Avoid This Tech Value Trap
Meena is a member of The Motley Fool Blog Network -- entries represent the personal opinion of the blogger and are not formally edited.
Kynikos hedge fund manager Jim Chanos reported on Wednesday that he is shorting Hewlett-Packard (NYSE: HPQ), calling it a big “value trap.” There have been a variety of responses to this. Phillipe Laffont, manager of Coatue, essentially agreed with Chanos in a CNBC interview (and you won’t find any HP in Laffont’s portfolio, heavy in Equinix (EQIX), Google (GOOG), and Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL), which you can view here). That said, there is a fair amount of dissenting opinion. Where is HP heading, and what does Chanos see?
Chanos’ criticism of HP, and the reason that he thinks it can sink yet lower, is that HP is allegedly ambiguous on its overall research and development figures. Recent acquisitions, Chanos claims, are generating cash flow but masking the fact that the company is actually burning cash at unsustainable (or even critical) rates. He also believes the core products for HP--its printers and PCs--will be swallowed up in a post-PC tech environment.
The idea of shorting HP might initially seem odd. Shares in the company are trading at their lowest levels in seven years, at around $19. A quick glance at valuation multiples doesn’t exactly scream “short it!"; the company is trading at 0.9 times book value and 0.3 times sales, both of which figures are below the sector’s bottom quintile values. And voila, HP is undervalued!
Actually, this is not a very good way of thinking about tech valuation, if only because it has a direct and recent counterexample. Research in Motion (NASDAQ: BBRY), another beleaguered tech firm, has very similar P/E and P/B multiples. Yet, since May, RIM has lost more than half of its total market capitalization, and its shares are trading at $7, down from $14. That would have been a good shorting idea despite the ratios (interestingly, Laffont held shares of RIM but not HP at the end of March).
We need to dig a little deeper. Let me quote Meg Whitman in the company’s 2011 annual report: “What is HP?” That’s the right question to ask. The answer from Whitman is decidedly conservative. She labels 2012 a rebuilding year--fair enough. Deriving 70 percent of its revenues from infrastructure products, HP maintains a portfolio of hardware and software that is “about solving customer problems.” The language in Dell’s (NASDAQ: DELL) report is very similar; it derived 50 percent of its gross margin from its enterprise services and solutions (by the way, Chanos said he considered shorting DELL as well but didn’t do so after the sharp declines over the past few months). So HP solves problems as they arise.
In other words, HP is not riding the next tech wave along with Apple and Google. HP is solving customer problems while a company like Apple is discovering customer problems. Who knew that customers “needed” an iPad, especially since tablets had already failed so many times before? To be fair, tech companies don’t need to be another Apple. HP claims it is in a consolidation mode and that it is done with acquisitions for at least the next year.
Consider IBM (NYSE: IBM). IBM is also not riding the next tech wave. It reached a different understanding with its shareholders: It raised its dividend 20 percent and approved a $7 billion share buyback earlier this year. Its rebuilding has come and gone regarding the PC, as it sold its PC unit to Lenovo in 2005. HP has vowed not to spin off its Personal Systems Group in an analogous manner. From that sale and restructuring of its business, it still took IBM shares until 2007 to see upward price momentum. Now, IBM not only solves problems; it leads the way in the cognitive computing revolution and is the world leader in enterprise computing. And it probably will stay there.
As one commentator said, Chanos is playing in the deep end of the pool. The average investor probably won’t (and shouldn’t) go home and short a stock that is trading at seven year lows, regardless of the outlook. The takeaways, I think, are (a) pay attention to cash flows for HP in the coming months, (b) think twice before initiating new long positions in HP, and (c) don’t get caught up in valuation metrics without looking at a tech company’s game plan in the post-PC environment.
This article is written by Brian Tracz and edited by Meena Krishnamsetty. Meena has long positions in Apple, Google, and Dell. The Motley Fool owns shares of Apple and International Business Machines. Motley Fool newsletter services recommend Apple. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.If you have questions about this post or the Fool’s blog network, click here for information.
