Holcim - grubby turnaround but keep thinking about it

I last looked at the Swiss cement company Holcim following their H1 numbers in the Summer concluding that

'Holcim looks an expensive share trading on FY13e x17 but...it all depends on what you start to factor in from the cost optimisation noted above and the potential emerging market tailwinds.  The share currently is pretty much in the middle of its 52 week CHF60-80 range.  Moving decisively near the bottom of this range probably creates an opportunity'. 

Since then the shares have moved sideways with volatility. 

So what were the key comments today?  Inevitably the focus was on this slide from their presentation which talked about the company being less optimistic about Latam, Africa and the Middle East. 

But there is better news too.  Europe is seeing higher volumes (off low historic levels of course) and - most importantly - the company sees 'a further improvement in margins'.  This, I believe, is all due to the continuing turnaround plan...which is targeting some pretty punchy operating profit improvements this year and next year. 

So, short-term numbers have not much to write home about.  Let's think about the operating profit level of CHF750m in Q3, annualise it and add on just half of the hoped-for improvement in 2014 operating profit noted above.  That gives a base figure of CHF3.5bn. 

Today the EV of the company is about CHF32.5bn.  Conceptually the company could be trading on x9.3 EV/ebit 2014e with a 1.7% yield too.  There are some big assumptions in this BUT it is one to keep on thinking about, even if the top-down comments from the firm are not the greatest.