Farmer Mac - the farm loan equivalent of its cousins Freddy Mac and Fanny-Mae
owes its existence to the last time a U.S. farm bubble burst. Now, the company is trying to convince investors it would survive another one.
The market isn't giving the company a vote of confidence yet. Just five years ago, Farmer Mac had to be rescued by its creditors after its large positions in Lehman Brothers and Fannie Mae went sour. Now, the revived company must prove to skeptical investors that it can withstand a sharp decline in the price of farmland that analysts expect to come in the next year. That open question - and the inability of Congress to pass an updated five-year farm bill, which provides crop insurance and other subsidies that farmers rely on - has been weighing on the company's stock price.
Shares of Federal Agricultural Mortgage Co.- a government-sponsored enterprise that functions as a secondary market for farm, rural utility and rural development loans - are up approximately 6 percent for the year and 35 percent over the last 12 months. This year has seen a widespread market rally that has pushed the benchmark Standard and Poor's 500 index up more than 20 percent.
After collapsing to around $3 in late 2008, the stock price has since recovered to pre-crisis levels of around $34. Still, the stock trades at a price to earnings ratio of 5.5, close to half the valuation of small lenders like PennyMac Financial Services and of its own five-year average P/E of 10.1, according to Thomson Reuters data.
Source: Reuters
