rijk

this seems to be working very well... regards rijk http://www.goread.io/

agree that the risk is in receivables, i had a hard time believing the figures initially, however, if you go back a few years and follow receivables, there haven't been significant losses or additions to doubtful receivables, it looks as if the bulk of receivables is being converted into cash over time, if you look a the details of some of the larger projects, it appears that they tend to work with blue chip type of project partners and most projects appear to be tied to infrastructure projects related to the chinese resource hunt in africa, i.e. serious long term projects based on long term strategic trends of course, there is always a possibility for surprises, that's why i hold a modest position in a diversified portfolio...... regards rijk

i also own conduril and believe that the risk/reward is very favorable, surprised that there isn't more interest in conduril on this board from investors with a modest size portfolio..... regards rijk

very interesting thread, i have tried to monitor actual performance of several net net portfolios that are currently running, the ones i am aware of are -gurufocus ncav bargains - inception mar 2011 - hand picked -cheap stocks 26 net net index - inception sep 2011 - mechanical -canadian net net portfolio - jan 2013 - mechanical? http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-investor/net-net-capital-portfolio-not-for-faint-of-heart/article7016571/ when reading about net net performance, it seems as if most studies and articles conclude that a net net strategy will handily outperform the market and that a net net portfolio should return around 20%/year on average however, when looking at the actual performance of the three portfolios, it seems that at least for these three examples, actual performance do not beat the market and are far below 20% average i monitor all three portfolios in google finance and just eye balling the performances using equal weights, it looks like all three portfolios have a negative or close to flat performances since inception (since most of the "owners" of these portfolios are on the board, please feel free to correct me) i noticed that after one year, the 26 net net index portfolio significantly outperformed (36%) the gurufocus portfolio (flat), but when diving into the details, nearly the complete outperformance of the 26 net net index portfolio was due to one net net that had been incorporated into the portfolio at a time when this net net was being taken over by another company, and the outperformance was achieved after the stock merger, so at the time this company was incorporated into the portfolio, you were really buying the acquiring company which was not a net net, so i wonder how many investors would have bought and kept that specific outperformer another example i can share is my own personal experience with jnets (japanese net nets), japan seems to be the ideal situation for a live net net experiment, so i started two baskets of hand picked jnets in jan 2012 and 2013, the actual performance is 20% (local currency) after nearly 18 months, this looks reasonable but is again below the 20% annual benchmark and far below the 62% nikkei performance regards rijk

congratulations and thanks for keeping this wonderful place to learn about value investing and get some great ideas..... regards rijk

here are 2 relevant articles for people who are interested in kpn slim bought at €8 less than a year ago, current stock price around €1.55.......... regards rijk http://www.gurufocus.com/news/216923/better-know-a-company--kpn http://valueinvestingfrance.blogspot.com.es/2013/04/vivendi-2012-annual-results-update.html

thanks gio, so a proportionally large portion (4% out of 23%) is coming from the first year, 19% is still exceptionally good!! regards rijk

just out of interest, if you eliminate the 180% and 292% increases in bv and share price in 1986, how would that impact the long term averages of 22.7% and 19%? regards rijk

great article, thanks for sharing! regards rijk

here you have some fairly recent data, if you find a site that has more recent date, please share regards rijk http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/images/user3303/imageroot/2012/12-2/20121231_PE.jpg

another similar risk is related to the european sovereign debt crisis, CA has significant exposure to southern european countries, not only through sovereign debt holdings but they also have significant amounts in loans outstanding to italian businesses regards rijk

kpn could also become an interesting opportunity..... the combination of right issue dilution, proceeds being used to pay off debt and the pressure from slim could generate an interesting opportunity regards rijk http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/02/20/us-kpn-americamovil-idUSBRE91J0ZN20130220?feedType=RSS&feedName=businessNews&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+reuters%2FbusinessNews+%28Business+News%29

62 million shares includes common equivalent of pfds? regards rijk

wonderful, thanks a lot for sharing! regards rijk

Congratulations! Very solid returns, running practically no risk! I like it very much! giofranchi thanks gio... as long as klarman/watsa/rodriguez are happy with low single digit returns just to protect their capital, i am going to be very cautious, with all the protection i build into my portfolio, i am extremely pleased to (just) beat the market..... regards rijk

+15% >50% cash most of the year.... top gainers: brk, aig, bac, jef, usg, salm, crbc, osk and a long list of special situations/mergers top losers: spy short (hedge), rimm, fbod regards rijk

Or Japan finally blows up from its debt load, and those Japanese stocks plummet in dollar terms as the yen crumbles. Cheers! you can borrow yen against your japanese holdings to cancel out the currency risk, most japanese net nets pay a decent dividend (2-4%) which should more than offset the interest expenses (currently approx 1%) regards rijk

they also remarked that the company was included in the moi reports, these reports are based on 13-F data, so this would rule out foreign companies (except for adr listings).... has to be one of these six companies, bac seems a safe bet..... http://www.dataroma.com/m/holdings.php?m=PI regards rijk

400 Million tax issue regards rijk

the memo indicates that there was no sufficient ownership/basis for tax consolidation "We find that based upon the analysis of the relevant factors outlined above, the benefits and burdens of stock ownership did not pass to Parent, and Parent was not the tax owner of the Company stock." makes you think about this statement: Mr. Bowe, who represents Fairfax, said that “only defendants and their paid experts, like Mr. Kleinbard, argue Fairfax did not have an economic interest in these shares.” regards rijk

i got curious about the irs memorandum, so i started searching for the document, thinking that i would never be able to find it, guess what.... here it is: http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-utl/am2012007.pdf these are the original transaction documents: http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/915191/000090956703000322/0000909567-03-000322-index.htm looks to me like there is a decent probability that this is the same transaction....... regards rijk

the gurufocus buy and sell prices reflect average prices for the quarter, think it would be more prudent/accurate to review the prices of each quarter and assume that fairfax purchased closer to the bottom of the quarterly ranges, which can make quite a bit of difference if the price dropped significantly during a quarter, which is exactly what happened with rimm during several quarters..... regards rijk

this article talks about 250k shares out of 20 million? regards rijk http://ca.reuters.com/article/businessNews/idCABRE8AE1C720121115

"4. You have to buy the whole screen, or select stocks randomly from it, not keep what looks good and throw away what looks bad. I know that here, that sounds like heresy, but value investors do generate their own Mr. Market in some corners of the stock Universe, that's why screens work." not saying this is scientific evidence, but an interesting current day demonstration of a mechanical net net screen performance that is superior to a hand picked net net strategy would be the 26 net net index performance (+36%) versus the graham ncav bargain portfolio (-4%) (only gurufocus members have access) http://stocksbelowncav.blogspot.fr/2012/09/cheap-stocks-26-netnet-index-first-year.html the practical challenges of rule 4. above become evident very quickly when looking at the individual picks in the 26 net net index, there are plenty of names that would psychologically be very challenging to pick for the human mind...... walter schoss seems to be again unique, in the sense that he outperformed the mechanical screen, yet he definitely hand picked his stocks..... regards rijk

this information indicates that walter schloss performance for the period 1984-2001 was just as spectacular as his performance for the period 1956-1984 "Walter Schloss continued to outperform the market until his retirement in 2002 posting a cumulative return of 16 percent annualized (21 percent before fees) versus an annualized return of 10 percent for the S&P 500 over the course of his career." zippy1, thanks for sharing a few more pieces of the puzzle, only 12 years missing now...... anybody who has any annual performance info for the period 1989-2001, please share........ regards rijk http://www.rationalwalk.com/?p=13008&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheRationalWalkFeed+%28The+Rational+Walk%29