6 Health Care Stocks to Buy for the Second Half of 2020 – Barron’s

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The members of the Barrons Roundtable see numerous bargains among health-care stocks. The conversations below are excerpted from our recent Midyear Roundtable, published on July 10. To read the entire Roundtable, click here.

Rupal J. Bhansali, CIO and portfolio manager, International & Global Equities, Ariel Investments:

I have three health-care names. GlaxoSmithKline [ticker: GSK] yields almost 5% and offers single-digit organic earnings growth. Gilead Sciences [GILD] has a 3.5% dividend yield, with underlying growth coming from its core franchise in HIV and, potentially, remdesivir, a drug that could be used to treat Covid-19. Roche Holding [RHHBY] is a leading player in oncology. Telecoms and health-care companies have strong balance sheets, strong market positions, and undervalued shares.

Glaxo, Gilead, and Roche are platform companies, as opposed to product companies. Their successor drugs come off the same mechanism of action and knowledge base as prior drugs. The risk of failure is lower, and the probability of approval is greater. We dont like Apple [AAPL], for instance, because it is a product company. If the next product doesnt sell well, thats problematic as earnings prospects become binary rather than bankable.

Scott Black, founder and president, Delphi Management:

Bristol-Myers Squibb [BMY] is trading around $60. The company has a $134 billion market cap and pays a $1.80 annual dividend, for a yield of 3%. Bristol has reported quarterly earnings growth for the past five years, minus one quarter in 2017. Its strengths are in oncology and hematology, although it has a blockbuster cardiovascular drug, Eliquis. Eight of its drugs have more than $1 billion in yearly sales. The company has nine drugs in Phase 3 trials, and figures it could commercialize 20-plus new drugs in the next 10 years. That would add at least $20 billion in new revenue.

We expect Bristol-Myers to generate $41.8 billion of revenue this year, and earn about $6.20 a share, versus $4.69 in 2019. Revenue will get a one-time pop of about 60% because of last years acquisition of Celgene. For next year, we have modeled 7.5% revenue growth on the conservative side, or $45 billion, and earnings after taxes of $16.5 billion, or $7.33 a share. Using more-optimistic assumptions, the company could earn $17 billion, or $7.55 a share, on $45.6 billion of revenue. The shares trade for 7.9 times expected earnings, which is ludicrous. Bristol-Myers will generate more than $14 billion of free cash this year. Its net debt-to-equity ratio is 0.55. Return on equity is around 26%.

William Priest, executive chairman and co-CIO, Epoch Investment Partners:

Thermo Fisher Scientific [TMO] sells scientific instruments, lab equipment, diagnostics consumables, and life-sciences reagents. This is a razor/razor-blade model; as the installed base of equipment expands, Thermo retains an attractive annuity stream from servicing the equipment and selling higher-margin consumables.

At $360 a share, the market cap is roughly $145 billion. Net debt totals $17 billion. The stock is trading for 26 times forward earnings. Management continues to drive top-line growth through investment in research and development, which leads to new-product innovation and improved pricing, and accretive acquisitions. We like the companys plan to acquire Qiagen [QGEN], a leading molecular-diagnostic-equipment and consumables provider, for $10 billion.

Our six-to-12-month target price for Thermo Fisher is $420 a share, or 30 times our 2022 free-cash-flow estimate of $14 a share. We estimate near-term downside risk to $300 a share.

Henry Ellenbogen, CIO and managing partner, Durable Capital Partners:

My second pick is Abcam [ABC.UK], a small-cap company that trades in the U.K. It operates in the biologic-drugs industry, a fantastic end market that will have strong secular growth for years to come. At the very beginning of the drug-discovery process, scientists need certain key ingredients. Abcam is the global market leader in selling those antibodies to researchers. It has continued to gain share in its core market while extending into other areas, including amino acids and proteins. It should be able to compound for many years.

It is a niche industry, but this is a highly strategic asset. Abcam has revenue of a bit less than 300 million pounds sterling [$378.5 million], even though it has close to a 30% market share in its core business. It is headquartered in Cambridge in the U.K., but we think about it as a global company.

Write to Lauren R. Rublin at lauren.rublin@dowjones.com

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6 Health Care Stocks to Buy for the Second Half of 2020 - Barron's

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