I am currently looking at several financial conglomerates: B. Riley Financial (RILY), Oppenheimer Holdings. Cowen, and Jefferies Financial Group. These companies are all trading around the 3-5 P/E range, have gross margins over 80%, and strong growth in both sales and earnings.
Of these companies, I have been primarily looking at B. Riley Financial (RILY). Valuation wise, the company has 92% gross margins, 11% ROI, 25% profit margins. Riley is also growing its sales and profits extremely fast at annual growth rates of 67% and 56% in the past 5 years. At current prices, the company offers a forward dividend yield of 4.3% and a plan for $50 million in share buybacks was recently approved.
Insiders own a large portion of the company already at 27% and are still buying significant amounts of the stock. The management looks strong overall with the CEO being the founder and heavily invested in the company. It seems like he is aggressively pushing expansion through acquisitions.
One main downside to Riley is its debt which has grown quickly as the company has increased its acquisitions. Riley has $3.9 billion in cash with $4.2 billion in debt. The long-term debt/equity ratio is high at ~3. Additionally, a large portion of the company's sales and revenue growth is not organic and comes from acquisitions or from the shell company boom. Their revenues from some divisions are also very cyclical, such as underwriting and liquidations.
Oppenheimer Holdings (OPY) and Cowen (COWN) have better balance sheets but growth is slower and management is less invested. Cowen looks to be the more interesting of the two with 35% annual sales growth in the past 5 years and some recent insider buying. Both seem exposed to cyclic revenues with their involvement in IPOs and general market participation.
Any thoughts on these companies? I am personally not too familiar with their industry.
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