Charles River Laboratories International, Inc. shares are closing near attractive entry levels for a medium term horizon. Investors could regard the decline over the past weeks as a buying opportunity.
Summary
● The company has strong fundamentals. More than 70% of companies have a lower mix of growth, profitability, debt and visibility.
● The company presents an interesting fundamental situation from a short-term investment perspective.
Strengths
● Before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, the company's margins are particularly high.
● The company returns high margins, thereby supporting business profitability.
● For the last few months, EPS revisions have remained quite promising. Analysts now anticipate higher profitability levels than before.
● Analysts have a positive opinion on this stock. Average consensus recommends overweighting or purchasing the stock.
● The average target price set by analysts covering the stock is above current prices and offers a tremendous appreciation potential.
● Predictions on business development from analysts polled by Standard & Poor's are tight. This results from either a good visibility into core activities or accurate earnings releases.
● The group usually releases upbeat results with huge surprise rates.
Weaknesses
● The group shows a rather high level of debt in proportion to its EBITDA.
● The company benefits from high valuations in earnings multiples.
● The company's enterprise value to sales, at 5.49 times its current sales, is high.
● The company appears highly valued given the size of its balance sheet.
● The company is highly valued given the cash flows generated by its activity.
● The price targets of various analysts who make up the consensus differ significantly. This reflects different assessments and/or a difficulty in valuing the company.
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Charles River Laboratories International, Inc. specializes in the development of products and services in the field of research and non-clinical drug development for pharmaceutical companies, government agencies and academic institutions. Net sales break down by activity as follows:
- discovery and safety assessment services (63.4%): discovery services for the identification, screening and selection of main compounds for the development of new drug candidates, and in vivo and in vitro testing, including pharmacokinetic, bioanalytical, metabolic, toxicological and pathological studies, for the safety assessment of pharmaceutical products, medical devices, animal health products, chemical and agrochemical products and biocides;
- development and sale of research models and related services (19.2%): mice, rats, immunodeficient models, rabbits, guinea pigs, hamsters, etc. The group also offers primary cells and specialized products (bioconservation products, freezing media for cell cultures, antigens, peptides, humanized mouse models, etc.) for the development and manufacture of new cell therapies ;
- development of solutions used in drug manufacturing processes (17.5%): products and services for microbiological testing, in vitro testing, endotoxin testing, microbial identification, development, manufacturing of avian vaccines, etc. The group also offers contract manufacturing services for cell and gene therapies.
Net sales break down by source of income between sales of services (83.3%) and sales of products (16.7%).
Net sales are distributed geographically as follows: the United States (56.8%), Europe (26%), Canada (11.8%), Asia/Pacific (4.9%) and other (0.4%).
CHARLES RIVER LABORATORIES INTERNATIONAL, INC. 
