New York, NY / ACCESSWIRE / August 19, 2014 / SeeThruEquity, a leading independent equity research and corporate access firm focused on smallcap and microcap public companies, today announced that it has initiated coverage on FitLife Brands, Inc. (OTCBB: FTLF), a leading provider of nutritional supplements predominantly provided through franchised General Nutrition Centers (GNC).
“As the number one vendor in the GNC franchise network in the U.S., we believe the company is poised for robust incremental growth, especially in terms of international growth in GNC stores abroad,” stated Ajay Tandon, CEO of SeeThruEquity. “FitLife also has an impressive track record of launching new products and formulations, a trend which we believe will continue with recent new product launches and announcements. We are initiating coverage with a target price of $4.42 per share,” continued Ajay Tandon.
Additional investment highlights are as follows:
Leading Vendor in GNC Franchise Locations; footprint expansion provides near-term incremental revenue opportunity
GNC is the largest global specialty retailer of nutritional supplements operating around 8,600 locations in the U.S. and internationally. FTLF is the No. 1 vendor in the GNC franchise distribution network in the U.S. The company markets over 50 different products to around 800 GNC franchise locations across the U.S. and to over 300 international franchise locations across more than 10 countries. Its current penetration within the GNC franchise system stands at 80% in the U.S. and less than 20% internationally, providing a huge untapped market opportunity. In addition, its recent efforts and plans to tap into the vast GNC corporate owned stores provide substantial incremental growth opportunities. The company has also recently increased its emphasis on alternate distribution channels with its new brand Core Active Nutrition exclusively for this format.
Tremendous market opportunity
According to the Nutrition Business Journal, the U.S. nutritional supplements market during 2012 was worth about $32 billion and expected to double to $60 billion by 2021, growing an average 7% annually. The sports nutrition market accounted for $4.7 billion and was expected to be the fastest growing category, expected to grow an average 9% annually. Increasing heath awareness, rising healthcare costs, changing consumer groups and easy accessibility are the key growth drivers of sports nutrition. We note that sports nutrition represented 69% of total FLTF revenues during 2013. The company is well positioned to exploit this market opportunity given its superior brand image and leading position in the GNC franchise system.
Continuous Innovation and New Product Launches
The company has had a successful track record of continually developing new formulations of its products over the past few years and generally plans to introduce on average 8-10 new products/formulations every 6 months with 25% of annual sales expected from such new product introductions. During 2013 the company launched a record 29 new products including the entirely newly launched brand Siren Labs. Core Active is another relatively new brand which was launched for sale in premises across alternate distribution channels. A new brand has been proposed for a pilot study in GNC corporate stores in Q42014/Q1 2015 which could add significant revenues from 2015 onwards.
The report is available here: FTLF Initiation Report. SeeThruEquity is an approved equity research contributor on Thomson First Call, Capital IQ, FactSet, and Zack’s. The report will also be available on these platforms.
Please review important disclosures on our website at http://www.seethruequity.com/.
About FitLife Brands, Inc.
FitLife Brands is a marketer and manufacturer of innovative and proprietary nutritional supplements for health conscious consumers. FitLife markets over 50 different dietary supplements to promote sports nutrition, improved performance, weight loss and general health primarily through domestic and international GNC(r) franchise locations. FitLife is headquartered in Omaha, Nebraska. For more information please visit our new website at http://www.fitlifebrands.com
About SeeThruEquity
SeeThruEquity is an equity research and corporate access firm focused on companies with less than $1 billion in market capitalization. The research is not paid for and is unbiased. We do not conduct any investment banking or commission based business. We are approved to contribute our research to Thomson One Analytics (First Call), Capital IQ, FactSet, Zacks and distribute our research to our database of opt-in investors. We also contribute our estimates to Thomson Estimates, the leading estimates platform on Wall Street.
For more information visit http://www.seethruequity.com/.
Contact:
Ajay Tandon
SeeThruEquity
(646) 495-0939
Source: SeeThruEquity