value and opportunity

Bilfinger:

It’s “bloodbath time” at least when it comes to accounting. Bilfinger released 6M 2015 figures a few days ago. As often the case with new CEOs, the new one tried to write down as much as possible, in this case ~423 mn EUR or roughly -9 EUR/share:

Charges of 430 million euros ($476 million), including a 330 million write-down of the Power division and 30 million in restructuring costs for Industrial, pushed Bilfinger to a 423 million euro net loss from a profit of 47 million a year ago.

The CEO has sent a letter to all employees, similar to the “burning platform” letter at Nokia some time ago. In Nokia’s case back then it was already too late, let’s see how it works out for Bilfinger. I do think there is some good substance in the company but the transition will be very difficult. For me personally, Bilfinger is still on the “too hard” pile as I cannot judge the viability of the remaining business.

Overall my impression is that the “accounting blood bath” is less aggressive as for instance at Vossloh. I think this has to do with the motivation of the shareholders. At Vossloh, the biggest shareholder Thiele clearly wants to buy more shares at a price as cheaply as possible. At Bilfinger, Cevian clearly does not want to take over the company but rather exit sooner than later.

FBD

I looked at FBD, the Irish Insurance company in January and decided to not invest as a didn’t like a couple of things (non-alignment of incentives, aggressive reserving, stupid investment strategy).

In the meantime, quite a lot happened:

The CEO left, the CFO took over and the stock lost around -50% since then. On monday, FBD issued its 6M report and things look even worse than back then, as at Bilfinger, they created a nice “blood bath”. The Farmer’s journal interestingly has the best coverage for FBD. Here are the highlights from the 6M report:

– the had to increase past reserves by 88 mn EUR (!!!)
– they will sell their hotel JV at book value, the proceeds at Farmer’s side will be reinvested into FBD
– they will go for a subordinated bond issue (50-100 mn)

Overall, the lost over 1/3 of their equity in the first 6 months (from 275 mn to 180 mn). The current equity position includes a retroactively implemented restatement which boosted equity by 30 mn EUR. I honestly didn’t fully understand the reason for this restatement.

Within the 6M presentation, they give the following interesting statement with regard to Solvency II:

JV sales and pension scheme actions take FBD solvency capital levels to the regulatory minimum (~100%)

Debt raise will bolster the firm’s capital buffer, taking Solvency II capital to within the firms target range of 110-130% by December 2015

This clearly shows that FBD is extremely strained from a capital perspective. The biggest unknown in my opinion is how the proceeds of the sold JV will be reinvested into FBD. They don’t comment on that 45 mn EUR at current prices (5,8 EUR per share) would be more than 20% of the company. I don’t know about Irish company laws, but this normally needs to be done on a subscription rights basis. Or the Farmers provide the subordinated capital ?

Anyway for now I still don’t think that FBD is investible, one really needs to understand how the capital increase will be executed. From a positive side, my analysis in January was actually quite good and saved me a lot of trouble. Still, FBD will go on my “focused watch list” as it could develop into an interesting “turn around” case as the underlying business, if run well, is still attractive. I ususally don’t invest into turn arounds but in this case I would make an exception as I consider this inside my circle of competence.

Funnily enough the price adjusted almost directly to the new “book value”. It seems as this is kind of the “anker” for investors.

ABN Amro IPO

The upcoming ABN Amro IPO could be another chance to invest in a “forced IPO” kind of special situation. However, for the time being it doesn’t seem to be a real bargain according to this Reuters article:

The government has said the bank is currently worth about 15 billion euros, just under its just-reported book value, suggesting a paper loss of about a third on the initial share sale. To break even, the bank would need to fetch a valuation of 1.4 times forward book value – higher than rival ING, which trades at 1.2 times.

For a wholesale/corporate/investment bank like ABN I would not be prepared to pay book value, so for the time being I will watch this from the sidelines, unless they come up with a clear discount to book value.