Monthly Archives: April 2012

Quick updates: Praktiker, Buzzi, Aire

Praktiker

Unfortunately, theb ond already went above my limit of 41%. So I was only able to purchase a 1.4% position for the protfolio under my usual restrictions (max 25% of daily volume). I will not increase the limit for the time being.

One additional remark: I got access to the document showing all bond holders which took part in the first round of the vote. I saw no “suspicious” hedge fund participation. It will be interesting to see if they now go into a second round. According to this note of the notary, only 19% of the bondholders participated in the first round

Buzzi

After the encouraging results of Dyckerhoff, Buzzi reported total 2011 results .

The home market Italy decreased significantly, Dyckerhoff reported a total profit of ~60 mn EUR for 2011, Buzzi in total only 26 mn EUR. So net income for Buzzi ex Dyckerhoff was negative.

However, net debt has been reduced almost by the same amount as for Dyckerhoff. For 2012 they were very cautious:

Based on the above considerations, which show emerging economies well set to achieve a further progress in profitability, a stable situation in Central Europe, some opportunities for an earlier recovery in the United States and on-going difficulties in Italy, we can state that at consolidated level the next financial year should close with operating results similar to those of 2011.

It seems that the market had expected a better outlook, from my side however this is a 3-5 year “reversion to the mean” bet and we are only in year 2 now.

AIRE KgAA

For some reason, AIRE jumped significantly in the last few days.

However, I didn’t find any news and volume was relatively small. As I don’t have that many alternative “special situations”, I will keep the shares despite the price slowly approaching fair value.

Follow up April SA – No investment

End of last year, I looked at April SA, the French Insurance broker (part 1 and part 2).

In March, April pre released 2011 numbers which were quite dissapointing.

EPS per share in 2011 were only 1.37 EUR per share, a drop of -30% vs. the 1.97 EUR in 2010. They also released a regulatory required detailed report in French here.

The problem is that one cannot really understand where the drop in profit comes from.

Sales were more or less constant, however personel expenses increased by almost 10%. Also a 6 mn profit in non op income turned into a -4 mn loss in 2011.

Although claims paymants and therefore technicla results from insurance have increased significantly, lower interest rates increased general costs and an increase in commissions paid more than off set this positive developement.

Deeply hidden in the document (page 145) one can find that also brokerage commission income only stayed flat. Based on what the company communicated, I had assumed that they wanted to increase this part and reduce insurance premium but that didn’t seem to have happened.

On the plus side one can see that free cashflow on the non regulated holding level recovered nicely and amounted to around 65 mn EUR before acquisitions. Also free cash on holding level increased by 40 mn EUR to 80 mn EUR.

Summary:
Despite good cash flow on holding level, the underlying business especially the flat brokerage commissions are disappointing and not coherent with the communicated startegy change. At current prices (EUR 14,60 per share) and based on the underlying business developement, the risk/return profiel is not attractive enough.

The Italian temptation – Autostrada / SIAS – revisited

In my previous posts I have always concentrated on Autostarda as a way to invest at a discount into SIAS, the operating company whioch owns all the Italian concessions.

However, after the IGLI deal and the drop in Autostrada’s share price, SIAS itself became cheaper.

Based on year end numbers, SIAS is valued as follows:

P/E 8.2
P/B 0.9
EV/EBITDA 5.6
Dividend 9,1%

Market Cap: 1.2 bn
Debt : 1,9 bn
EV 3.1 bn

Relatively cheap, but as I mentioned before, SIAS basically had a “catalyst” event, the sale of its Chilean minority particpation. here is the section from the investor presentation:

• Sale agreement to transfer 45.8% stake in Chilean assets to Autostrade per l’Italia for €565mln cash consideration along with a discharge of debt guarantees of about €180mln. Sale price in line with the preliminary IPO evaluation of Sale of Chilean assets
• Unlock significant value from an investment asset, well above book value
• The transaction gives rise to a capital gain of €382mln (overall price of €565mln vs. a book value of €183mln)
• Sale will be finalized by 30 June 2012. €100mln advance cash payment have already been collected on 8 March 2012
• Cash proceeds from the sale of Chilean assets to be used for:
Potential use of proceeds
• Call option on 99.98% of Autostrada Torino – Savona” (valued at 223mln) expiring on September 2012
• Extraordinary dividend (increased pay-out for 5yrs)
• Additional resources for “green field” projects / other strategic uses
• Minorities acquisition of existing concessionaries

So what does that mean ? For sure we know now, that dividends will most likely increase, i.e. a dividend over 10% for the next 5 years is likely

From a valuation point of view, if we assume the purchase of the “Torino Savona” motorway goes through, we can assume the follwoing effects:

1. EV decreases by (745-223)= 522 mn EUR
2. EBITDA will increase by 32 mn EUR

So we will have an EV of ~2.6 bn and an EBITDA of around 588+32 = 620 mn. So EV/EBITDA will be reduced to 4.2 all other things equal because the minority share did not contribute to EBITDA.

If we look at other motorway operators, we see the following EV/EBITDAs:

Brisa 11.2
Abertis 10.1
Atlantia 7.6
Soc. Paris 8.7

So we can see that the cheapest comparable company in the universe is valued at least 50% higher than SIAS. Interestingly, the most expensive comapny, Brisa from Portugal actually received a takeover offer at the current 11x EV/EBITDA valuation.

A few more remarks:SIAS Bonds:

SIAS has a senior bond outstanding with maturity 2020 (XS0552569005). Interestingly this bond performed really strong after the announcement of the sale of the Chilean minority stake.

Corporate Governance:

This is something to explore further, but in my opinion SIAS as the holder of concessions is regulated to a certain extent. That is also the reason why the Gavio family seems to use Autostrada as vehicle for its transactions instead of SIAS.

Normally it would have been much easier to just use the sale proceeds at SIAS to purchase the IGLI stake but it seems that they cannot access it directly but have to upstream this via dividends.

So as a minority shareholder, interests are better aligned at the OpCo than at HoldCo (Autostarda).

Summary: SIAS really looks attractive right now, so I will start to establish a half position (2.5%) for the portfolio. 50% of this I will hedge with the FTSE MIB ETF short position

Quick news : Piquadro SpA – Tumi IPO coming soon

I have mentioned Tumi several times as one of the major competitors of Piquadro in my small “series” about Piquadro.

Now it looks like that the Tumi IPO is finally happening . According to Bloomberg, they want to IPO on April 19th, with a quite optimistic valuation:

Demand for luxury goods is helping Doughty Hanson reduce its stake in Tumi, which it bought for $276 million eight years ago, longer than buyout firms typically hold investments. Tumi, whose backpacks retail for up to $595, is seeking a valuation of as much as 3.5 times 2011 sales, compared with the median of 0.6 times for a basket of peers, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

I guess they are using P/S as a benchmark, because profits seem to be quite slim:

The luggage maker’s sales increased 31 percent to $330 million last year, while net income surged to $16.6 million from $104,000 in the same period, according to today’s filing. The company turned a profit for the first time in 2010 since at least 2007, the filing shows.

It is still amazing how the “pump and dump” strategy of those PE houses still work.

If we compare this to Piquadro, with multiples of 1.2 P/S and a P/E of 10, one can clearly see the impact of Anglo Saxon “financial magic”.

Piquadro itself seems to be reaching my threshold of 1.50 EUR again:

Below 1.50 EUR I will increase Piquadro to a half position (2.5%) of the portfolio, however in parallel I will increase the FTSE MIB hedge accordingly to hedge out my increasing Italian exposure.

Gruppo Sol Spa part 3: No decision yet –> Watchlist

In part 1 and part 2 I have analyzed Sol SpA from a variety of perspectives.

However, we still have the open question: Buy or don’t buy ?

To a large extent, I share JanHendriks comment that below book or at a single digit P/E the company would be an outright buy.

At the current 4 EUR per share, the company trades at 1.06 x book and 11.4 trailing P/E, the stock is neither really cheap nor expensive.

Additionally, I would still like to understand better the 2011 result with regard to the two segments, industrial gases and homecare.

For the time being, I will not buy the shares but put it onto my watchlist.

I will buy the shares if one of the two following conditions will be fullfilled:

1) either, the price goes down to somewhere below EUR 3.50 per share
2) we see a still strong profit growth and stable margins in the homecare segment in the upcoming annual report.

Praktiker Bond (ISIN DE000A1H3JZ8) – Scenario analysis & crazy hedging idea

I already wrote a lot of posts about Praktiker in the past.

My previous summary was something like this : I don’t understand the motivation behind the recent events especially asking senior bond holders for a cut first before shareholders contribute , why they didn’t do any capital increase when the stock price was higher etc. etc.

After thinking about this the most likely possibility in my opinion is the following thesis:

Current Management doesn’t work in the interest of the current shareholders and bondholders but in the interest of potential future investors.

The result of this is relatively clear: It would be suicide to invest into the shares, as you can take a massive dilution at some point in time for granted. However, a new investor might prefer a “non-bancrupt” company, so for the bond things might look better from a risk/return perspective.

With this in mind, I think one can now try to analyse the different possible scenarios for bondholders, which in my opinion are

1) No bankruptcy – (unrealistic) best case: Take over within 1-2 year and early full pay out of bond
2) No bankruptcy – normal case: Bond pays out as scheduled
3) No bankruptcy – bad case: coupon gets reduced in second round of bondholders vote
4) bancruptcy – normal case: bond gets “fair” share of liquidation value 40% in 2016
5) bancruptcy – bad case: “DIP” financing reduces liquidation value significantly , value 10% in 201

Then we have to do 4 more steps:

First, assign probabilities to each scenario and the second, “model” cashflows.In a third steps we then can calculate “weighted” total cashflow and then calculate an internal rate of return based on current market prices.

In the following table, I have made a first try:

Bankrupt Prob. in % 2013 2014 2015 2016
Best Case No 5.00% 5.88 105.88 0.00 0.00
Normal Case No 60.00% 5.88 5.88 5.88 105.88
bad case No 10.00% 1.00 1.00 1.00 101.00
Normal Case Yes 12.50% 0.00 0.00 0.00 40.00
bad case Yes 12.50% 0.00 0.00 0.00 10.00
             
Weighted CF   100% 3.91875 8.91875 3.625 79.875

This scenario would give the bond at the current price of 40% an implicit IRR of 28%, which would be attractive. If we would change for instance the “normal non bancruptcy” probability to 35% and increase the two bancrupty scenarios to 25% each, we would end upwith a 17.6% IRR.

Bankrupt Prob. in % 2013 2014 2015 2016
Best Case No 5.00% 5.88 105.88 0.00 0.00
Normal Case No 35.00% 5.88 5.88 5.88 105.88
bad case No 10.00% 1.00 1.00 1.00 101.00
Normal Case Yes 25.00% 0.00 0.00 0.00 40.00
bad case Yes 25.00% 0.00 0.00 0.00 10.00
             
Weighted CF   100% 2.45 7.45 2.16 59.66

An analysis like this can help to understand better the sensitivities of such a rather complicated special situation investment.

Of coure, the probability of bankruptcy is the single most important driver, so let’s discuss this shortly:

On the positive side we have the fact that Praktiker survived the year end and the restocking of inventory for the spring 2012 season. Further, I think at the moment no one has a real advantage if Praktiker goes bankrupt. The biggest problem, the leases for the real estate, could be better reduced if Praktiker would be bancrupt but on the other hand they might have much more problems getting merchandise delivered even if bankruptcy would only be short term.

Additionally, I think the “year end accounting blood bath” makes more sense on a going concern basis than if one would prepare a “prepackaged” bancruptcy.

Potential Catalyst:

In my opinion, something with regard to financing has to happen this year. So there might be a good chance that the bond reacts positively within a limited time frame if the refinancing package is hopefully finalized.

Stand alone risk / return and portfolio view

If I compare Praktiker with the sucessful WestLB Genußschein investment, the Praktiker bond looks more risky, both from the potential downside and time horizon. However, also the potential upside is a lot higher at current levels.

However, on a portfolio level, things look differently. With special situations, I try to make “bets” as long as they are company specific and not directly correlate with each other or “normal” portfolio companies.

With Praktiker, we have the interesting situation that the bond ecoonomically is even negatively correlated with one of my core holdings, Hornbach.

This is something we can clearly see in current company news. In 2011, the German DIY segment showed around 3% growth, Praktiker lost almost 10% in slaes whereas Hornbach and OBI gained significantly above the market growth with 5-6% growth each.

If Praktiker really goes bancrupt, Hornbach among other will profit even more, either through taking over some of the better locations or just gaining more customers. On the other hand, if Praktiker manages the turn around or even gets a startegic shareholder, they might win back a lot of customers from the competition and hurt them significantly.

So one could argue (and I know this sounds a little crazy) that the Praktiker bond combined with the Hornbach shares creates a kind of “hedged” position.

Just for fun I loked at correlations between the Praktiker share, the Praktiker bond and the Hornbach Baumarkt Aktie. And, surprisingly we see the following based on 12 months and daily observations:

Over the last 12 months, the Praktiker share was slightly positively correlated with the Hornbach share (+0.03) whereas the bond was slightly negatively correlated with -.002. Not much but. nevertheless interesting. Again, for instance the last 4 months shows a small positive correlation between the shares (0.05) and a slightly negative correlation (-0.02) between Bond and Hornbach. So maybe not that crazy after all….

Summary:

On a stand alone basis, at current level, the Praktiker Bond is no “sure thing”, but a relatively risky speculation however with a relatively attractive risk/return ratio. In combination with the Hornbach share in my opinion, the combined position has a very intersting risk/return relationship which can greatly increase the expected return of the portfolio by actually reducing risk on an overall level.

I will therefore add a half position (2.5%) of Praktiker 2016 bonds to the portfolio at current prices (limit 41% of nominal value).

Book review: Dark Genius of Wallstreet

Easter time is a good time for a “historical” book review:

The book is about the life of Jay Gould, one of the most notorious “Robber barrons” in the 19th Century in the US.

The so called “robber barons” were a group of several “arch capitalists” who made their money in the 19th century through means which nowerdays would be punished with prison.

However in those days, there was no such things as “insider training”, people were even considered stupid if they traded stocks without insider information.

The first part of the book covers Jay Gould’s childhood which I found personally a little bit boring. It gets more interesting around page 50 or so when Jay Gould’s first real business venture, leather manufacturing is described where he starts as a junior partner.

It is fascinating to see how quickly he realizes that the production part of the value chain is the most capital consuming and risky part wheras the traders need a lot less capital and make more or less the same amount of profit. Naturally he started to speculate early in leather futures.

The “spirit” of those times is already clearly shown in the fight over a leather production site with the heirs of his former partners. “Unfriendly takeovers” in those times were a lot more unfriendly than today, not only involving lawyers but also armed men and gun fights.

Some how naturally he finds his way to Wall Street, where he starts as a so called “curb trader”, traders who literally stood outside the stock exchange and making bets because they had no license to trade directly.

After trading a lot, Gould started pretty early to actually taking over a small railroad company a and operate it on a day today basis. To day one would call this a public-to-private equit deal. This lead directly to the famous battle for Erie Railroad between Gould, Vanderbild, Drew and Fisk one of the most intensively fought battles in corporate history. Anfd fighting again in those times meant armed men etc etc

More or less in parallel, Jay Gould tried with James Fisk tried to corner the Gold market, resulting in the “Black friday” of 1869.

At the peak of his career, he even managed to control Western Union additionally to a combination of several important railroad lines.

Summary:

I think it is a great read for everyone interested in the history of capital markets. The book also shows that nothing is really new in capital markets, neither market volatility nor crashes etc. It is also interesting to gain some insight into those “dark ages” of insider based capital markets, maybe a good training if someone wants to invest in China or India…..

Weekly links – Easter edition

Must read: Graham and Doddsville Winter 2012

Two great posts from Damodaran: First why he sold Apple after owning it since 1997. And second about the importance of the type of shareholders for a company.

Funny April 1st letter to the board of Berkshire Hathaway

Must read: The Grumpy Old Accountants on Groupon: part 1 and part 2. Forensic accounting at its best !!!

Another lesson about Chinese Corporate Governance

Keynes, a superstar stock investor ?

EDIT: Really good new German/English Blog rueckzugsgut Keep it up mate !!

Kurzanalyse Prokon Genußrechte

ACHTUNG: DER FOLGENDE BEITRAG IST DIE PERSÖNLICHE MEINUNG DES AUTORS UND KEINE ANLAGEEMPFEHLUNG ODER ÄHNLICHES. DIE MEINUNGSBILDUNG ERFOLGTE AUF BASIS ÖFFENTLICH VERFÜGBARER INFORMATIONEN. DER AUTOR HAT KEINERLEI WIRTSCHAFTLICHEN ODER FINANZIELLEN INTERESSEN IN ZUSAMMENHANG MIT DEM BESPROCHENEN WERTPAPIER.

Nachdem mir unaufgefordert ein Flyer für Prokon Genußrechte in die Post geflattert ist und ständig nervende pop ups von Prokon auftauchen, habe ich mir rein interessehalber mal die verfügbaren Informationen “zu Gemüte” geführt.

Kritische Pressestimmen gibt es genug, z.b. im Handelsblatt, Stiftung Warentest und beim Privatanleger.

Als fundamental orientierter Investor sollte man sich generell zwei Fragen stellen:

1) Was für ein Instrument wird da angeboten ?
2) in Anhängigkeit von 1), was steckt fundamental dahinter

Zu 1): Das angebotene Instrument ist ein Genußrecht und die haben im Prinzip folgende “Features”:

a) Die Zahlung der Verzinsung ist in der Regel vom Gewinn abhängig, im Gegensatz zu einer Anleihe oder Bankeinlage wo die Verzinsung Gewinnunabhängig ist

Bei Prokon findet man das im Hauptprospekt immerhin schon auf Seit 4 wie folgt:

Verzinsung
GRUNDVERZINSUNG: 6,00 % pro Jahr ab dem Tag, der auf die Wertstellung der jeweiligen Einzahlung auf dem Konto der Emittentin folgt. Die Auszahlung bzw. automatische Gutschrift (Thesaurierung) der Zinsen erfolgt nur, wenn dadurch bei der Emittentin kein Bilanzverlust entsteht. Nicht ausgezahlte bzw.
gutgeschriebene Grundverzinsung in eventuellen Verlustjahren wird in späteren Gewinnjahren nachgezahlt bzw. gutgeschrieben.

b) oft haben Genußrechte eine direkte Verlustbeteiligung, d.h. bei einem verlust reduziert sich automatisch der Rückzahlungsanspruch

Da muss man schon ein bischen länger suchen, aber auf Seite 47 des Prospektes findet man den entsprechenden Passus:

5. Weist die PROKON Regenerative Energien GmbH & Co. KG in ihrem Jahresabschluss einen Jahresfehlbetrag aus, wird dieser nach vollständiger
Aufzehrung der gesetzlichen und eventuellen gesellschaftsvertraglichen Rücklagen zunächst bis zur Höhe des vorhandenen Kommanditkapitals dem Kommanditisten zugewiesen. Sollte die Emittentin darüber hinausgehende Verluste ausweisen, nimmt das Genussrechtskapital daran bis zur vollen Höhe durch entsprechende Verminderung des Genussrechtskapitals teil. Die Rückzahlungsansprüche der Genussrechtsinhaber vermindern sich entsprechend.

Die Einlage des Kommanditisten wird an anderer Stelle mit 400 Tsd. EUR genannt, bei einem ausstehenden Betrag von über 800 Mio Genußrechten also unerheblich.

c) Im Falle einer Insolvenz und/oder Liquidation sind Genußrechte nachrangig, salopp gesagt bekommt man dann das was noch übrig ist, was in der Realität in solchen Fällen meistens einer “0” entspricht.

Auf Seite 49 findet man den entsprechenden Passus:

§ 11
Auflösung der Emittentin 1. Im Falle der Auflösung der Emittentin haben die Genussrechtsinhaber Anspruch auf Rückzahlung des Genussrechtskapitals zum Buchwert, sofern die Emittentin über ausreichende Liquidität verfügt. Der Buchwert wird ermittelt aus dem Nennwert des eingezahlten Genussrechtskapitals abzüglich noch nicht wieder aufgefüllter Verlustanteile zuzüglich noch nicht ausgezahlter Gewinnanteile.
2. Der Rückzahlungsanspruch besteht vorrangig vor der Rückzahlung des Kommanditkapitals, ansonsten nachrangig nach allen anderen nicht nachrangigen Ansprüchen von Gläubigern der Emittentin.

Zwischenfazit: Das Instrument ist also nach allen “Regeln der Kunst” als sehr nachrangiges Kapital anzusetzen, dass ein direktes Verlustrisiko trägt. Ein Vergleich der Anlage sollte deshalb nie anhand von Bank oder Anleihezinsen erfolgen sondern nur im Vergleich zu anderen Eigenkapitalbeteiligungen.

Kommen wir nun zu Punkt 2), der Fundamentalanalyse.

Dazu empfiehlt sich als erster immer den Blick in den Geschäftsbericht.

Was hier auffällt ist Folgendes:

– als “echten” Abschluss gibt es (ähnlich wie bei WGF) nur einen HGB Einzelabschluss, es fehlt der testierte und wirtschaftlich relevantere Konzernabschluss

–> an dieser Stelle kann man eigentlich als fundamental orientierter Anleger gleich wieder aufhören. Nur ein vollkonsolidierter Abschluss kann als Basis für eine Analyse dienen.

Ab Seite 34 des Geschäftsberichts findet man wörtlich “Summierte betriebswirtschaftliche Erträge und Aufwendungen der PROKON Unternehmensgruppe im
Geschäftsjahr 2010 (Die aufgeführten Zahlen entstammen im Wesentlichen aus nicht von einem Wirtschaftsprüfer bzw. einer Wirtschaftsprüfungsgesellschaft
geprüften Jahresabschlüssen.)”

Summiert heisst hier einfach zusammengezählt und vermutlich nicht konsolidiert.

Interessant an der Aufstellung ist die Tatsache, dass eigentlich fast der ganze 2010er Gewinn “ausserordentliches Ergebnis” ist. Dieses “ausserordentliche Ergebnis” ist in der Fussnote wie folgt beschrieben:

Entstanden durch Aufdeckung stiller Reserven im Rahmen von Verkäufen von Beteiligungen, Forderungsverzichte von Banken, Leasingunternehmen sowie innerhalb der PROKON Unternehmensgruppe.

Das ist ein klares Zeichen, das man hier durch internes Hin- und her schieben Gewinne generiert, was diese “summarische” Aufstellung aus fundamentalen Gesichtspunkten völlig bedeutungslos macht.

Ein weiteres Detail aus dem Geschäftsbericht:

– die Genußscheine werden lt. Seite 14 nur von einer “Schwestergesellschaft” der operativen Gesellschaften ausgegeben, nicht von der Mutter. Somit sieht man z.B. nicht, welche Zahlungen an die tatsächlichen Eigentümern zufliessen. Das zumindest war bei WGF immerhin noch etwas transparenter.

– die “Emissionsgesellschaft” selber generiert signifikante Kosten. 2010 waren das 17 Mio von 48 Mio Gesamtertarg, also deutlich über ein Drittel. Bei durchschnittlich (291+477)/2 = 384 Mio ausstehendem Genußrechtskapital, sind das 4.4% “laufende” Einwerbungskosten etc. p.a.

– zusätzlich fällt im WP Bericht zum Einzelabschluss noch auf, dass ca. 43 Mio oder 10% der Mittel nicht in Projekte sondern an “Gesellschafter” gegangen ist.

Ein Wort noch zur sogenannten Rücknahmegarantie:

Folgender Passus steht im Genußscheinprospekt:

Die von den Garantiegebern erklärte Rückkaufgarantie steht unter der Bedingung, dass sie nur dann von den Genussrechtsinhabern in Anspruch
genommen werden kann, wenn durch die Inanspruchnahme bei den Garantiegebern keine Zahlungsunfähigkeit oder Überschuldung im Sinne der Insolvenzordnung eintritt. Bei drohender Zahlungsunfähigkeit oder Überschuldung durch die Inanspruchnahme aus der Garantie verpflichten sich die Garantiegeber, die Genussrechtsinhaber umgehend davon schriftlich in Kenntnis zu setzen und ihnen mitzuteilen, dass die Garantie ausgesetzt wird. Sobald sichergestellt ist, dass durch eine Inanspruchnahme aus der Garantie bei den Garantiegebern Zahlungsunfähigkeit oder Überschuldung im Sinne der Insolvenzordnung nicht mehr droht, lebt die Garantie in ihrer ursprünglichen Form wieder auf. Die Garantiegeber verpflichten sich, die Genussrechtsinhaber umgehend über diesen Umstand schriftlich in Kenntnis zu setzen.

D.h.in dem Fall wo man die Garantie eigentlich brauchen könnte, zieht sie nicht. Mangels konsolidierten Abschluss kann man auch die “Qualität” der Garantiegeber nicht beurteilen.

Zudem sollte man nicht vergessen, dass die Garantie immer nur auf den jeweils gültigen Nennbetrag läuft. Theoretisch kann also die Genußscheinemittentin einfach einen riesen Verlust ausweisen mit einer entsprechenen Abschreibung auf den Nennwert bevor die Garantie theoretisch ziehen würde.

Damit kann man hier schon ein Fazit ziehen:

– Der Genußschein selbst ist ein hochriskantes Eigenkapitalinstrument
– Die Qualität und Profitabilität des zu Grunde liegenden Geschäfts kann mangels konsolidierten Konzernabschlusses nicht nachvollzogen werden
– der ständige Vergleich mit Bankeinlagen und die sogenannte “Rücknahmegarantie” sind nicht substantiell und stehen in keiner Relation
– wer eine sichere Geldanlage will, sollt die Finger von so einem Genußschein lasen, für spekulative Naturen gibt es sicher transparentere Vehikel

Mir selber ist es nach wie vor ein Rätsel, warum es in Deutschland überhaupt erlaubt ist, ein solches Produkt ohne konsolierten Abchluss in so einer Größenordnung zu vertreiben. Anscheinend sind ja schon über 800 Mio EUR investiert worden, das entspricht eigentlich schon SDAX oder MDAX Niveau.

Aus persönlicher Erfahrung würde es mich auch stark wundern, wenn die Windparks wirklich 8% nach Steuern und den erheblichen Vertriebskosten abwerfen würden. Die Projekte die ich gesehen habe sind (ungehebelt) eher bei 5-7% p.a. gelegen-

UND NOCHMAL DER HINWEIS: ICH HABE KEINE FINANZIELLEN INTERESSEN AN DEM PRODUKT. MIR WURDEN DIE ANGEBOTE UNAUFGEFORDERT ZUGESCHICKT BZW: IN DEN BROWSER “GEPOPPT”.

Gruppo Sol SPA part 2 – balance sheet, qualitative aspects and weaknesses

After the initial post about Gruppo Sol SpA, let’s look at some other standard issues which are important for a “value investment”:

1. Balance Sheet quality

Gruppo Sol is definitely not an asset play, as the main value lies in at least some local competitive advantages, mostly in it’s homecare business. However it makes nevertheless sense to check the quality of the balance sheet, as a solid balance sheet significantly decreases the downside in those cases where the investment thesis doesn’t play out.

a) Goodwill

Good news here: Gruppo Sol has only a very small amount of goodwill (22mn EUR out of 375 mn EUR equity). In comparison to AIr Liquide or Linde, this looks quite good. Air Liquide has only half of its book value in tangible assets, whereas Linde has negative tangible book value due to its past acquisition. Tangible book value in itself is definitely not a guarantee for success, but it limits the downside to a certain extent.

b) Debt

Debt is unfortunately not insiginifcant. With around 170 mn net debt as of 31.12.2011, debt to equity is around 50%. Although this is exactly the same ratio as Linde and slightly better than Air Liquide, for an Italian based company with most likely Italian bank as creditors, this is something to monitor closely.

Interestingly, they provide a very detailed overview of financial liabilites in the 2010 report on page 54. The good news is that very few loans contain covenants and there are no critical maturities, the “roll down” seems to be very conservatively structured, the bad news is that some of the loans are quite expensive. In total I would judge this as a rather well managed conservative financing structure.

c) Extra assets, Pensions, operating leases, depreciation etc.

There are basically no other assets on the balance sheet than those required for running the business, so no big minority stakes etc. On the one hand, this doesn’t leave any potential for “extra” assets like Autostarada, howver on the other side its a good sign as the comnpany seems to be focused on its core business and not trying to play the typical Italian pyramide structure games.

The company doesn’t seem to have off-balance sheet operational leases. A smaller amount of the assets are financed through financial leases which are included in the nebt debt

They don’t really show pension liabilites which is due to the fact that defined benefit plans are unusual in Italy anyway. However the show a 10 mn EUR reserve for “employee severance and other benefits”. Interestingly they seem to discount this with 1.30% p.a. which is a very very conservative assumption.

A quick view into fixed assets shows that plant and machinery of Sol SpA show a cummulated depreciation of ~2/3 of historical values. Land and building values are only a small amount of fixed assets, so I would not expect any “hidden reserves” there.

So overall, I would consider the balance sheet of Sol SpA as conservative but without significant hidden value.

2. Shareholders & Management

Large shareholders are:

59.98% are held by a Dutch entity called “Gas and Technolgies world” whcih is the vehicel of the founding Fumagali family. The CEO of SoL SpA, Aldo Fumagalli Romario is currently CEO of Sol SpA, so SOl is both, family owned and also actively managed by a family member.

7.35% are held by Tweedy Browne
5.05% are held by Bestinver
4.50% by Stefano Bruscagli, a board member of Sol SpA
3.00% are held by Alberto Tronconi, a former Sol SpA director.
1.13% owned by Leonardo Alberti, a current director of Sol Spa

So in total, 60% are held by the family and further 8.6% by active board members which in my opnion is a good sign.

Board compensation

For some reason I didn’t find director’s comp in the report, so I rely on the FT information. However 500 k compensation for the top officers seem to be OK.

Corporate Governance

The only thing I can say about this is that I am not aware of anything yet. So no dealings between main shareholder and company or directors and company whcih is very good for an Italian company.

Weaknesses and known problems

At some point in time one should also consider the main weaknesses as you rarely find the “perfect” company at hte perfect price.

Capital intensity

As mentioned in the first post, especially the industrial gas business is very capital intensive. So no nice free cashflow franchise busienss but “real investment” business. If Sol was an Anglo Saxon company, they would have spun off Vivisol a long time ago and milking the cash from the gas business without reinvesting.

I am not sure if Vivisol relies to a certain extent on facilities from the industrial gas segment, this is something to explore further. Also, in the Vivisol segement, receivables started to grow. At some point, manngement mentioned that public health insurers, which usually pay for the home care services are paying slower espacially in Italy.

Italian exposure

This brings us to the next obvious point: Especially the industriel gas division is naturally exposed to Italy and a possible further detoriation of economical activity. As of 2010, Sol made 60% of sales within Italy and 40% outside, with outside sales growing by double digits. Although the business should be more stable than other businesses, this risk is definitely there.

2011 preliminary results and intra year reporting

During the year, Sol is only reporting EBIT. For Q3 for example, Sol reported 13.3% increase in YOY EBIT increase, a really strong double digit growth number.

So it came as a surprise that in the preliminary 2011 full year numbers, 12 M EBIT suddenly wnt flat agains the year before and EPS actuall decreased slightly.

As there is no segemnt reporting in the preliminary release, we cannot see if this is an issue for both segments. My assumption is thta the bad Q4 comes from the Italian industrial gas side but it is not really explained and one has to wait for the full annual report.

Investor relation / reporting

This brings us directly to another weak point. Quarterly reports do not include EPS and explanations are short. The last inevstor presentation is from 2003, so they seem to save a lot of money on investor relations if we look at the bright side. Tehy don’t even show up at the “Star” conferences.

Research Coverage & Index

For Sol SpA, analyst coverage is very low. Only one small shop covers them (“EVA dimensions”, whoever that is) with an overweight rating but noprice target. They are also not included in any index, and trading volume with around 200 k paer day is too low for many funds.

For larger institutionals with shorter time horizon, the stock is most likely not interesting.

So lets stop here and summarize part 2:

+ on the plus side, Sol seems to have a relatively conservative balance sheet
+ company is family owned and family run
+ management compensation is OK, managers have relevant stakes in the company
+/- corporate governance is good for Italian standards, however neutral for objective standards
– business is capital intensive
– significant exposure to Italy
– reporting during the year only on EBIT basis, very limited information

So far no “deal breakers” but also some significant general issues. I will have a final post up if to invest and at what price.

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