Analysts put a value on Inghams Enterprises

Inghams controls 40 per cent of the Australian poultry market.

Investment bank analysts crunching the numbers on Inghams Enterprises are predicting the business will be worth somewhere between $1.3 billion and $1.7 billion.

Numbers out from investment bank Citi this morning suggest the company’s equity value will sit between $1.383bn and $1.63bn, equating to between 9.5 times and 10.8 times its forecast earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation, and between 14 and 16.5 times its annual net profit.

On an enterprise value basis, it equates to between $1.8bn and $2.05bn.

While Macquarie’s analysts expect the business to be worth between $1.3bn and $1.67bn, Goldman Sachs believes the group’s value sits between $1.302bn and $1.593bn.

The Goldman Sachs valuation range equates to between 13.2 and 16.1 times its forecast annual earning and 9.1 and 10.6 times its forecasted EBITDA.

Morgan Stanley bucked the trend, offering an equity value between $1.145bn and $1.526bn, while the Credit Suisse analyst valuation range falls between $1.347bn and $1.66bn.

It comes after DataRoom flagged on Monday that the poultry producer would likely float as a business worth somewhere between $1.5bn and $1.7bn and raise between $900m and $1.1bn.

Inghams, owned by TPG Capital, is forecast to generate earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation of $190.1m for the 2017 financial year, a rise of 13.5 per cent. Net profit is expected to grow 18.9 per cent from fiscal 2016 to $98.8m.

On the deal are Macquarie Capital, UBS and Credit Suisse, which are all book runners and joint lead managers, as well as fellow JLMs Morgan Stanley, Citi and Goldman Sachs.

Analysts last week began booking meetings with prospective investors from today ahead of a listing on the Australian Securities Exchange sometime before late November.

The company controls 40 per cent of the Australian poultry market and 34 per cent in New Zealand behind the recently listed Tegel Group, which has a 48 per cent share across the Tasman.

The business was founded by the Inghams family and sold in 2014 for close to $900m to TPG, which later offloaded the property portfolio for about $600m.