The vast majority of us will never be able to own a Ferrari, but you can buy a piece of Ferrari itself. I was shocked to find that Ferrari stock actually trades on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol RACE.
Once I saw that I naturally began to wonder if Ferrari makes money, and if it would be a good investment? After all at $71.89 (€67.88) a share on April 7, 2017; it was pretty expensive for an automaker, although nowhere near as overpriced as Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLSA).
Ferrari (NYSE: RACE) is making some money it reported a profit margin of 13.28% and a net income of $441.26 million (€416.62 million) on revenues of $3.437 billion (€3.25 billion) on December 31, 2016. Ycharts data indicates that Ferrari had some float in the form of $4.07 billion (€3.84 billion) in assets, $1.113 billion (€1.05 billion) in cash from operations, $365.1 million (€344.71 million) in free cash flow and $501.16 million (€473.17 million) in cash and short-term investments on December 31, 2016.
That’s pretty good for a boutique automaker with a very limited clientele. Interestingly, Ferrari’s revenues are growing; it reported $3.165 billion (€2.99 billion) in revenues in December 2015, and $3.437 billion (€3.25 billion in revenues a year later. Although revenues are still lower than they were in December 2014 when Ferrari reported a TTM revenue of $3.665 billion (€3.46 billion).
So why are Ferrari’s Revenues Growing?
The best answer is that there are simply more rich people who can afford Ferrari’s products around than ever before. There were 193,000 millionaires in South Korea alone in 2016, according to Cagemini’s World Wealth Report, and 142,000 in Hong Kong.
That’s 335,000 millionaires in just two small Asian countries; if just 3% or 4% of them buy a Ferrari, that’s several hundred sales for the company. Since the average price of a Ferrari is between $188,425 and $400,000 that’s a nice chunk of change for the Italian automaker.
Nor is it just South Korea and Kong there are now 200,000 millionaires in India, where numbers are growing fast, 204,000 millionaires in the Netherlands (a small European country), and 234,000 millionaires in Australia where their number grew by 4% in 2016. Canada had 321,000 millionaires, Switzerland had 358,000, France over half a million 532,000, the United Kingdom also had more than half a million millionaires with 553,000.
There are now Millions of Millionaires
What is even more astounding is that there are now four countries with over one million millionaires, according to The World Wealth Report:
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China with 1.034 million millionaires.
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Germany with 1.119 million millionaires
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Japan with 2.720 millionaires whose numbers are growing at a rate of 11% a year.
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The United States with 4.448 million millionaires or a little over 1% of the country’s population.
This huge level of income inequality is not good for social or political stability but it’s certainly good for Ferrari’s future. There are now millions of people around the world that can afford a supercar.
Ferrari is a pretty Good Investment
That makes Ferrari a pretty good long term investment, because it has a large and growing market. Even if the economy slows, and income taxes go up because of wealth redistribution there will still be huge numbers of millionaires out there.
A large percentage of whom are nouveau rich that will want to flaunt their new found wealth. What better way to do that than in a Ferrari 458?
What’s more interesting is that Ferrari is also a pretty good growth and dividend stock. Its shareholders were rewarded with a return on equity of 278.6% on December 31, 2016.
Ferrari investors are also scheduled to take home a dividend of 67.2¢ (€.63 )on April 24, 2017. That’s a 15.6¢ (€.1473) increase over 2015 when Ferrari shares paid a 51.6¢ (€.472) dividend.
So surprise Ferrari is something of value investment. If you are looking for something really fun to add to your portfolio, Ferrari is certainly worth a look. Even if you don’t buy the stock you will get a chance to look at some cool cars.
This article originally appeared at Market Mad House.
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