CJ Century – has it missed the digital tailwind?

You would think that with the popularity of online businesses, logistics companies would be having a roaring time.

When I looked at the performance of CJ Century, I found that its share price had been trending down since peaking in mid-2022. When I looked at its ROE, I also found that it had declined from its 2014 peak.

CJ Century is focussed on its legacy logistics businesses – total logistics and procurement logistics. The EBIT margins for these 2 businesses have been declining since 2015. The Group needs to improve its operations to arrest the decline. However, it does not have a clear track record of delivering operating improvements.

To deliver a sufficient same margin of safety from the Earnings Value, CJ Century needs to achieve 11% better performance than its past 2 years average. Can it deliver this with just the legacy businesses?