Spending two days with the management of Jabil Circuit made Andrew Huang a believer.
Huang of American Technology Research in San Francisco was among the analysts who journeyed to Jabil's St. Petersburg headquarters two weeks ago for a conference.
Jabil, a contract electronics manufacturer with a global presence, is the largest public company in the Tampa Bay area based on market capitalization ($6.1-billion). But it's hardly satisfied. Executives talk about growing from $6-billion in revenues to $25-billion and Huang thinks, "It's in their sights."
Where's the opportunity?
All of Asia, for one. In addition to the obvious play on China, Huang sees the Korean market becoming "just as valuable as Japan." Jabil has met with the top five Korean electronics manufacturers in the past six months. All of them are interested in particular in Jabil's Chinese manufacturing plants, Huang says, because of the Chinese government's restrictions on Korean ownership in China.
Another huge opportunity arose recently in Europe when German electronics giant Siemens said it was going to cut 2,500 German jobs and transfer another 2,500 jobs.
"That's like prime (outsourcing) business right there," Huang said. "My understanding is (Jabil) is aggressively going after that."
Oh, and if you haven't guessed, Huang rates Jabil stock a "buy."
