Italmobiliare
Italmobiliare published preliminary numbers already some days ago. The first reaction of the market was not so kind:
To be honest, I do not fully understand why the reaction was so negative. NAV development has been quite solid including the dividend as this chart shows:
The Wintergem Substack with a very interesting write-up on Canadian Business Jet Maker Bombardier
Behind the Balance Sheet with a great deep dive into the business of Finance/Investing Substacks
A very interesting article on the influence of Korean retail investors in the most volatile US securities
Lego’s profit margins are in decline (but still very high)
Richard Beddard looks at UK Smallcap Dotdigital
A good overview of the “Private Infrastructure” Asset Class from Larry Swedrow
A decent summary of the current “hangover in Alcohol stocks”
SFS Group 2024 numbers
Portfolio company SFS published 2024 numbers last week. Intitially, the stock reacted very negatively, dropping ~-9% only to recover fully by the time of writing:
Thermador 2024 numbers
Thermador released 2024 numbers last Friday. The most positive part of the release is the fact that Thermador manages to put everything you need to know on two pages without any BS. The numbers were clearly not good, with sales down -13,5% in 2024 and profit down -23,3%:
On the positive side, Thermador seems to continue to look for acquisition targets:
Highly Recommended: Rob Vinall’s 2024 letter is out
Paul Singer is a very rare Podcast guest. So if he appears, do listen/watch. A true “living legend”.
Heat waves and droughts are really bad for GDP in the mid- to long term
Flyover Stocks with a great post on how capital cycles work (Examples Bourbon & Home building)
Maynard Payton with an interesting write-up of BIG Technologies, a UK based “fallen Angel” IPO
The new Mauboussin Paper “Probabilities and Payoffs” is worth reading
An interesting article on a busted Austrian Private Equity deal and the pitfalls of “adjusted EBITDA”
EVS Broadcast
EVS Broadcast reported 2024 numbers this week. After raising their 2024 guidance 2 times during the year, they came out at the upper und of the projected range. The Highlight page speaks for itself:
Recommended: Wexboy with his 2024 portfolio & performance review
A great video explaining the East 72 Dynasty portfolio with a lot of interesting “family owned” companies
Some deep thoughts from the Brooklyn Investor on the “Broken Markets” theme
Nat Bullard’s annual presentation is a must for anyone interested in the energy sector
An interesting analysis that shows that “real assets” were not good hedges against inflation following Covid
Fantastic post why you should never rely on Bullshxt Earnings errrr Adjusted EBITDA
Royce Funds Microcap 2024 review with some summaries of US microcaps
This is not investment advice. PLEASE DO YOUR OWN RESEARCH.
Finally, after more than 18 months, I found a second candidate for my “Collector’s Corner” bucket after Laurent Perrier. Just as a reminder, the purpose of this bucker is as follows:
So here is the management summary and the write-up (which is a little bit “thinner” than usual.
Management summary
Robertet, is a 175 years old, 1,8 bn EUR market cap French company, owned and run by the Maubert family in the 4th and 5th generation that is active in natural flavors and fragrances. Although much smaller than its larger peers, Robertet is the leading player in natural/organic ingredients which they source globally.
The company has grown EPS by >10% for the last 5,10 and 20 years. Although not cheap (~19x 2024 EPS), the stock is in my opinion nevertheless attractive as there seems to be a good fundamental tailwind and the business is very stable and diversified with decent margins. I therefore decided to add it to my “Collector’s Corner” bucket next to Laurent Perrier with a 2% allocation.
Some deep thoughts on the relationship between material wealth and happiness
You can challenge any of Prof. Damodaran’s assumptions on Nvidia, but compared to the many clowns and scumbags that pose as stock analysts these days, his logic and level of transparency is just awesome. Well done Professor !!!
Nice wite-up on conglomerate Jardine Matheson from Emerging Value
Some interesting stats on UK take-over premiums from Klement on Investing
For anyone interested in the insurance industry, the Swiss Re Sigma reports are a great resaource
Interesting Sharescope article on small cap premium and a few UK Trust ideas
Philipe Luchesi with a new Video discussing Laurent Perrier (French, Youtube offers translation in subtitles)
Content:
This was clearly one of my “must read” books in 2024. The author, Lionel Barber, is the former editor of the financial times and as such clearly has access to people who might have otherwise not spoken to a more unknown journalists.
The book goes back to Masa-son’s very humble roots as part of the Korean minority in Japan which clearly was not an easy childhood. His father earned the first money by breeding pigs in their garden in a “slummy” area in their hometown. The father seems to have been quite an entrepreneurial character himself, moving into “loan sharhing” and then into Pachinko, low scale gambling game very popular in Japan. Similar to Masa later, his father used risky leverage and often risked it all to win. In any case, the family got decently rich with these gambling halls.
value and opportunity 