Boone Pickens is building a huge wind farm with General Electric turbines. How much is the initial order with GE worth?

The initial order with GE (GE - Annual Report) will be worth about $2 billion.

Disclosure: At time of publication, William Trent has no financial position in the companies mentioned in this article.

My latest column is up at RealMoney. It is part of an ongoing series on “wallflowers” - stocks that have little or no analyst coverage from Wall Street. In this case, it is Seacor Holdings (CKH).

Over the last 12 months, Seacor has generated about $325 million in free cash flow, which equates to a very juicy free cash flow yield of nearly 17%. This wasn’t just a fluke number, either. Over the last three years, free cash flow has averaged $295 million per year.

At 1.2 times book value, Seacor is trading well below the industry average (according to Zacks Research Wizard) of 2.7 times. On the basis of its return on equity, I estimate a sustainable growth rate in the high single digits. Adding in a potential valuation expansion to the industry average, total return could range from 20% to 30% per year, with the main variable being the estimated time for Seacor’s price/book to converge to the industry average.

Disclosure: At time of publication, William Trent has no financial position in the companies mentioned in this article. 

Zacks Investment Research has provided Stock Market Beat with a complimentary trial subscription to Research Wizard.

Web Video: On May 5, strategist James Altucher said three stocks may be the “next Berkshire Hathaways.” Name one of them.

In The Next Berkshire Hathaway, Altucher names Otter Tail (OTTR), Markel (MKL), and Leucadia (LUK).

Disclosure: At time of publication, William Trent has no financial position in the companies mentioned in this article.

The latest Fortune Magazine has an article titled: Can this man save the grid?

According to the Edison Electric Institute, utilities over the next 20 years will spend hundreds of billions of dollars on infrastructure improvements, including computers, sensors, and networking systems….

One of the players best positioned to capitalize on the rollout of the smart grid is a Silicon Valley entrepreneur named Ray Bell. Bell, 52, a veteran of Oracle (ORCL - Annual Report), Cisco (CSCO), and a network services company he started called SmartPipes, has focused on what may be the most profitable component in the new system: the electric meter that sits in your basement and ticks off the watts as you consume them.

I have been an owner of the market leader in smart meters, Itron (ITRI), for some time. I found the article interesting because it uncovers a potential competitor I hadn’t previously worried about.

It costs roughly $300 apiece to replace them with one of Bell’s so-called smart meters. Southern California Edison will spend $1.7 billion over the next four years to equip 5.3 million homes with smart meters made largely by competitor Itron, based in Liberty Lake, Wash. Bell thinks he has made a better one.

That doesn’t bother me much. Of course Bell thinks his is better, otherwise he wouldn’t have bothered to make it. History is littered with products that are technologically better but fail in the marketplace. More worthy of concern, to me, is his sales force.

He has some important backers. His main partner is the biggest, most dependable name in the business: General Electric (GE - Annual Report).

GE gives instant credibility, clout and power to the product, as well as making it possibly less likely that GE would want to acquire Itron.

There’s probably enough room in the market for both players, but it is worth keeping an eye on the potential competitive effects.

Disclosure: At time of publication, William Trent owns shares of Itron (ITRI).

I should probably learn to take the money and run more quickly. Back in December I wrote about Diebold (DBD) at about $33 per share and said investors should probably look elsewhere due to earnings quality concerns and what I considered to be unsustainable cash flows. That looked good until this morning, when the takeover offer from United Technologies (UTX) sent the shares up from $25 to $39.

In the interest of full disclosure, this is the third time in as many months that a takeover bid has made one of my bearish calls look stupid (at least temporarily.) In September I wrote bearish pieces on both Yahoo (YHOO) and Delta Airlines (DAL) at prices of $23.30 and $17.65, respectively. I no longer look stupid on Delta since their deal appears to have run aground.

Interestingly, of the three Delta was the only one whose management actually wanted the deal. We’ll have to see whether the Yahoo and Diebold hostile bids suffer the same fate.

Position: No financial positions in the stocks mentioned

The following is a reprint of my January 16, 2007 RealMoney column

In a volatile market, investors tend to gravitate toward companies and investments that provide stability. As crazy as this may sound, I think that stability can be found in a semiconductor company – namely, Taiwan Semiconductor (TSM). I think the table below shows just how stable.

Taiwan Semiconductor Cash Flow Generation ($U.S. Billions)

Sources: Taiwan Semiconductor, Yahoo! Finance, William A. Trent estimates

Taiwan Semi operates in an unsexy part of the semiconductor industry known as “foundries.” It sounds as exciting as a blacksmith shop, and that isn’t far from the truth. Foundries don’t design any of the products they manufacture. Instead, they make the chips that other companies design. Their expertise isn’t in technology so much as process and efficiency.

Because they don’t design the chips themselves, Taiwan Semiconductor and other foundries such as United Microelectronics (UMC) typically get lower gross margins. The design profits fall to their customers. TSM’s expertise in manufacturing and economies, however, are much needed by customers who are often too small to absorb the enormous costs of building a chip fabrication plant.

Such customers include many fabless semiconductor companies and systems companies such as Altera (ALTR), Broadcom (BRCM - Annual Report), Marvell (MRVL - Annual Report), nVidia (NVDA), Qualcomm (QCOM) and VIA Technology, as well as integrated device manufacturing companies such as Advanced Micro Devices (AMD - Annual Report), Analog Devices (ADI), Freescale, and Philips (PHG).

Many small customers have given the company a balanced sales base. By end market, 40-45% of sales are communications-related, about 30% are to the computer market, 15-20% go to consumer electronics and the rest serve the memory and industrial markets. In 2006, the largest customer represented 10% of company sales, and the top ten amounted to just over half of sales. The lack of concentrated exposure to any customer or end market is one of the reasons TSM can generate stable cash flows.

The largest customer related risk factor may be that three quarters of sales are to customers in North America, and thus may impact the company if there is a U.S. recession. However, the global end markets for technology suggest that the true end customer is more widely dispersed geographically.

As the cash flow table shows, it seems fairly safe to say TSM will generate about $2.5 billion in cash flow. In some years, such as 2006, the cash flow may be unusually high. But even the industry downturns in 2004 and 2007 did relatively little harm. Given that the current enterprise value for Taiwan Semi is about $42 billion, it is offering a free cash flow yield of just under 6%.

If I had $42 billion that I wanted to invest safely, I might choose between buying TSM outright or investing it all in 5-year U.S. Treasuries. The Treasuries are currently yielding about 3.0%, so I would get $1.25 billion in interest each year from my investment. If that were my choice, I think I would go with the $2.5 billion in cash flow offered by Taiwan Semi.

It’s true that as a small investor owning a portion of TSM I would not be able to access all of the free cash flow. There is some risk to the comparison, since I am hoping the company invests any cash they hold onto wisely. But the company does pay two thirds of the cash flow as a dividend. Unless things change, that is still a 4.0% yield taxed at 15% compared to a 3.0% yield taxed at my marginal income tax rate.

How Bad Can it Get?

As stable as it may appear, I also have to acknowledge that TSM’s cash flow is not guaranteed. However, I think 2007 probably marked a fundamental bottom for the semiconductor industry – or at any rate that things won’t get much worse.

Consider, for example, the pricing environment. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that semiconductor prices declined 16.9% in December compared to the year earlier. That number was a modest improvement over November’s decline, which was the worst on record. Even the depths of the Internet bust were better times for semiconductor pricing. The fact that the pricing environment is so extraordinarily bad suggests to me that it probably won’t get too much worse.

Year/Year Change in Semiconductor Prices (PPI Data)

Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics

Furthermore, as I have written in other columns, I think the turnaround in semiconductor fundamentals is within sight. Pricing is a function of supply and demand, and since March of 2007 demand (semiconductor revenues as reported by the Semiconductor Industry Association) has been growing at a faster rate than supply (bookings for new semiconductor equipment as reported by Semiconductor Equipment and Materials International).

I think the industry’s recent restraint in adding new capacity will soon become evident in stronger pricing even if there is an economic slowdown. If I am right, what already looks like a solid and stable cash flow level could soon look even better.

Disclosure: William Trent has a long position in SMH.

The following is a reprint of my January 8, 2008 RealMoney column.

In other articles, I have outlined the reasons why I think the semiconductor industry is poised for strong stock performance and why I think MEMC Electronic Materials (MEMC) is the best play on the sector.

But I also realize that a bullish semiconductor outlook right now involves making a grab at that falling knife. Therefore, I thought I should also let people know which semiconductor stock looks most vulnerable to a downturn.

I think that stock is Microsemi (MSCC).

Microsemi is a leading designer, manufacturer and marketer of high performance analog and mixed-signal integrated circuits and high-reliability semiconductors. Its products manage and control or regulate power, protect against transient voltage spikes and transmit, receive and amplify signals.

Microsemi has held up fairly well, handily beating the performance of the Semiconductor HOLDRs (SMH) over the last year. This may be due largely to its strong end markets, which include defense, commercial aerospace, industrial/semicap, medical, mobile connectivity and notebooks, monitors and LCD televisions.

More Questions Than Answers

To me, however, the strong end markets only raise questions concerning Microsemi’s fundamental performance. For example, with such strong end markets, why did its cash from operations fall by more than half in the year ended September 30, 2007, compared with the prior year? Why is its inventory rising faster than sales, and why is its gross margin slipping?

I turned to the company’s latest 10K in hope of finding answers.

To begin with, the area is highly competitive. According to the 10K (emphasis added), “some of our current major competitors are Freescale Semiconductor, Inc., National Semiconductor Corp. (NSM), Texas Instruments, Inc. (TXN - Annual Report), Koninklijke Philips Electronics (PHG), ON Semiconductor Corp. (ONNN), Fairchild Semiconductor International, Inc. (FCS), Micrel Incorporated (MCRL), International Rectifier Corp. (IRF), Semtech Corp. (SMTC), Linear Technology Corp. (LLTC), Maxim Integrated Products, Inc. (MXIM), Skyworks Solutions, Inc. (SWKS), Diodes, Inc. (DIOD - Annual Report), Vishay Intertechnology, Inc. (VSH), O2Micro International, Ltd. (OIIM) and Monolithic Power Systems, Inc. (MPWR).” Gosh, I wouldn’t want them to leave anyone out.

Yet competition is just the third risk factor among a list that runs more than 12 pages.

The company notes the decline in net income related to non-cash acquisition related charges, restructuring charges and other factors. Yet non-cash charges don’t quite explain the decline in cash flow from operating activity. Furthermore, with “non-recurring” charges being reported in each of the last three years I’m going to go out on a limb and say investors can probably expect more of them in the future.

A Questionable Acquisition

According to the 10K, the company completed a merger with PowerDsine on January 9, 2007 and subsequently renamed PowerDsine Ltd., Microsemi Corp. - Analog Mixed Signal Group, Ltd. (”AMSGL”). Later, it notes that it “provided a valuation allowance of approximately $9,534,000 as of September 30, 2007 on all of our net deferred tax assets related to AMSGL as we have determined that it was more likely than not that the deferred tax assets would not be realized.”

Deferred tax assets are realized when the company earns taxable income in future periods. I’m not a big fan of acquiring companies that will “more likely than not” fail to earn taxable income in the future. This was one of the contributors to the decline in cash flow.

Microsemi’s gross margin weakened in the latest quarter (see chart.)

Source: Zacks Research Wizard, compiled by William A. Trent

I think there is additional margin risk stemming from burgeoning inventory levels.

Source: Zacks Research Wizard, compiled by William A. Trent

Since a large percentage of costs at semiconductor companies is fixed, producing more units results in a lower cost per unit and higher profit margins. But many of the additional units Microsemi is producing are going into inventory rather than the hands of customers.

At some point, Microsemi is going to have to sell that inventory (by producing less than customers demand.) That will reverse the positive effect on future gross margins.

Valuation Too High

All this would matter less if the stock looked cheap. But on the basis of free cash flow yield, which is my favored metric, Microsemi looks more expensive than most of its peers.

Free cash flow in 2007 was less than $4 million. On an enterprise value of $1.56 billion, that amounts to a free cash flow yield of just 0.25%. The cash flow would have to grow 150-fold just to bring the yield on par with that of Treasury bonds.

Even using the company’s best cash flow on record ($36.5 million in 2006) the yield is just 2.35% - nearly a percentage point below that of Treasuries. If I thought the company could return to the 2006 cash flow level, then grow at the forecast rate, I would be willing to consider an investment.

But given the rising inventory, unprofitable acquisition and potential for further declines in gross margin, I won’t be holding my breath.

Disclosures: William Trent is long Semiconductor HOLDRS (SMH) and Maxim Integrated Products (MXIM). He holds put options against shares of Lam Research (LRCX).

Note: If you want to find great mutual funds
make sure to check smartmoney.com.

William Trent currently owns put options against the shares of Lam Research (LRCX).

This article was originally published at RealMoney on November 6, 2007.

Parametric Technology (PMTC) develops software used for Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) and Enterprise Content Management (ECM). At a P/E of approximately 15x and a 5.3% free cash flow yield, Parametric appears cheap relative to other technical software developers. However, its earnings quality has historically been low and it faces more severe competition than some of its peers. With earnings quality improving and the valuation favorable, PMTC certainly bears watching. But for now I think Dassault Systemes (DASTY) and Ansys (ANSS) have sufficiently better prospects to justify their higher valuations.

Compared to companies like Ansys, which develops highly technical products and has relatively few competitors, Parametric has significant competition in each of its business segments.

PLM competitors include Dassault Systemes SA, Siemens (SI) subsidiary UGS, Autodesk (ADSK) and Agile Software (AGIL). They also compete with larger enterprise-solution companies such as SAP (SAP - Annual Report) that have entered the PLM market and offer solutions integrated with their other enterprise software applications.

ECM competitors include EMC (EMC - Annual Report) Documentum, IBM’s (IBM - Annual Report) FileNet, OpenText, Adobe (ADBE) Framemaker, and the Microsoft (MSFT - Annual Report) Office suite.

Parametric suffered mightily during the tech downturn, but since 2004 the company has been engineering a turnaround based on improved profitability and a return to growth. Current consensus growth estimates for the next five years are just 7%, or half the rate expected for the industry. The lower growth estimates are part of the reason for the cheaper valuation. However, they also make for a lower bar to clear, and the recent reversals of its deferred tax valuation allowance are a signal that the company is now “more likely than not” to earn sufficient income in future years to utilize tax losses from prior periods.

There are a few other issues that cause me to think Parametric’s low valuation is justified. For example, 58% of revenues are derived in North America, which faces an uncertain near-term economic outlook.

Another issue is earnings quality. Gross margins have been declining due to a higher percentage of revenue being derived from consulting and training rather than license and maintenance revenue. A bad debt charge-off in 2006 and increased customer financing activity are other signals that earnings quality may be low.

To get a feel for overall earnings quality, I calculated the accrual ratio, or the change in net operating assets divided by average net operating assets. This ratio describes the percentage of earnings contributed by discretionary accounting items rather than actual cash flows. An ideal accrual ratio would fluctuate around zero. Parametric’s has been all over the map, though it has been improving for several quarters.

Sources: Zacks Research Wizard, William A. Trent

If Parametric continues to improve its earnings quality, or if it gives back some of the stock gains it enjoyed post-earnings (or preferably both!) it could become an attractive buy candidate.  In the meantime, interested investors may find an option play worthwhile.

The January 17.50 puts were trading recently at $0.50/$0.75. If you could write the option for $0.60 it would offer a 3.1% 2.5-month return on the money at risk, which annualizes to nearly 15%. You’d be forced to pay $17.50 for the shares if they drop between now and then, but the option premium would give you an effective price of just $16.90. At that price, the 6.0% free cash flow yield would probably be enticing enough to justify a buy anyway.

Disclosure: Short naked put options on Ansys (ANSS)

William Trent currently has a short position in put options related to Office Depot (ODP).

This article was originally published at RealMoney on November 5, 2007.

Dassault Systemes (DASTY) is trading down nearly 6% after the company trimmed its earnings outlook by five Eurocents last week. The company now expects to earn between €1.96 and €2.00 in 2007, compared with earlier guidance of €2.00 - €2.05. With a solid overall business and a valuation that I believe looks reasonable, I think investors will ultimately find today’s price to have been an excellent entry point.

Dassault designs engineering software used for Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) (81% of 2006 revenue) and Mainstream 3-D design (19%). It has grown through organic growth and a series of acquisitions, including Abaqus in 2005 and MatrixOne in 2006 – each of which was in the order of $500 million consideration. It is 44.5% owned and effectively controlled by France’s Groupe Industriel Marcel Dassault.

Dassault offers software under several brands, including Solidworks for Mainstream 3D design and CATIA, DELMIA, SIMULIA and ENOVIA for PLM. However, a key aspect of its growth strategy is to combine the strengths of its various programs and allow customers to customize solutions using the company’s V5 platform.

The company generates 47% of its revenue in Europe, 31% in the Americas and the remainder in Asia. Although it blamed the lowered outlook on the weak dollar, the company’s latest annual report said its greatest currency exposures are between the Euro (its reporting currency) and the Yen, Pound and Korean Won.

More than half of the company’s sales are on a recurring (software rental or maintenance contract) basis rather than through perpetual license fees. With a largely industrial customer base, revenue growth drivers include business investment and industrial production in its end markets.

Competition

Dassault lists its primary PLM competitors as Parametric (PMTC) and Unigraphics, which was recently acquired by Siemens (SI). Its main competitor in Mainstream 3D is Autodesk (ADSK). The company also competes with Ansys (ANSS), Agile (AGIL), MSC Software (a href="http://stockmarketbeat.com/blog1/category/msc-software-mscs/">MSCS - Annual Report) and to a lesser extent Oracle (ORCL - Annual Report) and SAP (SAP - Annual Report).

The combined revenue of the nearest competitors and comparables, which I believe to be Dassault, Ansys, MSC and Parametric, has been approximately 11% annually over the last decade. Dassault has used its acquisitions and the opportunities provided by the V5 platform to grow at a faster rate than its peers.

In 2006 Dassault grew 24%, much of which was contributed by the Abaqus and MatrixOne acquisitions. On an organic basis sales grew 10% (12% assuming constant currency exchange rates.)

Risks

As I see it, the greatest risk Dassault faces is loss of a major customer. Although the company cites a customer base of 100,000 just 20 of those account for 25% of sales, with the largest customer accounting for 5%.

A potentially greater, though probably less likely risk is the company’s long-standing relationship with International Business Machines (IBM - Annual Report). IBM has a non-exclusive distribution relationship with Dassault and accounted for 45% of sales in 2006, so a rift between the companies could have a serious impact. The companies renegotiated the partnership earlier this year such that Dassault is taking responsibility for mid-market customers and IBM will serve enterprise customers. However, this adds a new risk related to maintaining a larger sales force.

Valuation

Dassault current market cap is approximately $7.3 billion, and with net cash on hand of nearly half a billion its enterprise value is about $6.8 billion. Given that it is on track to exceed its 2006 free cash flow generation of $300 million, the free cash flow yield of 4.4% compares favorably to the yield on five-year treasuries, and the 10% growth rate of recent years looks like a nice inducement for taking on the added risk.

By some common measures (5x book value and a P/E in the mid-20’s) the stock doesn’t exactly look like a bargain. But these measures overlook the cash flow generating power available to software companies. With essentially fixed costs and high margins, each dollar of sales contributes mightily to cash.

Although a recession or slowdown in Dassault’s key end markets or further dollar weakening could delay investor rewards, Dassault’s current valuation and long-term prospects appear to justify the wait.

Disclosure: Short naked put options on Ansys (ANSS)

Note: Set up high growth savings accounts and plan for your financial future today!

This article was originally published at RealMoney on September 26, 2007.

My article last week about mining the PPI report for stock ideas was so well received I thought I’d share another of my favorite taxpayer-provided idea generators, the durable goods report. Published by the U.S. Census Bureau, the report has a similar breakdown by industry of durable goods orders, shipments, inventories and backlog.  I came away with 28 potential ideas for further research.

In line with much of the recent economic data, the headline durable goods number was weaker than expected. To quote from the report, “New orders for manufactured durable goods in August decreased $11.3 billion or 4.9 percent to $219.5 billion, the U.S. Census Bureau announced today…. Shipments of manufactured durable goods in August, down two of the last three months, decreased $3.4 billion or 1.6 percent to $216.7 billion.”

But in this case, I think focusing on the forest means you could miss out on some of the more attractive trees. I gathered the data from the Census Bureau and created charts showing the year/year change in durable goods statistics for a variety of industries hoping to find some areas worth further consideration. Keep in mind, this is an initial screen for idea generation, not a full-fledged analysis of any of the names. You wouldn’t want to buy the stocks listed here without further research. That caveat aside, let’s look at some of the better performing industries.

First up is technology – computers and electronic products. Although 3.3% order growth year/year and essentially flat shipments may not be the type of growth investors typically look for from tech, it is a clear improvement from recent months. Inventories are starting to be drawn down and backlog remains strong.

But there are areas of strength and weakness within tech. Specifically, computers (and related products) themselves are starting to look strong, with backlog headed through the roof and inventories in check.

The fairly obvious stock ideas from this industry include Apple (AAPL), IBM (IBM - Annual Report) and Hewlett Packard (HPQ - Annual Report). If things keep getting better (and the company figures out how to file its required regulatory reports) Dell (DELL) might even look interesting again. Stretching a bit further, Sun Microsystems (a href="http://stockmarketbeat.com/blog1/category/tech/sunw/">SUNW - Annual Report) and Lexmark (LXK) come to mind. And don’t forget the storage plays, which also showed up on the PPI hotlist. The names I mentioned then were Brocade (BRCD), EMC (EMC - Annual Report), Iomega (IOM), Hutchinson (HTCH), Quantum (QTM), SanDisk (SNDK - Annual Report), Seagate (STX - Annual Report) and Western Digital (WDC).

Communications equipment is also showing some signs of strength. Though the latest month was down, the trend seems to be up.

I have actually analyzed Motorola (MOT - Annual Report), so that would be a play to include here. Cisco (CSCO), Research in Motion (RIMM), 3Com (COMS), Nokia (NOK) and Corning (GLW - Annual Report) also come to mind.

And finally, turning away from technology, I hope you didn’t think the aircraft boom was over. If anything, it looks to be picking up steam.

Ways to play this include Boeing (BA - Annual Report), Embraer (ERJ), General Dynamics (GD - Annual Report), United Industrial (UIC) and Cessna parent Textron (TXT). Parts suppliers include Rockwell Collins (COL), Curtiss Wright (CW - Annual Report), and LMI Aerospace (LMIA).

So there you have it: 28 potential stock ideas from what looked at first glance to be a negative report on durable goods.

Disclosure: Long RIMM put options at time of publication.