Monthly Archives: March 2022

Protector Forsikring ASA – The Scandinavian “Baby Markel/Berkshire” ?

The company:

Protector Forsikring ASA is a name that came up more often in my “stream”. It is a Norwegian “Challenger” Insurance company founded in 2007 (and IPOed in 2008) that has been growing nicely over the past years and doesn’t look expensive.

The stock price has been quite volatile but recently the stock has reached new highs and long time shareholders should be quite happy:

Protector

The high level financial indicators look very attractive: A relatively Ok valuation with an impressive ROE:

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Some links

Some really good advice on how and for what to use Twitter

Morgan Housel with a big post on 17 “common mental models

Value Situations with a write up on Spin-off Wickes Group Plc

Interesting Twitter thread on how much wheat could actually be missing from world markets due to the Ukraine War (Spoiler: very little). From the same author some facts on fertilizer as well.

Despite the “tech crash”, private Ultra Fast delivery start-up Getir is able to raise money at a record valuation

Some thoughts on what might have triggered Buffett’s interest in Alleghany

The low beta premium seems to be mostly an illiquidity premium

Some links

Let’s start with a Goodie: Pareto Securities is holding its annual TechIT conference on March 30th. It is a virtual event and also open for non-professional investors. And it is good value because it is free.

GlobalStockPicking with a very nice write-up on Swedish MedTech RaySearch

In depth interview on the “metaverse” with a 19 year Second Life veteran

Marc Rubinstein on the current Russia issues of Airplane Leasing companies (AerCap)

Good deep dive into the “premium alcohol” market from Lindsell Train

A comprehensive market update from Prof. Damodaran reflecting the impact from the war in UKraine

Heat pumps look like a no brainer these days

A couple of really helpful matrices to cluster investments

ALL DANISH STOCKS PART 4 – NR. 31-40

One thing that I hadn’t managed to mention in my Panic series is that keeping up the normal routines instead of constantly staring at the screen for stock price action is also very important in order to “survive” volatile days as an investor.

With that in mind, I am more than happy to continue the all Danish Stocks series with 10 fresh randomly chosen stocks. This time four stocks made it on the “first round” watch list. Denmark seems to turn out as a quite promising hunting ground so far.

31. Columbus A/S

Columbus is an IT focused consultancy with a market cap of 160 mn EUR. Looking at their numbers, already 2019 was quite problematic and things didn’t improve much since then.

In January 2021, they sold a software subsidiary which resulted in a gain of around 2/3 of the current market value but they have distributed all the proceeds as a special dividend already.

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Panic Journal RUSSIA / UKRAINE Edition PART 2

Mental preparation

Another week and the war still goes on. My subjective feeling is that currently, a surprising large amount of investors still believe that this war will end relatively soon, one way or the other. However, if the war will last for a few years, we would be still far away from a turning point with a lot of escalation potential (stopping the oil and gas pipelines, “dirty weapons”, tens of millions of refugees etc). In the short term however, especially in European markets we could see some rallies if some good news is surfacing.

Consequences As mentioned already, I desperately hope (and still pray) for a quick end, but mentally, as an investor, I prepare for a much longer conflict. What does that “preparing mentally” mean ?

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Gaztransport & Technigaz (GTT) – welcome back !!

Background:

Gaztransport & Technigaz is a company that I had looked at in early 2016 and most of what I have written back then still applies:

Imagine you could invest into a company with the following characteristics:

– Global market leader with 70-90% market share (95% new built)
– Net margins after tax of 50% or more
– business protected by patents
– almost no capital requirement, negative working capital
– a potentially huge growth opportunity
– conservative balance sheet (no debt) and “OK” management

Back then, I found the stock initially too expensive at EUR 34 per share, however I invested then at around 22 EUR but sold after a quick gain at around 31 EUR.

What did happen since then ?

Looking at the chart, I was clearly underestimating the value of the stock by a wide margin as the stock more than tripled until early 2021:

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