Category Archives: Anlage Philosophie

Book review: “Merger Masters – Tales of Arbitrage”

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Merger Masters, written by Kate Welling and supported by Mario Gabelli is a book similar to Jack Schwagers “Market Wizards” series, portraying some famous investors.

In this case the focus is on investors who are active mostly in the Merger Arbitrage Business, Some guys are very well known like John Paulson, Paul Singer or guy Wyser-Pratte but from other guys, who keep a low profile, most invetsors might have never heard of.

Personally I wish this book would have been written long ago and that I head read it long ago. It really offeres a very comprehensive view into this relatively arcane world of arbitrage investing with some very suprising insights.

It is also clear that there is not ONE recipe to be successful as an Arb. For instance the question on when to sell when a deal breaks divides these guys into two groups: Some of them say the only way is to sell directly after the news whereas others say that you should never sell directly but wait for a better price. Other notable differences are levels of concentration, use of leverage and if hostile deals are part of the universe or not.

I was also surprised on the depth of fundamental analysis that most of these guys seem to be doing before entering into a deal, at least they claim to do so.

What makes the book really special and even better than the Market Wizard series is the fact that there is also space for the “other side”, CEOs who have fought the Arbs in hostile deals an ultimately won. Most interesting was the story about the take over attempt of Airgas by Air Products which is described in very good detail and how Airgas Managment ultimately won although the odds were highly against them.

The content is clearly US centric, however I think most of the mentioned rules etc. can be applied internationally.

Summary:

Overall, the book is extremely well written and offers a unique deep insight into the M&A arbitrage world. There is a lot of content in the book and I think I have to read it at least a second time to digest all of it.

Overall I can recommend the book highly to any investor, because sooner or later one will be involved in such a situation. For “special situation” investors this book is a MUST. For me clearly one of the best investment books that I have ever read.

Update Cars.com & Kanam Grundinvest

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Kanam Grundinvest

Kanam Grundinvest was a special situation liquidation investment I made around 2 years ago. After 2 years, the position returned ~13,5% and is therefore on the upper range of my estimated return range from 4-8% p.a.. From the initial purchase price of around 16,17 EUR/unit I received back ~ 9,50 EUR in tax free distributions, resulting in a 2,5% remaining portfolio position.

However the current price of the units at ~8.85 EUR is very close to the intrinsic value of 9,24 EUR. So there is not that much juice left and Warburg will not liquidate super fast as they keep earning their fees as long this vehicle exists.

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Update Handelsbanken – HOLD

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Handelsbanken Update:

2018 was on the surface a solid year for Handelsbanken. According to the 2018 annual report, operating profit increased by +5% and net income by +8%, top line by +5%. ROE was 12,8% which is below my assumed 15% but still a remarkably good number for a large bank.

Just looking at the bottom line, the first quarter of Handelsbanken looks great:  Net income up +19%, operating profit up +18%. However top line only grew at +4% (vs. Q1 2018).

However this is solely a function of the fact that the bank reversed their provision into the Oktogonen pension fund for employees which they clearly state in the quarterly report:

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Online Travel Updates (Expedia, Booking, Tripadvisor, Trivago & AirBNB / Google)

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Expedia 

I invested into Expedia in February 2018 after the stock had become cheap enough. The idea was that a stock in a secular growth sector (online travel) should do well in the long run. After pretty decent fulll year 2018 numbers, with double digit increases in both, top and bottom, line, the first quarter 2019 showed a clear slowdown. Topline growth slowed to ~4%. Excluding Trivago which is still shrinking, topline sales would have grown +6%. Underlying profitability has improved although the first quarter is always the weakest one.

What I found interesting is the fact that Expedia performed better than Booking com. Here is a stock price comparison (including Tripadvisor  and Trivago):

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Deutsche Familienversicherung AG: Europe’s leading Insurtech or “Lipstick” on an ordinary Insurance company ?

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Deutsche Familenversicherung AG (DFV) IPOed end of last year and claims to be the first stock listed “Insuretech” in Europe. The IPO was only successful at the second attempt but still they made it. In their investor presentation they even call themselves “Europe’s leading Insurtech” which is a pretty bold claim.

Excursion: What does Insurtech /Fintech mean ? And what does digital mean ?

There is clearly not general valid definition of Fintech /insurtech, but looking at the Fintech space, one would characterize these companies as technology driven companies that use technology to do things faster, cheaper and better than thier “ordinary” competitors.

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Updates: Kinnevik (SELL), Vostok New Ventures (ADD), Vostok Emerging Finance (BUY)

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Kinnevik

Kinenvik was an investement I first looked at in December 2017 and then decided to invest in late 2018 however only up to a 1,5% allocation.

As mentioned in the comments by a reader. since then a few things happened. From the market side, first their Zalando stock cratered and then recovered. What worries me more is the flurry of personal changes including Christina Stenbeck, the heir of the major founding family completely leaving the board. Personally; i also didn’t find their main new investment, online Grocer MatHem, very convincing. Overall, I am slightly underwhelmed from the strategic perspective. I don’t know enough about the Nordic Telecom market and if I really like Zalando, I could buy them outright. The non-listed part at Kinnevik is just to small to make a difference and the changes in the Board are hard to understand.

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Special situation: Innogy Tendered Shares (IGYB) -(very) Cheap Optionality ?

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Background:
The guys from Paladin AM have outlined the Innogy case very nicely on their blog (in German): Intro & Update

I’ll try to summarize it in my own words:

Innogy, the renewable energy spin-off of RWE is in the process of being taken over by competitor E.ON. E.ON in 2018 had announced to purchase the 77% stake of RWE and has offered on a voluntary basis 36.74 EUR per share which, plus the upcoming dividend adds up to a total consideration of 38,14 EUR per share before tax. The closing of the transaction is subject to a relatively complex regulatory approval process which is already facing some delays. Most experts however think that the transaction will be ultimately approved.

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Position review: Van Lanschot (SELL) plus some thoughts on Unbundling /Rebundling in Banking

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Background:

Having this blog is nice because I can look back at what my original ssumptions were. I bought Van Lanschot in 2013, almost 5 1/2 years ago.

This was how I “valued” Van Lanschot back then:

Valuation:

A simple, “Berkowitz style” valuation would be: Book value

With ~0.51 times book value, Van Lanschot is one of the cheapest banks in Europe. Even Greek Banks like Piraeus Bank trade higher. The current valuation is on a level with „quality banks“ like Unicredit, Espirito Santo and Credito Bergamesco.

Interestingly, the P/B multiple for listed Private banks is a lot higher. Swiss competitors Julius Baer, EFG and Banq Privee de Rothschild for instance trade on multiples between 1.1-2.0 times book, a clear premium to „normal“ banks.

So with a “normal” result, one could argue for a valuation somewhere at 1.5 x book value. Clearly, this will be a long way, one should not expect exploding profits in the next quarters. But in a time period of 3-5 years, I could imagine that the stock can triple if the turn-around is succesful. Also, when people finally realize that not every Dutch homeowner will go broke, there might be a re-rating of Dutch financial stocks in general. But this might also take time.

It would be easy to come up with a much more complicated valuation method, but I like to keep it simple. If there are no big holes in the balance sheet and costs are kept under control, equity is at a safe level, then book value should be achievable for any bank.

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Zur Rose AG (ISIN: CH0042615283) – Loss making failed IPO or long term growth opportunity ?

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Disclaimer: This is not investment advice. DO YOU OWN RESEARCH !!!!

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The company

Zur Rose AG is a Swiss company that specializes in selling / distributing pharmaceuticals. The core business is Swiss distribution business where they distribute pharmaceuticals to Doctors, as in some parts of Switzerland, Doctors canboth, prescribe and sell pills. In 2012, Zur Rose made a smart/lucky buy: For only 25 mn EUR, they bought German based online Pharmacy Doc Morris from Celesio, a German Pharmaceuticals wholeseller that got later acquired by McKesson (I owned the stock as special situation)

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