McMillan Shakespeare gave a first-quarter trading update at its annual general meeting. Novated lease sales rose 14%, the novated lease base rose 18% to 95,000 and salary packages rose 7%, while fleet units rose 2%. Novated leasing yield fell 4% and vehicle remarketing profits fell 15%.
The majority of McMillan’s clients are in defensive industries, and the firm has long-standing relationships with many of its clients. This should underpin relatively stable salary packaging and disability plan management revenue even during market downturns.
Bears
McMillan can be disrupted by many external factors. Changes to regulation have disrupted its add-on insurance and warranty services business in the past and are now threatening its disability plan management business. The firm relies on favorable FBT concessions, which may be removed in the future.
McMillan Shakespeare is a provider of salary packaging, novated leasing, disability plan management and support co-ordination, and fleet management services. It actively works to cross-sell its products to clients, for example, selling its salary packaging services to its fleet management customers in Australia and New Zealand. McMillan dominates Australia’s salary packaging market together with Smartgroup (also covered by Morningstar), and is also a large provider of novated leasing services by volumes—together with Smartgroup and SG Fleet. The group has three operating segments: group remuneration services, asset management services, and plan and support services. Most of the group’s revenue is generated from the group remuneration services segment.