Monthly Archives: September 2020

All German Share part 30 (Nr. 651-675)

Posted on by 22 comments

Time flies, it’s more than a month since the last posting of this series. So another 25 randomly selected German stocks. Despite the usual duds, the dices this time brought up 6 stocks that I found in principle worth watching.

With “only” around 100 stocks left, I need to think about another market/area that I will cover in this systematic way. Suggestions highly welcome !

651. IFA Hotel & Touristik AG

IFA is a 242 mn EUR market cap company that has rarity value: I think it is the only remaining listed German stock that represents a “Hotel pure play”. However there are a few specialties to consider: The company is majority owned by the Spanish Lopesan Group. Lopesan did a lot of related party transactions with other Lopesan entities and IFA did a couple of capital increases without real necessity.

So far, there doesn’t seem to be any indication that Lopesan has screwed minorities. Some of the “Trades” were actually quite profitabel. Nevertheless, the stock is on a 2 years downtrend that just accelerated due to Covid-19:

Read more

Some Links

Posted on by One comment

UK retailer Next Plc has a highly interesting 6M report with many deep thoughts on retail and Covid-19

A good reminder that SPACs still are bullsxxx

Interesting interview with author and financial historian Edward Chancellor

Some deep insights into an Japanese activist story (Ryoyo Electric) 

As indeed “winter is coming”, life will happen more outdoor than usual

A16Z on “deep” job platforms

A WSJ portrait of the short seller behind “Hindenburg Research” (Nikola)

 

Grenke fOllow up: Recap & Fundamentals (and why Grenke is actually a stealth insurance broker)

Posted on by 51 comments

Disclaimer: This is not investment advice. Please do your own research and never believe anything from  anonymous bloggers !!!!

A first a quick quick recap on what happened since the last post.

Friday’s written statement from Grenke pre press/analyst was actually pretty lame. I think they made clear that the money laundering and Ponzi issue were indeed minor issues but they didn’t shed any more light on the whole CTP issue.

Unfortunately I missed the press/analyst call. From what I have heard there was nothing new.

A quite surprising statement from Grenke on Monday was more substantial. All past M&A transaction with Franchises will be checked by an independent auditor, Grenke AG will have the option to buy the existing non-consolidated franchises and Wolfgan Grenke will (temporarily) step down from the Supervisory Board. It is also mentioned, that in the future, Grenke AG will fund new franchises.

Read more

Some Links

Posted on by One comment

Shocking news ! Fraud in Startup Land. How can this be ?

In Silicon Valley, “pre-telling the truth” is ok according to Alex Danco

For a change, FTAlphaville somehow recommends 4imprint, a UK based company 

IPO’s are maybe not that bad compared to SPACs and direct listings

A great deep dive on London-listed Hypgnosis Song fund

A very good deep dive feature on Masa Son (Softbank)

Very interesting long term projections on energy usage from BP

Grenke – Quick take oN the first statement from W. GRenke

Posted on by 35 comments

Disclaimer: There is some real wild speculation in this post which represents an explicit personal opinion from a concerned investor and nothing else. Please don’t take this seriously and please don’t sue me !!!!

Just a very quick update on Mr. Grenke’s release that came 1 hour later than announced (when my index finger already began to hurt from refreshing the home page).

I have copied out only the “juicy” part, highlights are mine:

Read more

Grenke Leasing Short Attack – First analysis

Posted on by 43 comments

Background:

Long time readers of my blog know that I covered Grenke a while back and unfortunately invested instead in what I thought was the “Australian Grenke” with a pretty bad outcome.

Now Viceroy Research came out with a blazing short attack on Grenke. Viceroy seems to be the same guy that released the now famous “Zatarra Report” on Wirecard in 2016.

This post is a first attempt to look at the allegations in order to find out if they are true and how severe they potentially could be. At the time of writing, Grenke is down more ~ -20% and close to the lows from March.

1. Non disclosed related party transactions

Read more

Some links

Posted on by Leave a comment

When I saw the GM & Nikola announcement my first though was: This looks like Theranos and Walgreen back in 2016. Hindenburg Research is of the very same opinion: Nikola is a fraud. And yes, that’s what SPAC’s are really good for…

Great stuff: Bessemer Ventures has posted some of their internal investment memos including Wix (2007) and Shopify (2010)

The Brooklyn investor has a first look at Warren Buffett’s Japanese stock basket

Preis and Wert blog has a great write up on JDC Group (in German, the other parts of the insurance broker series are highly recommended, too)

Very interesting feature on Reed Hastings, CEO of Netflix

Great deep dive on Uber’s business model

A good reminder: Even the best companies see deep draw downs in their stock prices at one point

 

Some links

Posted on by 9 comments

Even Seth Klarman’s Baupost seems to have lost it with investors

Must read: Dan McCrum summarizes the Wirecard story (so far) in the FT including many new interesting details

FT Alphaville thinks that ESG darling Tomra is wildly overvalued

The event industry is having its “Napster moment”

According to rumors, Softbank has been buying Tech stock options like crazy

Good advice: Save like a pessimist, invest like an optimist

Fred Wilson from AVC has some interesting thoughts on SPACs