Merck KGaA (MRK.DE)
Healthcare · Xetra · Europe
Fundamentals
Valuation and ratings
Merck KGaA trades at €137.95, which is 50% above the €68.56 our discounted cash flow model puts on the business. On that measure it screens as expensive, which is not the same as saying it will fall.
Our moat model scores it 60 out of 100, which is a moat, but not a deep one. A moat is a structural reason competitors cannot take the profits away, and it matters more to a long holding period than any single quarter's numbers do.
It changes hands at 24.0 times earnings. Be careful reading that in isolation: for a cyclical business a low P/E arrives at the top of the cycle, when profits are peaking and about to fall, which is exactly when the shares look cheapest and are not.
About Merck KGaA
Merck KGaA operates as a science and technology company in Europe, North America, Latin America, Middle East and Africa, and the Asia Pacific. The Life Science segment offers products, solutions, and services to academic, research and diagnostic labs, biotech, and pharmaceutical companies, as well as the industrial sector; reagents, consumables, devices, instruments, software, and services for research, production, and testing to lab water instruments, microbiology and biomonitoring products, test assays, analytical reagents, and flow cytometry kits and instruments. This segment also provides traditional and novel therapies, such as ration devices, chromatography resins, single-use systems, process chemicals, and excipients for bioprocessing; contract development, manufacturing and testing services, which supports customers from preclinical phases to commercialization. The Healthcare segment discovers, develops, manufactures, and markets prescription drugs and biopharmaceuticals to the therapeutic areas of oncology, rare diseases, neurology and immunology, fertility, cardiovascular, and metabolic and endocrinological disorders. The Electronics segment offers advanced dielectric and metallic materials; photoresist, anti-reflective coating, and material lithography products; clean and selective etch chemistries; materials for chemical-mechanical planarization; high-purity gases for semiconductor manufacturing; and develops and installs delivery equipment for handling of specialty chemicals and gases for semiconductor manufacturing; develops modulating, creating, engineering, and guiding light; and material solutions in liquid crystals, OLED materials, and photoresists. It has in-licensing agreement with Abbisko Therapeutics Co. Ltd., China on drug candidates for the treatment of tenosynovial giant cell tumor; and strategic partnership with Versant Ventures to advance treatments for rare genetic cardiomyopathies. The company was founded in 1668 and is headquartered in Darmstadt, Germany. Merck KGaA is a subsidiary of E. Merck KG.
MRK.DE passes 1 of our 30 screens today
Each screen prints the exact criteria it used, and the circumstances in which it is wrong.
Common questions
Is Merck KGaA (MRK.DE) undervalued?
Against our discounted cash flow estimate of €68.56, MRK.DE at €137.95 is 50% above fair value. That is one model's answer, not a recommendation, and most of a DCF's output sits in a terminal value nobody can forecast.
What is MRK.DE's P/E ratio?
MRK.DE trades at 24.0 times earnings. A low P/E is not automatically cheap: on a cyclical company it is usually a warning that earnings are at a peak.
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Data from company filings, exchange quotes and SEC EDGAR 13F disclosures. Quotes are delayed. Metrics we do not have are left out rather than estimated. Educational information, not financial advice.