Leaderboard

This board makes me smile. COBF when Prem bought at $6.50: oh FFS. Why can’t he just pay up for quality growth like everyone else? COBF when Prem offers $14.45 to minorities: Stop! Thief! He’s stealing the company! 7x future earnings is a perfectly reasonable multiple for a ship leasing company, especially when that multiple might reflect peak earnings (it’s quite possible when contracts roll in 4/5 years they’ll roll onto similar or lower rates, and it’s quite likely the cost of capital rises). ATCO is basically a specialist bank: it applies leverage to a narrow spread between the cost at which it sources and the price at which it supplies capital. It just isn’t worth a high P/E. The reason ATCO is going to be worth more than $14.45 in the future is because Sokol will allocate capital brilliantly, but capital allocation isn’t and shouldn’t be capitalized before it happens. Asking buyers to pay for it up front is nuts. (That’s actually why I liked it - I felt the value would compound nicely for years without it ever getting too expensive.) So, although ATCO is 7% of my portfolio and I’d hoped to own it for 20 years, I don’t think this is a crazy cheap price for the current business and I won’t feel cheated if my minority peers vote to sell. Genuine question, SJ: did you think ATCO was cheap enough to own at $11 a few weeks ago? And if you didn’t, why do you think Prem buying it at $14.45 (but only if the sellers approve) proves that he can’t be trusted?

Yeah, that would be nicer and more fair to those that don't want to sell and understand the value of the company, but really, in a capitalist market, we're bitching about a company making a capitalist decision?! I loaded up on the stock over the last year, while some on here were bitching about how it was fairly priced considering the industry and possibly deteriorating shipping rates...now people are complaining that one of the majority shareholders also finds it cheap and makes a takeover offer? Crazy! Should I feel bad that I bought shares at $10.25...somehow taking advantage of shareholders who didn't know what the value was? Cheers!