Monthly Archives: October 2022

Some links

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Must read: Prof. Damodaran on Free Cash Flow calculation (Spoiler: Don’t underestimate P/E and EV/EBIT measures)

Matt Levine with his epic “article” on all things Crypto

A good collection of recent and coming spin-offs

Twitter is a “disaster clown car company” with Elon Musk in charge.

Klement on Infrastructure investments and inflation protection

Ben Thompson (Stratechery) with a deep dive on the chip industry and American sanctions

Jim Chanos is always worth watching and listening to

Exmar – Update Q3 numbers: “Thank you for the Tango” & SELL

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Exmar was a special situation that I entered in August, following a surprising significant asset sale (a LNG liquification platform called “Tango”)

Yesterday evening, Exmar reported Q3 numbers including the final numbers on the ENI transaction. A few points that I found important:

  • Cash proceeds for the ENI transaction were slightly higher (+13 mn) compared to my base case
  • Net cash at company level however was -23 mn lower than I had calculated
  • Interestingly, Exmar only reported net cash at Group level, not gross cash at Holding level
  • The remaining core LPG business seems to do quite well, with sales up ~6% and EBIT up ~50%
  • They didn’t provide explicit number on how much they earn with the remaining regasification unit that is operating since August. The earnings of the “infrastructure” segment are really hard to read
  • Next week, there will be an extraordinary shareholder meeting declaring a 0,95 EUR dividend per share

The share price has done quite well. At the time of writing, Exmar traded at 10,20 EUR per share, an increase of almost exactly 1/3 vs. when I entered the position and even better in relative terms:

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All Danish Shares part 14 – Nr. 131-140

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A new week, a new batch of 10 randomly selected Danish shares. This time two shares made it onto the preliminary “watch” list. I also need to think about which country i will invade look at next.

131. NTR Holding

NTR seems to be a defunct shell with a market cap of 1,5 mn EUR. “Pass”.

132. Orsted

Orsted is a 32,5 bn EUR market cap energy that has already been part of the V&O portfolio. Orsted, which used to be called Dong Energy is a unique story: it is the first Oil and Gas company that divested more or less completely from oil and gas and focuses only on renewable energy.

Orsted is a Pioneer in renewables and is both, developing an running renewables projects with a focus on offshore wind on a global basis. Looking at the stock chart, we can see that the stock had a good run until 2021 but is since then drifting lower:

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Book review: “The Star Builders: Nuclear Fusion and the Race to Power the Planet” – Arthur Turrell

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star builders

Those readers that share my fascination with Science Fiction books know the plot: In the (far) future, humans have solved Nuclear Fusion and with that unlimited energy is then able to fly to the stars.

“The Star Builders” however is not a Science Fiction book but the attempt to analyze the current status of this technology, written by a “serious” Physics researcher.

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All Danish Shares part 13 – Nr. 121-130

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Slowly we are reaching the end of my Journey through Denmark. Another 10 randomly selected stocks, this time yielding two “watch” candidates. Only 48 now outstanding. Enjoy !!!

121. Strategic Investments A/S

Strategic Investments is a 52 mn EUR market cap investment vehicle that invests into securities, private equity and real estate. Investor relations is in Danish only. Looking at the share price, there doesn’t seem to happen a lot of value creation here. “Pass”.

122. Copyright Agent

Copyright Agent is a 2 mn EUR market company that “is a legal-tech company that helps professional content creators to ensure their original work against misuse by other companies.”  This 2021 IPO is actually growing quite fast, but losses are growing faster with an EBIT margin of -50%. Cash at June 30th at the current burn rate only lasts until year end 2022, so capital increase will be coming soon (or bankruptcy). “Pass”.

123. Gyldendal

Gyldendal is a 125 mn EUR market cap book publisher and operator of book stores. After doing nothing for 20 years, the Stock saw some interesting price action in 2021 which has now mostly reversed:

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Some links

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Molten Ventures is another beaten up listed VC stock

A critical look into the Mega Buyout (and mega leverage) of Citrix

Although it’s from McKinsey, this interview with VC legend Bill Gurley is really good

Extremely interesting analysis of the accuracy of analyst forecasts

Ben Thompson (Startechery) sees Microsoft as the “real VR” company

Interesting deep dive into the current state of Softbank

Very nice write-up on Hypoport from Verus (German language)

Performance review 9M 2022 – Comment: “David Einhorn, Bumsbuden & Short selling”

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In the first 9 months of 2022, the Value & Opportunity portfolio lost  -15,8% (including dividends, no taxes) against a loss of -27,0% for the Benchmark (Eurostoxx50 (25%), EuroStoxx small 200 (25%), DAX (30%), MDAX (20%), all TR indices).

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 the first 9M 2022:

Partners Fund TGV: -42,6%
Profitlich/Schmidlin: -20,6%
Squad European Convictions -20,4%
Ennismore European Smaller Cos ––6,6% (in EUR)
Frankfurter Aktienfonds für Stiftungen -12,2%
Greiff Special Situation -5,0%
Squad Aguja Special Situation -21,2%
Paladin One -21,4%

Performance review:

Overall, the portfolio was again more or less in the middle of my peer group. Looking at the monthly returns, it clearly shows that the rebound in July until Mid August was short lived and that August and September turned out to be big down months again, after the disastrous June:

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All Danish Shares Part 12 – Nr. 111-120

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And on we go with our journey through the danish share universe. This time we have one very strong candidate that already made it into the V&O portfolio recently. Enjoy !!!

111. Boozt AB

Boozt AB is a “Nordic technology company selling fashion, apparel, and beauty online”, currently valued at 342 mn EUR. The chart shows that,as other E-Commerce players, times are tough for E-Commerce:

Boozt chart

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Hypoport AG Part 1: : Great Business but experiencing a “Wile E. Coyote moment” ?

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Background:

Hypoport logo

Hypoport has been one of the sore points in my investing history. I have been looking at this company several times, quite intensively in 2013 but never “pulled the trigger”. Hypoport has been a “FinTech” before this expression has been used. The business is not so easy to explain and comprises 4 different segments with several companies within these segments.

Recently, the share price of the company has been hammered after they gave a profit warning, despite having decreased already -75% from their peak before that profit warning. Time to look at Hypoport again.

Business:

  1. Loan platform “Europace”

This is clearly the flagship product of Hypoport although it doesn’t seem to be well understood or known. Europace is a B2B market place that gathers different mortgage offerings and combines these offerings combined with other useful tools to professional advisers who then actually make the deal with retail customers.

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