Category Archives: Uncategorized

Northgate Plc (NTG): Just another vehicle rental/leasing company ?

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northgate_logo

Business / Background:

Northgate is a UK based company that specialises in what they call “flexible rental” of smaller delivery vans to small businesses. My main interest in Northgate is not that I am so bullish on the UK and this sector, but that this company is somehow similar at least to the GoGetta part of Silverchef and I was looking for a peer company in order to be able to compare some metrics.

On a stand-alone basis, Northgate looks cheap:

Market cap: 570 mn GBP
P/E: 9,3
P/B: 1,1
EV/EBITDA 3,7
Div. Yield 4,1%

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Ashmore update – SELL

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A few days ago, Ashmore issued their 2016/2017 annual numbers and annual report. Ashmore was my first Emerging Market investment three and a half years ago and I think it makes sense to check and update the investment case.

Performance so far was not exciting. Including dividends, I earned around 21,6% over those 3,5 years in GBP, in EUR around 12,7%. Compared to my overall portfolio performance of ~+48% in the same time period, Ashmore was clearly a underperformer.

This is how I justified the potential investment case back then:

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Bitcoin for (Value Investing) Dummies like myself

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Background:
Some of my readers might have noticed that starting in the last year I have become more interested in Bitcoin and Cryptocurrencies. Don’t worry, I will not invest gamble with them but I do think it is important to understand what is going on in this area as this could change many things especially within financial services. As this blog functions primarily as my own diary, I have decided to do a few posts about my own learnings so far.

Bitcoin explained (maybe wrongly) in 10 Points:

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3D Printing: The “Disruption” which didn’t really disrupt

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It feels like decades ago but actually it is only 4 years ago when 3D printing was supposed to disrupt each and everyone.

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Googling around, it is quite easy to find articles like this one in Forbes from October 2013:

We are a few years away from a printed economy – an economy in which 3D printing will have a major role in manufacturing. Up to now, 3D printing has been most useful in creating prototypes. But from the automotive to the electronics and toy industries, 3D printers will increasingly produce critical parts and finished products. What are some industries 3D printing will disrupt? Here’s our list of seven.

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Record Plc (ISIN GB00B28ZPS36) – I like that record too !!!

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

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A few months ago, fellow blogger Wexboy had a very interesting post on Record Plc, a UK based “specialty asset manager”. Go and read the whole thing, it is worth it.

I try to summarize the business & background  in my own words:

Record Plc provides so-called “Currency overlay” asset management services. Currency overlays are in principle used for two reasons.

  1. To hedge an international investment portfolio into one single currency, usually the currency of the investor and/or
  2. To gain some extra yield by hedging currency exposures more “dynamically”

It is important to know that they do not manage the underlying assets, but “just” a derivative portfolio hedging the underlying assets and that they do not use their own balance sheet but act solely as an agent for the ultimate client.

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Spin-off/IPO updates: Metro/Ceconomy, Brighthouse Financial, ALD SA

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Metro/Ceconomy

I had briefly written about the Metro/Ceconomy Spin-off in January. After some legal hassles, the spin-off took place last week last.

This is what I wrote back then:

With 327 mn shares outstanding, this would translate into ~6,20 EUR per share as a lower bound value for Ceconomy under my (very rough assumptions).

It think at or below this price, Ceconomy could be an interesting “Ugly duck” spin-off investment.

Interestingly, Ceconomy had a very good start, opening around 9,40 EUR and has gone above 10 EUR per share, far above my buying threshold.

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HP Enterprise (HPE) – Spinning-off its way to happiness ?

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DISCLAIMER: THIS IS NOT INVESTMENT ADVICE. PLEASE DO YOUR OWN RESEARCH !!!!!

Management summary:

  • HPE, the enterprise arm of the old HP looks attractive on a sum-of-part valuation
  • following 3 spin-offs in 2 years, my model indicates an upside of ~40% in the base case and ~70% in an optimistic case
  • Some “soft catalysts” are on the horizon such as the upcoming Software “spin -off merger”, further share buy backs and a “normal” financial year
  • management acts shareholder friendly, has a clear strategy and has created significant shareholder value since 2011
  • major risk is clearly a further detoriation of the Enterprise solution business which had a bad start into fiscal 2017

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