon, default risk may become the dominant issue, in which case the stock price should go below $0.50 per share.  At $0.50 per share, the company would be valued at about 5x adjusted EBITDA.  One could argue that even this multiple is high, and that the company is not worth more than its debt, but I won’t go that far.  The replacement value of its manufacturing assets and the value of its rights to the RC Cola brand internationally should put a floor on the equity value.

G&A Needs Further Cuts

Cott needs $40-$50 million of additional EBITDA right away just to get its leverage down to a comfortable level.  Thus, the maximum $40+MM of savings from the turnaround plan MUST be achieved ASAP.  To make success more certain, Cott should target deeper cuts in the primary controllable cost: G&A.  Instead of sizing G&A to where the company wants to be, it should size it to where it is headed today.  The planned G&A cuts should be $30MM, not $20MM.  This will provide more certainty that the total savings can be achieved soon even if the operational/COGS fixes take longer than planned.

The company needs to adjust not only head-count, but also salaries and board fees.  Last year, the board of directors paid itself a whopping $1.8 million in cash director’s fees.  The interim CEO, David Gibbons, is being paid at a rate of $850,000 per year (including directors fees), plus a grant of 720,000 shares of stock.  Their current CFO made $800,000 in total comp for 2007. How can this be justified?

Crescendo’s CEO candidate has agreed to work for a salary of $625,000 and a bonus of up to 100% of salary.  How about a salary of about $400,000 and a performance-based bonus plus stock options to make up the difference?  Cott needs a leader who will bet his paycheck on his performance.

The Upside – Possibility or Pipe Dream?

With $40-$50MM of additional cash flow – initially driven by G&A cuts and later by the “water project” and improvements in the company’s business model – EBITDA could get to $120-130MM and debt would be reduced to below 3.5x EBITDA (see “Financial Summary” below).  With a return to growth and profitability taking the EBITDA multiple up to 8x, the company’s stock could be worth $8.00.

But without new leadership, this seems like a pipe dream.  The way things are going, it seems more likely that weak revenues and cost overruns lead to a cash crunch, which could lead to a death spiral.

Great Meal for a Vulture

Now is the time for action by an industry acquirer, or a private equity group with the ability to capitalize Cott properly.  Several other firms have circled Cott in recent years, but now this deal may have gotten too small for them.  Likely strategic buyers are National Beverage and Dr Pepper Snapple Group.  DPS is still highly leveraged after its “demerger” with Cadbury and has a number its own issues to deal with, so FIZZ, which has no debt, is probably the better acquirer at the moment.  Cott would also be a great fit with Polar Beverages, which has a strong position in the Northeast.  Ralph Crowley, Polar’s CEO, has a good eye for a bargain.

The Numbers

Below is a summary of historical income statement data, along with my estimate of run rates as of 6/30/08, including adjusted operating profit, and my view on adjusted EBITDA.  I have added a pro forma run rate adjusted EBITDA figure, factoring in management’s expected savings from the turnaround plan. The market seems to be anticipating adjusted EBITDA in the mid-$80MM range, but an EBITDA of $125MM or more seems to be within reach.  If Cott had the right leader, it would be a lot easier to imagine that possibility.  At the moment, it seems easier to imagine a restructuring.

______________________

(a) Annualized by applying 6-month growth rate to 2007 full year figure.
(b) Annualized revenue multiplied by the ratio of LTM COGS to LTM revenue.
(c) Equal to LTM figure.

______________________

[1] In the Q2 earnings call, management said that capital expenditures should be $30-$35 million next year, excluding the “water project.”  I assume this is “normalized” capex.

[2] In its 10-K filing for 2007, the company states that it had “material weaknesses” in its internal controls, “… affecting the financial statement balances of cost of sales; selling, general and administrative expenses; accounts receivable; amortization; income tax (benefit) expense; accounts payable; intangible assets; deferred income tax assets and shareowners equity recorded in the financial statements as of December 29, 2007.”  It also said that, ”… management oversight within the financial close process … could not be relied on to mitigate the segregation of duties internal control deficiencies.”

[3] In my Financial Summary, I estimate the run-rate adjusted operating profit to be approximately zero as of 6/30 based on year-on-year trends.  Given the lack of progress on operational improvements and continued deterioration in revenue, I think that 2008 adjusted operating profit is more likely to be down 100% than down 5% as predicted by management.

[4] Cott management said that the “water project” would take their water business, equal to 17% of North American revenue, from a zero gross margin to a “fair” gross margin.

[5] If one wants to be long in this sector but does not have the stomach for Cott, National Beverage could be an interesting pick.  It has steady cash flow and no debt, and trades at about 7x EBITDA….

(Disclosure: the author is long COT stock)
Copyright © 2008-2009 by John G. Appel. All rights reserved. You may link to any Content on this website. You may not republish, upload, post, transmit or distribute any Content without prior written permission. If you are interested in reprinting, republishing or distributing Content, please contact John Appel via the e-mail address shown on this website to obtain written consent. Modification of Content or use of Content for any purpose other than your own personal, noncommercial use is a violation of our copyright and other proprietary rights, and can subject you to legal liability. Disclaimer: This website is provided for informational purposes only. Nothing on this website is intended to provide personally tailored advice concerning the nature, potential, value or suitability of any particular security, portfolio or securities, transaction, investment strategy or other matter. You are solely responsible for any investment decisions that you make. Terms of Use: By using the site, you agree to abide by the Terms of Use, which includes further copyright information and disclaimers.
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