Monday, October 20, 2014

Valeant Part XIII: channeling Jeff Skilling - or trying to reconstruct Valeant's balance sheet

There was a very famous conference call once where Highfields Capital analyst Richard Grubman asked for a balance sheet with Enron's earnings statement. Jeff Skilling's response is a key part of the Enron legend.
Grubman: You’re the only financial institution that can’t produce a balance sheet or cash flow statement with their earnings. 
Skilling: You…you…you. Well, uh…thank you very much. We appreciate it. Asshole.
The "asshole" quip disappeared from the conference call transcript but everyone remembered it.

Well today Valeant produced a earnings result with only cursory balance sheet data and no balance sheet. Linked here is the SEC release.  And here is all they say about balance sheet.

Valeant Pharmaceuticals International, Inc.
Table 5
Consolidated Balance Sheet and Other Data
(In millions)
5.1 Cash


  As ofAs of
  September 30,December 31,
  20142013
Cash and cash equivalents
  $808.8  $600.3  
Marketable securities
  —    —    
  




Total cash and marketable securities
  $808.8  $600.3  
  




Debt
  
Series A-1 Tranche A Term Loan Facility
  $182.3  $259.0  
Series A-2 Tranche A Term Loan Facility
  166.3  228.1  
Series A-3 Tranche A Term Loan Facility
  1,813.9  1,935.7  
Series D-2 Tranche B Term Loan Facility
  1,088.6  1,256.7  
Series C-2 Tranche B Term Loan Facility
  837.5  966.8  
Series E-1 Tranche B Term Loan Facility
  2,544.8  3,090.5  
Senior Notes
  9,629.5  9,618.9  
Other
  12.0  12.0  
  




  16,274.9  17,367.7  
Less: current portion
  (191.7(204.8
  




Total long-term debt
  $16,083.2  $17,162.9

Okay - net debt was $15,466.1 million (being $16,274.9 minus 808.8).

Lets go back a quarter ago. Here is the balance sheet from the 10Q:


VALEANT PHARMACEUTICALS INTERNATIONAL, INC.
CONSOLIDATED BALANCE SHEETS
(All dollar amounts expressed in millions of U.S. dollars)
(Unaudited)
As of
June 30,
 2014
As of
December 31,
 2013
Assets
Current assets:
Cash and cash equivalents
$
531.2

$
600.3

Trade receivables, net
1,770.7

1,676.4

Inventories, net
942.5

883.0

Prepaid expenses and other current assets
452.6

343.4

Assets held for sale
1,156.9

15.9

Deferred tax assets, net
309.8

366.9

Total current assets
5,163.7

3,885.9

Property, plant and equipment, net
1,319.6

1,234.2

Intangible assets, net
11,751.4

12,848.2

Goodwill
9,436.3

9,752.1

Deferred tax assets, net
18.3

54.9

Other long-term assets, net
206.3

195.5

Total assets
$
27,895.6

$
27,970.8

Liabilities
Current liabilities:
Accounts payable
$
327.7

$
327.0

Accrued and other current liabilities
1,774.9

1,800.2

Acquisition-related contingent consideration
88.9

114.5

Current portion of long-term debt
266.7

204.8

Liability held for sale
27.1


Deferred tax liabilities, net
11.0

66.0

Total current liabilities
2,496.3

2,512.5

Acquisition-related contingent consideration
238.1

241.3

Long-term debt
17,058.8

17,162.9

Pension and other benefit liabilities
165.5

172.0

Liabilities for uncertain tax positions
115.8

169.1

Deferred tax liabilities, net
2,238.8

2,319.2

Other long-term liabilities
215.0

160.5

Total liabilities
22,528.3

22,737.5

Commitments and contingencies (note 17)




Equity
Common shares, no par value, unlimited shares authorized, 333,777,181 and
  333,036,637 issued and outstanding at June 30, 2014 and December 31, 2013, respectively
8,325.9

8,301.2

Additional paid-in capital
212.2

228.8

Accumulated deficit
(3,175.3
)
(3,278.5
)
Accumulated other comprehensive loss
(104.7
)
(132.8
)
Total Valeant Pharmaceuticals International, Inc. shareholders’ equity
5,258.1

5,118.7

Noncontrolling interest
109.2

114.6

Total equity
5,367.3

5,233.3

Total liabilities and equity
$
27,895.6

$
27,970.8



Cash and equivalents was $531 million. Long term debt was $17058 million. Current debt was $266.7 million.

Net debt was thus $16793 million.

Net debt thus dropped $1327 million in the quarter. That looks pretty good.

Except that they sold the Aesthetics business during the quarter.

Slide 165 of this presentation (reproduced below) indicates net proceeds of $1240 million.

Net of this they generated only $88 million of cash in the quarter.

Which given they had $2 billion of sales and everyone thinks their cash margin is about 50 percent does not seem to compute.




We could of course work it out with a balance sheet and cash flow statement. It is probably all sweet and innocent.

So at the risk of being called an "asshole" please Mr Pearson will you give me a balance sheet and a cash flow statement with your earnings?





John

Thursday, October 16, 2014

Nu Skin's capital structure makeover

Yesterday Nu Skin announced that they had a new loan to replace the old loan. This was essential because the old loan was about to breach its covenants and an event of default would not be a good thing for Nu Skin shareholders or their management.

So prima-facie the new loan was good news.

The stock however dropped almost 10 percent (and was briefly down more).

The loan terms are onerous and complicated and there are some bizarre disclosures in the attachments to the loan document.

The first bizarre thing about the loan is the disclosure as to how much is drawn immediately. Here it is:
The Credit Agreement provides for a $127,500,000 term loan facility, a ¥6,593,406,594 term loan facility and a $187,500,000 revolving credit facility, each with a term of five years.  The term loan facilities were drawn in full on October 10, 2014, and $112,500,000 of the revolving credit facility was also drawn on October 10, 2014.

They immediately drew $127.5 million dollars of term loan, ¥6.59 billion and a further $112.5 million on the revolver.  That is $309.4 million USD.

This is way more debt than they had at the end of the previous quarter. Here is the balance sheet from the last 10-Q.

NU SKIN ENTERPRISES, INC.
Consolidated Balance Sheets (Unaudited)
(U.S. dollars in thousands)

June 30, 2014
December 31, 2013
ASSETS
Current assets:
Cash and cash equivalents
$
219,501
$
525,153
Current investments
14,227
21,974
Accounts receivable
41,712
68,652
Inventories, net
389,650
339,669
Prepaid expenses and other
180,957
162,886
846,047
1,118,334
Property and equipment, net
429,332
396,042
Goodwill
112,446
112,446
Other intangible assets, net
79,258
83,168
Other assets
136,531
111,072
Total assets
$
1,603,614
$
1,821,062
LIABILITIES AND STOCKHOLDERS' EQUITY
Current liabilities:
Accounts payable
$
35,836
$
82,684
Accrued expenses
383,012
626,284
Current portion of debt
99,828
67,824
518,676
776,792
Long-term debt
111,621
113,852
Other liabilities
81,559
71,799
Total liabilities
711,856
962,443
Commitments and contingencies (Note 9)
Stockholders' equity:
Class A common stock – 500 million shares authorized, $.001 par value, 90.6 million  shares issued
91
91
Additional paid-in capital
410,440
397,383
Treasury stock, at cost – 31.3 million and 31.6 million shares, respectively
(844,615)
(826,904)
Accumulated other comprehensive loss
(42,284)
(46,228)
Retained earnings
1,368,126
1,334,277
891,758
858,619
Total liabilities and stockholders' equity
$
1,603,614
$
1,821,062



In the last quarter they had $219.5 million in cash and another $14.2 million in current investments. Against this they had $99.8 million in current debt and another $111.6 million in long term debt.

Total debt was $211.4 and net debt was zero.

Despite this they drew $302 million at moderately high interest rates.

But it is worse than that... the old debt numbers included some debt in Japan and Korea. Some of that is being left in place as per the loan covenant. In quantity:

Indebtedness
Debt
Borrower
Lender
Currency
Amount
Nu Skin Japan Co., Ltd.
Mizuho Bank
Japan Yen
  1,000,000,000
NSE Korea Ltd.
Shinhan Bank
US Dollar
      20,000,000
That is another $30.5 million of debt.

So now - suddenly - the company has $339.9 million in debt - way more than the $211.4 they used to have. The rise is inexplicable because their last accounts showed net cash.

The company has rapidly - and at what was to them a penal interest rate - borrowed a huge amount of money they didn't seem to need a quarter ago and when they had net cash.

And it can't be for an acquisition because the loan covenants prohibit that.

If you have any good idea what the sink-hole that absorbed this much cash is let me know. However if this cash were needed during the last quarter the whole thing is diabolical. Bluntly if it were needed the company is presumably and somehow massively loss making. I simply do not know how. I am a bear on this stock but that is worse than I would have dared to guess.

Two hypotheses:

(a) the company is secretly massively cash consumptive and we do not know (in which case short) or
(b) the company is drawing a huge amount of debt for which it has no obvious use and which it is prohibited to use for an acquisition [that might include buy-backs as discussed below].

But remember this: Nu Skin drew the revolvers. And it drew them hard. Drawing the revolvers has precedent. It is seldom something that makes credit providers happy. There may be a good explanation (truly). The market has not been provided with it.

Dividend restrictions

The story from yesterday was that the debt covenants involved dividend restrictions. This came from slightly ambiguous wording in the press release.

The press release states:

The Credit Agreement requires the Company to maintain a consolidated leverage ratio not exceeding 2.25 to 1.00 and a consolidated interest coverage ratio of no less than 3.00 to 1.00. The Credit Agreement also includes other covenants, including covenants that, subject to certain exceptions, restrict the ability of the Company and its subsidiaries (i) to create, incur, assume or permit to exist any liens, (ii) to incur additional indebtedness, (iii) to make investments and acquisitions, (iv) to enter into mergers, consolidations or similar transactions, (v) to make certain dispositions of assets, (vi) to make dividends, distributions and prepayments of certain indebtedness, (vii) to change the nature of the Company's business, (viii) to enter into certain transactions with affiliates, (ix) to enter into certain burdensome agreements, (x) to make certain amendments to certain agreements and organizational documents and (xi) to make certain accounting changes.

The highlighted section makes it clear that the company may not pay dividends subject to certain exceptions, which means provided they meet these exceptions they may pay dividends.

Indeed the loan documents allow the following use of proceeds:
Section 6.11.   Use of Proceeds.  Use the proceeds of the Credit Extensions (i) for working capital, capital expenditures, and other lawful corporate purposes, including (without limitation) investments, acquisitions, stock repurchases and dividends not prohibited by the Loan Documents and (ii) to consummate the Refinancing
So they may buy back stock and pay dividends provided they meet a fairly burdensome list of possible events of default.

An event of default is disastrous under the new documents because it involves immediate acceleration. You do not want immediate acceleration ever.

That said - and it is a clear positive for Nu Skin - the default based on trailing operating cash flow has been removed. As indicated in past blog posts Nu Skin is peculiar - it generates substantial earnings and huge negative operating cash flows. Nu Skin breaches its cash flow based covenants - and these have been removed.

The only explanation (that is not truly nasty) that I have for drawing the revolvers is a deep desire to use the cash (whilst it is available) to buy back stock. However given the nasty taste that drawing revolvers gives to credit providers this is an aggressive thing to do. [But it is possible. I am not dismissing it.]

Receiveables from offshore entities

The disclosure that caused most amazement amongst Nu Skin watchers was a disclosure at the back of the credit agreement about how much money their offshore subsidiaries own them. This is a list:


Intercompany Receivables
Nu Skin Enterprises United States, Inc.
Nu Skin Canada, Inc.
           146,199
Nu Skin Enterprises, Inc.
Nu Skin Enterprises New Zealand, Inc.
           175,787
Nu Skin Enterprises Hong Kong, LLC
         7,675,959
Nu Skin Japan Co., Ltd.
           620,350
NSE Korea Ltd.
         5,824,767
Nu Skin Enterprises Singapore, Pte. Ltd.
           230,681
Nu Skin Israel, Inc.
           165,000
Nu Skin Taiwan, LLC
               1,363
Jixi Nu Skin Vitameal Co., Ltd.
           430,500
Pharmanex (Huzhou) Health Products Co., Ltd.
         5,432,400
NSE Asia Products, Pte. Ltd.
         8,035,931
Nu Skin International, Inc.
Nu Skin International Management Group, Inc.
       44,301,819
Nu Skin Mexico, S.A. de C.V
         5,672,930
Nu Skin Guatemala, S.A.
         3,488,701
Nu Skin El Salvador S. A. de C.V.
           104,543
Nu Skin Honduras, S.A.
           131,853
Nu Skin Costa Rica
           377,841
Nu Skin Venezuela, C.A.
         6,421,303
Nu Skin Colombia, Inc.
           128,188
Nu Skin Argentina, Inc.
           759,321
Nu Skin Enterprises New Zealand, Inc.
           436,748
Nu Skin Enterprises (Thailand) Limited
           627,077
Nu Skin Enterprises Philippines, LLC
           159,190
Nu Skin (Malaysia) Sdn. Bhd.
         1,321,469
Nu Skin Pharmanex (B) Sdn. Bhd.
             30,366
Nu Skin Israel, Inc.
         2,725,815
PT Nu Skin Distribution Indonesia
         6,427,129
PT Nu Selaras Indonesia
           924,291
Nu Skin Enterprises Viet Nam Limited Liability Company
           520,580
Nu Skin Enterprises RS, Ltd.
           283,453
Nu Skin Enterprises South Africa (Proprietary) Limited
         1,163,340
Nu Skin (China) Daily-Use & Health Products Co., Ltd.
         2,207,202
NSE Asia Products, Pte. Ltd.
       53,477,483
NSE Products, Inc.
Nu Skin Netherlands, B.V.
             86,794
Nu Skin Germany, GmbH
           101,827
Nu Skin France, SARL
             27,185
Nu Skin Italy, Srl
           177,788
Nu Skin Enterprise SRL
       12,164,682
Nu Skin Eastern Europe Ltd.
             74,974
Nu Skin Enterprises Poland Sp. Z.o.o.
               8,814
Nu Skin Turkey Cilt Bakimi Ve Besleyici Uranleri Ticarel Limited Sirketi
           597,032
Nu Skin Islandi ehf.
           849,996
Nu Skin Czech Republic, S.r.o.
           217,724
Nu Skin Slovakia
             98,394
Nu Skin Israel, Inc.
           599,956
Nu Skin Enterprises South Africa (Proprietary) Limited
             71,231
Nu Skin International Management Group, Inc.
         2,272,938
Nu Skin Mexico, S.A. de C.V
           969,970
Nu Skin Guatemala, S.A.
           960,774
Nu Skin El Salvador S. A. de C.V.
                 265
Nu Skin Costa Rica
         2,194,916
Nu Skin Canada, Inc.
         4,446,848
Nu Skin Venezuela, C.A.
       23,896,815
Nu Skin Colombia, Inc.
         7,811,575
Nu Skin Argentina, Inc.
           414,677
Nu Skin Enterprises New Zealand, Inc.
         4,010,293
Nu Skin Enterprises Australia, Inc.
         1,316,560
NSE Korea Ltd.
       18,651,855
Nu Skin Enterprises Philippines, LLC
           319,735


Nu Skin Enterprises Viet Nam Limited Liability Company
           224,177
Nu Skin Enterprises Ukraine, LLC
           377,261
Nu Skin Enterprises RS, Ltd.
         4,998,951
Nu Skin (China) Daily-Use & Health Products Co., Ltd.
     133,465,866
NSE Asia Products, Pte. Ltd.
       23,849,660
Total
     405,689,111


The total is almost $406 million. This is large - about half the stockholders equity and the bulk of tangible stockholders equity.

If the foreign subsidiaries have the cash (and it is presumed they do) then they should - subject to payment restrictions - just pay it.

There is $24 million owed to head office by Venezuela. Good luck collecting that. But outside that the amounts should be collectable if the foreign subsidiaries are good for it. There is $133 million owed by China. This might be difficult to collect based on the amount of activity we have seen in China. However if they own the very large office complex we saw (see the post) they could collect some of it by selling up.

But the more pertinent question is why haven't all those subsidiaries been able to pay the money they owe to head office? Inquiring minds are asking. Especially as the company drew the revolvers.

--

Venezuela

The Venezuela amounts are irrelevant in Nu Skin (and Herbalife for that matter) but there is a contradiction between what the table above shows and the management says. According to recent presentation at the Wedbush conference they only had $10-15 million of sales in Venezuela.

It is hard to see how they are owed $24 million by a subsidiary that only has half that in sales. I can't square it. A clearer explanation of Venezuela exposure would be nice.






John