Some links

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Recommended: TGV Partners 2018 letter to shareholders and TGV Truffle 2018 letter to investors

Ben Evan’s doesn’t think that 5G networks will be a revolutionary new technology

Is Computime really a “high quality Net-Net” stock ?

Good write up on Edgewell Personal Care which looks like a cheap defensive consumer stock

An interesting portrait of Masa Son from Softbank as the “Most powerful man in Silicon Valley”

An excerpt of the 2018 letter to investors from Rangeley Capital

You think your personal data is worth a lot ? Maybe think twice….

 

 

Some links

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Rob Vinall (RV Capital) has released his 2018 letter with deep thoughts on subscription models. There will also be a Live Stream of his upcoming investor meeting

Marketfolly has good write ups on the London Sohn Conference

Interesting thoughts on the strength of different platform business models

GreenWood Investors explains its “12 month re-underwriting” process

Fellow blogger Wexboy with his 2018 review as does JohnKingham (UK Value Investor)

Strong versus weak technologies

Yet another value blog with write up on Radisson Hospitality and Telecom Italia

 

 

April SA – Potential buyout offer from CVC: Interesting Special Situation ?

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Disclaimer: This is not investment advice. Please do your own research. 

April SA is an “Old friend” on this blog. I owned the stock in the past and last time I looked at them when a rumour came up that the company is for sale in late October.

This is what I said back then:

April had shown actually pretty decent growth in Q3 and I actually considered buying some shares but maybe this is not so sustainable and the founder wants to sell before it is getting worse again ? Who knows…

My fundamental assessment of April is that they have a strong core business (French Broker) but have over extended themselves internationally and the founder, Bruno Rousset, who stepped down in 2014, does not have the energy anymore to turn this around himself.

Well, things have progressed. There had been a “beauty contest” with PE bidders and it looks now that PE shop CVC is highly interested in buying the stake of the founder and majority owner. This is from a piece of news released by April SA and  CVC end of December:

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Some links

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Farnam Street on how not to be stupid plus its 2018 review

And ValueInvestingWorld with a fitting “final checklist” before making an investment decision

An interesting view on how “factors” like size, EV/EBIT etc. performed in 2018

Honeywell looks potentially interesting after the spin-off as well as ARLO

Good feature on Paul Singer (Elliott)

Four blogs with totally “off the beaten track” portfolios have posted 2018 reviews:
– GlobalStockPicking
– Alpha Vulture
– Value Investing France
– Clark Street Value

David Einhorn had a catastrophic year in 2018

2018 Performance review – Outlook 2019

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In 2018, the Value & Opportunity portfolio lost -11,3%* (including dividends, no taxes) against –15.4 % for the Benchmark (Eurostoxx50 (Perf.Ind) (25%), Eurostoxx small 200 (25%), DAX (30%), MDAX (20%)).

Links to previous Performance reviews can be found on the Performance Page of the blog.

Some other funds that I follow have performed as follows in 2018:

Partners Fund TGV: +1,74% *
Profitlich/Schmidlin: -8,27%
Squad European Convictions -9,75%
Ennismore European Smaller Cos +2,65% (in EUR)
Frankfurter Aktienfonds für Stiftungen -13,72%
Evermore Global Value  -20.92% (USD)
Greiff Special Situation -7,02%
Squad Aguja Special Situation -11,7%

*TGV Partners as of 15.12.2018, to be updated

Since inception (01.01.2011), this translates into +152,6% or +14,0% p.a. vs. 66,6% or 6,0% p.a. for the Benchmark.

Current portfolio / Portfolio transactions

The current portfolio can be seen as always on the portfolio page. I have already mentioned the 2018 transactions in the “My 22+1 stocks for 2019” post.

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Some links

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Eddie Elfenbein’s Buy list 2019 has been released last week

The Bull, Bear and Value blog with a 2018 portfolio recap

Some December Spin-off links

Nope, US Steel stocks did not benefit from the steel tarifs

Some notes from a Value Investing Conference in NYC (h/t Valueinvestingworld)

Cautious remarks from Fred Wilson on the cash burn of VC backed companies

An interesting book list from A16Z

Great advice from Ryan Holiday on how to create better habits

Bill Gates explains what he has learned in 2018

My 22 (+1) investments for 2019

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Edit: I actually forgot to include Expedia…..

This post has become now a small tradition at the end of December and is also very helpful for me to review my holdings.

The summaries of the previous years can be found here:

My 21 investments for 2018
My 27 investments for 2017
My 27 investments for 2016
My 28 investments for 2015
My 24 investments for 2014
My 22 investments for 2013

From the 21 stocks of last year, 4 have left the portfolio:

Silver Chef and Metro were clear mistakes from my side and I exited them as discussed with significant losses. IGE & XAO was a much more positive case. The company received a buy-out offer from Schneider SA and I exited at 138 EUR per share. DOM Security finally was merged into the main shareholder company SFPI. Luckily, I could sell 40% of my holdings at 75 EUR/ share.

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