Scroll down - latest updates are the end...

23-July-2021: I do not follow this one closely enough to add much value here unfortunately. They're in my Strawman.com virtual portfolio, but I've been selling down and taking profits there. The wind has come out of the sails a little in the past couple of weeks, and I think they need to have a ripper of a report next month to get them to resume that upward trajectory once again. My gut feel is that 40 cps is reasonable knowing what we know now, and anything above that is probably pricing in future growth that is not guaranteed to happen, but well might. In that light, they do look a little overbought above 45 cps, and if they have a poor report or even an ordinary report, I can see further downside. That said, I'm obviously wishing they do shoot the lights out, for the sake of all of the XRF shareholder we have here on Strawman.com.

25-Oct-2021: Update: ...And they did shoot the lights out, great report, and here they are testing all-time highs once again around 66 to 68 cps. Wish I still held them in real life. Not only has their share price been flying, they've also upped their dividend every 6 months since 2017, including through Covid.

At least I still have some XRF in my SM portfolio...

Upgrading my PT to 77cps.

03-Nov-2022: Update: Raising my Price Target (PT) from 77 cents to 90 cents because the company is now trading at 80c, i.e. above my previous 77c/share PT. The company continues to perform well and surprise the doubters, however I think it will take a fair bit to push through $1, so they might hang around 90c/share or thereabouts for a while before having a few goes at $1 and beyond.

I'm not going to talk about the company's fundamentals because it's not a company I follow closely now, and not one I currently hold IRL (although I have previously, and I did follow them a lot more closely then). They're in my Strawman.com virtual portfolio however, and they've performed well for me, albeit it's a relatively small position, as many of my positions here are. I was just looking through and noticed that this "valuation" was stale, so thought I'd "refresh" it. So I did.

10-Sep-2023: Updating this one again: Once again, I have to move my price target (not a valuation, just a price target) up, because the SP has overtaken my old one yet again and the business has outperformed even my lofty expectations.

I'll target $1.48 this time, and I know that's not particularly brave, since XRF closed at $1.41 on August 1st this year and were as high as $1.435 in intraday trading back then, however I'm happy to keep raising the bar and watch them sail over it again with apparent ease. There's not much of a negative nature you can say about XRF. They have good management, a good business model, they have products and services that companies and organisations need, they are very well positioned within their industry, and they keep moving in the right direction.

Occasionally they look over-valued by the market, i.e. not cheap, but then they never seem to put a foot wrong, and they don't take too much time to grow into those lofty valuations. Quality company. Quality products and services. One of the few companies who are able to increase their ROE as they grow:

Source (above bar graphs): Commsec.

Below sourced from FNArena.com:

While FNArena is showing some NPM decline over the past two years, their Net Profit Margin is still higher than it was FY18, FY19 and FY20, and still above 10%, which is a good NPM for a business of their type. Everything else (Book Value/share, Cashflow, Sales Revenue, Earnings, Dividends/share, ROE and EPS) are all continuing to rise at a good clip.

They weren't always heading northeast at a good clip, but they have been since 2018 (so for the past 5 years), and the company has never looked stronger.

Disclosure: I do hold XRF here in my SM virtual portfolio and I have held them on and off in real life also. Currently not holding IRL, but wishing I was. This is one of those companies that is high enough quality that I should just hold them through and not try to sell in and out and time them so much.

14-May-2023: Update: Marked as stale. No Change. $1.48 still good. XRF kissed my $1.48 price target at the end of April (2 weeks ago) - well, they got up to $1.46 intraday before closing at $1.44 on 30th April. Close enough. Let's see what their results in August does for their graph. Still holding both here and in my largest real money portfolio. I think I did mention here somewhere that I'd bought some XRF, paid just under $1.11 ($1.1073 average price) on Feb 26th this year. Very happy with that entry point. I also topped up here on SM shortly after that.

21-Aug-2024: Update: Post-FY24 Full Year Results. All good. Pity I sold in June. Raising my price target from $1.48 to $1.65. XRF just keep on performing. This is one I would absolutely hold in my SMSF if they were in the ASX300 index (a precondition for inclusion - fund rules) - and I plan to add them back into my larger portfolio outside of super after I harvest some dividends from a few companies that pay a much higher dividend yield than XRF do - but XRF isn't an income stock, they're a growth stock, or a really good TSR stock, so Total Shareholder Returns (Capital gains plus dividends). The only thing I am vaguely worried about is bad M&A, like making a big acquisition and overpaying, but I think that is unlikely - they've been very measured and sensible so far - very good good capital allocation record to date, including their modest payout ratio around the 60% mark, so reinvesting a decent chunk of their profits back into the business as well as sharing it with their shareholders.

Their balance sheet is solid, a negligible amount of debt, which it looks like they'll pay off this calendar year, or roll over into another facility, but under $2m total debt ($1.6m) with $12m in cash, being +$1.6m higher than their $10.4m cash balance a year ago. Plenty of net cash. Very solid balance sheet. They're not going to go broke.

Growing Revenue, Growing Earnings, Growing Margins (Revenue up 9% to $60.1m, NPAT up 16% to $8.9m), Growing Dividends, Solid Balance Sheet, Net Cash (No Net Debt), with a realistic and achievable growth strategy for FY25:

• Ramp-up sales strategy on xrTGA;
• Grow Orbis laboratory crusher sales;
• Continue with geographical expansion initiatives;
• New product releases from all divisions;
• Continue to pursue M&A opportunities. "Our targets are complementary manufacturing companies, in the laboratory supply or precious metals sectors"; and
• Work to improve their scale/market cap and their share price [which I'm assuming means get into the All Ords index and then aim for the ASX300 Index (I'd like that!)]

Yeah, plenty to like.

There aren't many companies where you can look at their EBIT, their EPS, their Dividends, their Share Price, and their Market Cap, and every single one of those five metrics has increased every single year for the past 5 years. Not a single one of them has failed to increase in ANY of those years - see table above.

This company BELONGS in my super, and since I can't hold it there, I'm going to make room for it in my other portfolio again.

Another high quality company who impressed me with their results was ARB Corporation (ARB) today (Tuesday 20th August) - however I want to buy them back when they're a little cheaper. XRF are fine @ anything under $1.60 in my view.

Further Reading:

XRF-announces-record-full-year-result.PDF

XRF-August 2024 Investor Presentation.PDF

If you want to view that Presentation without the ASX "ersonal use only" watermark up the left edge of every page, then go here: https://www.xrfscientific.com/asx/# and then scroll down a little to their ASX announcements list and click on "Download Link" to the right of the presentation title (which is "August 2024 Investor Presentation") - they've done something clever so that I can't copy that link and paste it here (or anywhere else) - it can only be used from their own website. If you click on the title of the document (on the left) instead, it opens up there within their own website - but I find it's easier to read if you use the download link on the right of the document title (and it will open up as a PDF doc).

And if that doesn't work, there's always this option: https://www.asx.com.au/markets/company/xrf

And XRF Scientific's website is: https://www.xrfscientific.com/

Disclosure: Was a holder, Not currently - except here - and will be holding again in a real-money portfolio again soon.