Red Flag Alert – Nordson's False Narrative
And what's with the stealth change in strategy? Is the company about to change its narrative, too?
Special thanks to FinTool, Tenzing MEMO, and Fiscal.ai, which were used as part of this research.
Typically, I’d prefer not to red-flag a company just before it reports results – by one day, no less – but since this one was in the works, I figured… better now than never.
In this case, as I mentioned in last week’s Wrap, among the companies I’ve been doing some work on is Nordson NDSN 0.00%↑, which I described as an Ingersoll Rand IR 0.00%↑ wannabe.
That’s why, if the above “false narrative” headline looks familiar, it’s the same one I used with Ingersoll Rand. Not only are both rollups, but while Ingersoll Rand’s revenues are nearly triple Nordson’s, their narratives are from the same playbook – both calling themselves “growth compounders.”
Unlike Ingersoll Rand, however, which calls itself “a premier growth compounder,” the tagline “growth compounder” has only been a prominent part of Nordson’s investor pitch for a little over a year. It’s now mentioned on most earnings calls and shows up one way or another in every earnings presentation…
But… is it really?