stolen from the blue board24 Mar 2022 09:42
Compelling note from Peel Hunt this morning, upgrading Bur to a buy. Summary: Burford is a unique play with many attractive aspects, and the value is too good to ignore. True, investors only give full value to a devco/opco/propco mix like this when they see cash flowing in and consistent returns. For Burford, therefore, either case wins need to accelerate, or it moves to a capital-light model, or it goes private. But with the shares at close to the embedded value of 757p (PHe), the only downside we see is if Petersen fails. This is possible, and we should know more within a few months, but a risk-weighted approach sees upside to 1,515p, with our increased TP of 1,000p allowing for risk. We upgrade to Buy. And on valuation: The challenge is that public market investors typically do not like asset developers, finding their earnings too unpredictable, giving little credit to value creation to those using proprietary capital and/or investing in assets that are difficult to appraise. On the other hand, this is a unique asset, and we believe the value is simply too good. We calculate full fair value at 1,515p. Our 1,000p TP is a weighted average of 1/3 our full fair value and 2/3 the embedded value of 757p to allow for risk, up from 750p. Our top-end value would be even higher if Burford moved to a third-party funding model paying management fees, similar to its SWF deal. Or if Petersen and Eton Park win big this year.