DG has been written up many times on VIC in the past. Kindly refer to the previous write ups for more info on the business. Both the write ups and the comments section are insightful.
General Business info:
DG Operates about 20,000 dollar stores predominantly in the US. 70% of their revenues come from consumables and the rest from food, drinks, frozen items and general merchandise. Most of their stores are located in rural areas in towns with population of less than 20,000. Their annual report claims that they Are able to reach about 80% of America’s population within a five mile radius of each of their stores. Their consumers are usually people with less than $40,000 in annual income with an average ticket size of about $12 per transaction. Most of their items cost less than $5 and a huge variety under $1. Their consumers tend to buy a $2.50 pack of tissues rather than a value Pack of tissue rolls costing about $25. Same thing with consumable items of smaller size and a lower price. Understandably this is expensive on a relative value for price basis but the financial backdrop of the consumer coerces them in buying smaller (quantity) products/packs at a lower price which allows DG to earn an almost best in the industry gross margin of around 30 to 35% on items sold.
No wonder these margins have attracted competitors in the dollar store space. Almost none other than Dollar Tree has succeeded to give Dollar General a fist fight. Giants like Walmart started Walmart express which did not pick up and had to be wound down. This also supplements the fact that DG stores are located to serve communities not served by Walmart and target. DG’s store size is relatively small 7000-9000 square feet , mostly on a long term lease in a rural location – keeping costs low. Each story is usually staffed by one store manager and 3-4 workers who work in shifts. Some store locations are notoriously known for being understaffed i.e one worker per store per day with inventory lying in the aisles, not stacked on shelves and aesthetically unpleasing. Workers are paid minimum wage and most likely not an easy job. This further keeps their costs low and operating margins high in the dollar store space. One might argue that a business should treat its employees right, but isn’t low cost and high profits what you want as an owner of a business (even more so when you know you are the only employer in town and if one person quits you can readily find someone to replace him or her). This operating model is what gives them a relatively superior operating margin consistently of 8.5-10% on a new yearly basis (historically). This creates operational excellence (of sort) when compared against its peers.
Risk of theft/robbery (as >40% of their revenues are earned in cash) and if shrinkage increases, DG might not be able to optimise their operating margins. They took debt in the 2020 – 20222 period to buy back shares at a high price of around $250 a share and to invest in growing the number of stores. In retrospect it was not the right decision, but I am of the opinion that at that time easy availability of credit and lower interest rates did not make it a wrong decision either. They could have done acquisitions but they were prudent not to do them as competitors were richly priced. (Essentially money earned can be used for three purposes a) reinvest in growth b) pay dividends and c) buy-back stock). This gives me some confidence on capital allocation decisions made by management.
A planned transition of the CFO and CEO was due in 2021-2022, but unfortunately this was coupled with macroeconomic uncertainties, inflation, an increase in the Fed rates, disappearance of easy money, DG involved in some worker disputes and a shooting at one of the stores in Florida; all of which was bad news one after another and most likely send the price in a down spiral. The newly appointed CEO (Todd Vasos) had been with DG for about 27 years indicating prudent decision making by the board. The board acted immediately and reappointed Todd Vasos as the CEO replacing Jeff Owens. This did stop further drop in price and in fact acted as a trigger in the upward movement of the stock price. The price has fallen further in the vicinity of $80.
During his tenure as CEO Todd owned about 863,000 shares of DG (He sold all of his shares as he was stepping down- mostly at a prize higher than $200 a share which approximately was worth $172 Million in total). This brought his ownership in DG 20 shares by the time Jeff became the CEO. He has been given as a part of his compensation 250,000 shares after being re-appointed as the CEO. The board seems to have put the right incentives in place, but the question that remains is does he have enough skin in the game? I am inclined to look at him selling his shares in positive light if he sold them because he thought they were overvalued (that is the rational thing to do). I remember a regional managing director of either Goldman Sachs or Morgan Stanley doing the same when their shares were overpriced during dot com bubble. I do like him if he was being objective (in terms of decision making/capital allocation)but the question remains is there enough skin in the game?
Valuation
My focus mostly would be on valuation and the risk to reward ratio. (I am assuming no share repurchases and an outstanding share count of 221M five years out).
My to-go back of the envelope valuation is as under:
The entire business is currently available at $18.3 billion. For the fiscal year ending January 2024 revenues were approximately $38.6 billion. Long term debt excluding operating leases is about $7 billion as of August 2024. Historically gross margins have been in the range of 30% to 32% while operating margins have been in the range of 8% to 9.5%. On a TTM basis these have come down to 29.7% and 5.3% respectively. This decline can be attributed to heightened promotions, markdown on (selling) prices, higher labour costs, and general inflation. The most recent conference called noted lower consumer spending in the last week of each of the three months – indicating the consumer running out of spending power and or discretionary spending (Keep in mind 60 to 70% of their consumers earn less than $40,000 a year). If this Macroeconomic challenge continues and possibly gets worse, I have outlined a worst-case scenario below as well.
Future phase over the next five years:
5 yrs out, assuming revenues in the range of $42 billion (a growth rate of 1.5%) and $45 billion (a growth rate of 3%); an operating margin of 6% and 8% (8% is the lower end of historical margins) implies EBIT of 2520M and 3600M respectively. Interest expense of about 400M** (Assuming debt increases to 8 billion at an average of 5% interest rate) in each case. Taxes at 25%** is approximately 530M and 800M respectively. Hence, PAT would be in the range of 1590M and 2400M respectively (This implies net profit margins of 3.7% – 5.3%). A multiple in the range of 12x to 14x to 16x implies a Mcap in the range of 19B to 27B to 38B. This equates to a 28B Mcap ($126 per share) on avg, 38B ($171 per share) at best and 19B ($85 per share) at worst.
** current interest expense is about 300M and taxes at 23% à Additional profits of 140M+ (if they continue to grow at the current rate without taking additional debt. Cash from operations of 1590 + 1000 = 2590M or 2400 + 1000 = 3400M should be enough to fund capex in the range of 1400M to 1800M per year).
If the current macroeconomic challenges worsen, we enter into a recession and things really get bad for DG, then……. (However, They do tend to do well during a recession because of their customer profile)
Worst case (near term):
For 2024, assuming revenues of $38 billion and an operating margin of 4.9% gives EBIT of 1862M. Interest expense of about 350M (it’s about 300 million in fact), Taxes at 25% is approximately 378 M and hence PAT at 1134M. Applying a multiple of 11X (unpopular disdained retail box multiple) implies a $12.4 billion Mcap ($56 per share). FCF would be 1134 + 900M (Depreciation) – 1400M (Capex) = 634M (Cashflow positive).
Worst case (long term):
5 yrs out (if things go south), assuming revenues of $34 billion and an operating margin of 4.2% gives EBIT of 1428M. Interest expense of about 450M (Assuming debt increases to 9 billion at an average of 5% interest rate), Taxes at 25% is approximately 244.5M and hence PAT at 733M. A 10X multiple implies a $7.3 billion Mcap ($33 per share). FCF would be 733 + 1000M (Depreciation) – 1600M (Capex) = 133M (Barely cashflow positive!). For this to materialise the economy would have to enter into a recession and/or the market structure to change in a way that allows competition – Online (Amazon) or Big box retailers (WMT and TGT) to eat away the small retail box business model. If this happens all bets are off and as Peter lynch would say “How low could it go? Well, to zero.” This scenario is possible but the probability is too low (in my opinion).
So the business is currently available at about $82 per share, on the upside it can trade up to $126 per share ($171 best case) And on the downside it can go up to $56 per share ($33 or $0 (if it goes ka-boom)). So if bought at the current price the downside is $26 Versus an upside in the range of $44 to $89. So the way I’m looking at it is I have a X dollar downside versus a 1.6X – 3.4X upside. This is in addition to a 2.8% dividend yield ($0.59 per quarter).
The return on investment profile is as under:
$126 → 9% + 2.8% = 11.8% CAGR
$171 → 15.5% + 2.8% = 18.3% CAGR
$56 → You’ll be losing money
Things to note:
The overall debt of the business excluding operating leases is about $7 billion which is more than what I am usually comfortable with. However the maturities of the debt is nicely spread out as shown below: (From 10Q of Q2 2024)
Risks :
- It could be a value trap (Current valuations might be the new norm)
- Unable to maintain or grow revenues as consumers shift to online shopping (Amazon or Walmart delivering consumables – although this was unsuccessful in the past, we can’t ignore the possibility of them disrupting and succeeding the next time they try)
- Excluding operating leases as debt as the leases are expensed in SG&A
- Mgt starts unhealthy M&A (like dollar tree’s acquisition of family dollar and the now strategic review of disposing family dollar) – This would be an exit sign for me.
- Mgt does not have skin in the game (Todd Vasos before retiring sold his $172M stake in DG and is now starting from scratch)
- the issue of shrinkage (shoplifting) expands (because of self-checkout), and the business is unable to bring it under check
- Business is unable to service the debt (if Interest rates increases by more than 500bp from current levels)
- My bias towards the people from whom this idea originated (Tom Gayner)
- Growth in the number of stores does not materialise as expected by mgt
Catalyst :
- Return to normal business conditions (micro and macro) and hence margins
- The business could be taken private
- A recession can be a boon for the business (They do tend to do well during recessionary periods)
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