Company Reports

We will discontinue analyst coverage of JBT on or about Dec. 21. We provide analyst research and ratings on over 1,500 companies globally and periodically adjust our coverage according to investor interest and staffing.

Nothing in narrow-moat-rated JBT’s latest results materially alters our long-term view. We are raising our fair value estimate to $119 per share from $117 due to the time value of money.

We believe JBT will benefit from growth in the global middle class, which should materially increase by 2030, and we expect that the Asia-Pacific region will be a disproportionate contributor to that growth. We believe this helps JBT FoodTech because per capita meat consumption in APAC has traditionally and significantly lagged that of Europe and North America. North America’s per capital meat consumption is 3-3.5 times that of APAC, but we expect that gap to narrow during our five-year explicit forecast. Overall global meat consumption is also on the rise, as people have become more conscious of protein intake in their diet.

After reviewing narrow-moat-rated John Bean Technologies' second-quarter results, we reduce our fair value estimate to $117 per share from $121 previously. Our reduced fair value mostly stems from fully modeling the sale of AeroTech to OshKosh at a discount to our calculated intrinsic value (a negative $5 impact). However, the anticipated carryover benefits to remaining JBT’s operating margins from its announced restructuring actions partially offset this impact with a $1 benefit to valuation.

We believe JBT will benefit from growth in the global middle class, which should materially increase by 2030, and we expect that the Asia-Pacific region will be a disproportionate contributor to that growth. We believe this helps JBT FoodTech because per capita meat consumption in APAC has traditionally and significantly lagged that of Europe and North America. North America’s per capital meat consumption is 3-3.5 times that of APAC, but we expect that gap to narrow during our five-year explicit forecast. Overall global meat consumption is also on the rise, as people have become more conscious of protein intake in their diet.

Following its first-quarter earnings report, our long-term, fundamental view for narrow-moat-rated John Bean Technologies remains unchanged. We raise our fair value estimate by $1 to $121 but only due to time value of money. JBT readily outperformed its first-quarter guide on the strength of the aerospace recovery as well as foodtech’s recurring revenue mix contribution to operating margins. Aerotech sales soared, rising nearly 25% year on year on both a reported and organic basis. This propelled its segment operating margins by an additional 330 basis points.

We believe both of John Bean Technologies', or JBT's, segments will benefit from growth in the global middle class, which should materially increase by 2030, and we expect that the Asia-Pacific region will be a disproportionate contributor to that growth. We believe this helps JBT FoodTech because per capita meat consumption in APAC has traditionally and significantly lagged that of Europe and North America. North America’s per capital meat consumption is 3-3.5 times that of APAC, but we expect that gap to narrow during our five-year explicit forecast. Overall global meat consumption is also on the rise, as people have become more conscious of protein intake in their diet.

After reviewing narrow-moat-rated John Bean Technologies’ latest results, we reduce our fair value estimate by $1 to $120. While there were certainly some puts and takes in its fourth-quarter print, JBT’s results were largely in line with our expectations. Revenue was nearly lineball accurate and adjusted EPS beat what we earmarked by 4%, but JBT incurred more cash charges than what we penciled in, such that GAAP EPS was about 2.5% lower than what we were hoping to see.

We believe both of JBT's segments will benefit from growth in the global middle class, which should materially increase by 2030, and we expect that the Asia-Pacific region will be a disproportionate contributor to that growth. We believe this helps JBT FoodTech because per capita meat consumption in APAC has traditionally and significantly lagged that of Europe and North America. North America’s per capital meat consumption is between three and three-and-a-half times that of APAC, but we expect that gap to narrow during our five-year explicit forecast. Overall global meat consumption is also on the rise, as people have become more conscious of protein intake in their diet.

Despite the heavy selloff of JBT’s stock following its third-quarter earnings report, we see no reason to change our $121 fair value estimate. While management slightly reduced its slightly organic sales volume guide, mostly on the foodtech side because of slowing demand in shorter-cycle products, the contribution of the Bevcorp acquisition provided a full offset to both its currency and organic revenue headwinds. We did slightly lower our full-year revenue projection by $20 million, but the impact was minimal to valuation.

We believe both of JBT's segments will benefit from growth in the global middle class, which will approximately double by 2030, and we expect that the Asia-Pacific region will be a significant contributor to that growth. We believe this helps JBT FoodTech because per capita meat consumption in APAC has traditionally and significantly lagged that of Europe and North America. North America’s per capital meat consumption is about three and a half times that of APAC, but we expect that gap to narrow during our five-year explicit forecast. Overall global meat consumption is also on the rise, as people have become more conscious of protein intake in their diet.

We believe both of JBT's segments will benefit from growth in the global middle class. We believe the middle class will approximately double by 2030, and we expect that the Asia-Pacific region will be a significant contributor to that growth. We believe this helps JBT FoodTech because per capita meat consumption in APAC has traditionally and significantly lagged that of Europe and North America. North America’s per capital meat consumption is about three and a half times that of APAC, but we expect that gap to narrow during our five-year explicit forecast. Overall global meat consumption is also on the rise, as people have become more conscious of protein intake in their diet.

Following narrow-moat rated John Bean Technologies’ second quarter results, we modestly reduce our fair value to $121 from $123 previously. It’s our continued opinion that FactSet consensus still rates JBT’s stock at a premium to its intrinsic value, and we remain locked somewhere between the bull and bear cases on the stock. The primary driver of our revised downward forecast includes lowered guidance, primarily due to JBT's FoodTech segment, and as we fully incorporate the Bevcorp acquisition in our model. Of course, we expect to continue making incremental changes on the acquisition's impact as we received additional information.

Narrow-moat rated JBT had a solid first quarter, and we're raising our fair value estimate to $123 per share from $109. Total revenue grew about 12% on both a reported and organic basis to $469 million, led by FoodTech’s 13% year-over-year rise in sales. Nonetheless, consolidated operating margins progressed about 230 basis points year over year to 10%, albeit just about 20 basis points sequentially. Orders went up a whopping 54% year on year in AeroTech despite modest revenue gains caused by supply chain disruptions. While the stock went on a tear after the earnings release off clearly low expectations, our fair value estimate increase reflects our current view that we were baking in too-high corporate-related expense in the out years of our model. We base this assessment on recent historical experience (most important) and management commentary at the recent investor day. Clearly, JBT’s valuation is sensitive to multiple inputs on its bottom line.

We believe both of JBT's segments will benefit from growth in the global middle class. We believe the middle class will approximately double by 2030, and we expect that the Asia-Pacific region will be a significant contributor to that growth. We believe this helps JBT FoodTech because per capita meat consumption in APAC has traditionally and significantly lagged that of Europe and North America. North America’s per capital meat consumption is about three and a half times that of APAC, but we expect that gap to narrow during our five-year explicit forecast. Overall global meat consumption is also on the rise, as people have become more conscious of protein intake in their diet.

We believe both of John Bean Technologies’ segments will benefit from growth in the global middle class. We believe the middle class will approximately double by 2030, and we expect that the Asia-Pacific region will be a significant contributor to that growth. We believe this helps JBT FoodTech because per capita meat consumption in APAC has traditionally and significantly lagged that of Europe and North America. North America’s per capital meat consumption is about three and a half times that of APAC, but we expect that gap to narrow during our five-year explicit forecast. Overall global meat consumption is also on the rise, as people have become more conscious of protein intake in their diet.

Narrow-moat-rated John Bean Technologies whiffed on both its guidance and our fourth-quarter sales, EBITDA, and EPS expectations. Management demurred from providing full-year 2022 EPS guidance, citing the uncertain operating environment. Despite the over 19% price decline on the Feb. 23 trading day, however, we think most of the sell-off was justified. Even so, we think our long-term thesis remains intact. JBT continues to benefit from multiple secular trends, including labor saving automation, environmental sustainability, and enhanced throughput on the foodtech side, as well as infrastructure spending and strong cargo delivery trends on the aerotech side. A weak near-term anchor in operating margins was offset by a stronger than expected organic top-line guide in foodtech, a lower long-term tax rate (we no longer believe tax reform is likely), and time value of money. Therefore, we raise our fair value estimate by $1 to $109. Acquisition growth contributes to JBT’s intrinsic value in our model by nearly $3 per share.

We believe both of John Bean Technologies’ segments will benefit from growth in the global middle class. We believe the middle class will approximately double by 2030, and we expect that the Asia-Pacific region will be a significant contributor to that growth. We believe this helps JBT FoodTech because per capita meat consumption in APAC has traditionally and significantly lagged that of Europe and North America. North America’s per capital meat consumption is about three and a half times that of APAC, but we expect that gap to narrow during our five-year explicit forecast. Overall global meat consumption is also on the rise, as people have become more conscious of protein intake in their diet.

We are at a loss at the market’s positive reaction to narrow-moat JBT’ third-quarter release. In fact, not only did the company miss our third-quarter expectations, management’s implied guide came appreciably below what we were hoping for full-year 2021. In fact, we reduced our adjusted EPS expectations by 11.6% to $4.30. While we concede it’s a difficult operating environment, airport equipment sales came in materially below what we earmarked for the quarter (by about 14%). Furthermore, aerotech’s segment operating profit margins came in below our expectations by 570 basis points. Nonetheless, results were really a tale of two cities, as foodtech’s third-quarter revenue and margins were broadly in line with our expectations. Based on lower-than-expected results, we lower our fair value estimate to $108 from $112.

We believe both of John Bean Technologies’ segments will benefit from growth in the global middle class. We believe the middle class will approximately double by 2030, and we expect that the Asia-Pacific region will be a significant contributor to that growth. We believe this helps JBT FoodTech because per capita meat consumption in APAC has traditionally and significantly lagged that of Europe and North America. North America’s per capital meat consumption is about three and a half times that of APAC, but we expect that gap to narrow during our five-year explicit forecast. Overall global meat consumption is also on the rise, as people have become more conscious of protein intake in their diet.