Update Cars.com & Kanam Grundinvest

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Kanam Grundinvest

Kanam Grundinvest was a special situation liquidation investment I made around 2 years ago. After 2 years, the position returned ~13,5% and is therefore on the upper range of my estimated return range from 4-8% p.a.. From the initial purchase price of around 16,17 EUR/unit I received back ~ 9,50 EUR in tax free distributions, resulting in a 2,5% remaining portfolio position.

However the current price of the units at ~8.85 EUR is very close to the intrinsic value of 9,24 EUR. So there is not that much juice left and Warburg will not liquidate super fast as they keep earning their fees as long this vehicle exists.

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Update Handelsbanken – HOLD

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Handelsbanken Update:

2018 was on the surface a solid year for Handelsbanken. According to the 2018 annual report, operating profit increased by +5% and net income by +8%, top line by +5%. ROE was 12,8% which is below my assumed 15% but still a remarkably good number for a large bank.

Just looking at the bottom line, the first quarter of Handelsbanken looks great:  Net income up +19%, operating profit up +18%. However top line only grew at +4% (vs. Q1 2018).

However this is solely a function of the fact that the bank reversed their provision into the Oktogonen pension fund for employees which they clearly state in the quarterly report:

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Some links

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Interesting anual report from the “Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust” which, despite its name is a successful tech/growth fund (from page 11, h/t Monevator)

A wide ranging update from yetanothervalueblog

Blackrock is creating a “forever” PE fund

The number of job postings seems to be a short term leading indicator for the performance of Tech IPO stocks

A great collection of spin-off related links

Farnam Street blog on Jeff Bezos

 

 

Online Travel Updates (Expedia, Booking, Tripadvisor, Trivago & AirBNB / Google)

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Expedia 

I invested into Expedia in February 2018 after the stock had become cheap enough. The idea was that a stock in a secular growth sector (online travel) should do well in the long run. After pretty decent fulll year 2018 numbers, with double digit increases in both, top and bottom, line, the first quarter 2019 showed a clear slowdown. Topline growth slowed to ~4%. Excluding Trivago which is still shrinking, topline sales would have grown +6%. Underlying profitability has improved although the first quarter is always the weakest one.

What I found interesting is the fact that Expedia performed better than Booking com. Here is a stock price comparison (including Tripadvisor  and Trivago):

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Some links

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Good article how German Aldi is “disrupting” American grocery retail

Why “technical analysis” in stock prices makes no sense at all

A great analysis of Zillow’s new business model

The UK Value Investor with an in depth look at Cranswick

Portfolio updates from the GlobalStockPicking blog

Is Coca Cola Bottling an easy short ?

And finally the Graham and Doddsville Spring 2019 edition (including an interview with John Hempton, Bronte)

 

 

Some links

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Whitney Tilson now has his own website / blog.

According to Andrew Left (Citron), the  recent IPO “The Amazon of Africa” Jumia is a complete fraud

Very Expensive stocks have outperformed now for some time

On Gazprom and why some Value Investments need catalysts

A16Z with a great post on why just having lots of data doesn’t create a defensible moat

Interesting perepctive: What Long term investors can learn from traders

Google is tracking a lot of stuff. For instance all your puchase receipts in Gmail, but free mobile games seem to be a lot worse

 

Deutsche Familienversicherung AG: Europe’s leading Insurtech or “Lipstick” on an ordinary Insurance company ?

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Deutsche Familenversicherung AG (DFV) IPOed end of last year and claims to be the first stock listed “Insuretech” in Europe. The IPO was only successful at the second attempt but still they made it. In their investor presentation they even call themselves “Europe’s leading Insurtech” which is a pretty bold claim.

Excursion: What does Insurtech /Fintech mean ? And what does digital mean ?

There is clearly not general valid definition of Fintech /insurtech, but looking at the Fintech space, one would characterize these companies as technology driven companies that use technology to do things faster, cheaper and better than thier “ordinary” competitors.

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