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Posted

Here are a few I own: QCCO, NCON, MSN, DSWL, TAIT, WEBC, RELL, UPGI, OIIM, WILC, SPRS, EXAC, VIDE, BSHI, ERMS, AEY

Glad to have you on board, Jonas. I love reading your blog. Merry Christmas

 

+1. But please consider switching to English :)

Posted

Here are a few I own: QCCO, NCON, MSN, DSWL, TAIT, WEBC, RELL, UPGI, OIIM, WILC, SPRS, EXAC, VIDE, BSHI, ERMS, AEY

Glad to have you on board, Jonas. I love reading your blog. Merry Christmas

 

+1. But please consider switching to English :)

 

:) We have considered it. We will see! :)

Posted

Making money is much harder than losing money. I consider NOL's virtually worthless in most cases and if they begin to be valuable, they will be a minor part of the value in relation to the 'new' profits that created them. I also think of them differently between those NOLs where the people who lost the money are still in power vs those NOLs (like a new shell) where new management has come on board.

 

That's how I am thinking about it as well.

 

In the case of SXCL , the NOLs were generated by a different mgmt team. It was a shell but now has new operating cos in  oil/gas, sports and they own some publicly traded securities such as IGOI.

 

SXCL is a sub of Steel Partners. They are buying back shares recently.

 

 

Posted

You might look at HCHC too, similar idea of a conglomerate that was taken over with NOLs and under new management. They have been building quite a lot recently.

 

Thanks, I'm generally looking for Net/Nets with not much (if any) debt. I know, tough to come by...

 

I just bought SXCL and plan to add to it if gets any cheaper than below net cash!

  • 2 weeks later...
  • 2 weeks later...
Posted

HMG Courtland - disclaimer that I've owned for a few years. Very high insider ownership. 11.5mm in cash. 2.0mm in securities (net). The put 2.5mm into an orlando apt development. Other assets at zero (though they are likely worth something and have spit off cash in the past which can offset the advisor fee drag) less a 500k dividend payment. 10mm market cap.

 

Any suggestions on how to unlock value would be greatly appreciated. Could one conceivably bid for the company and it's cash plus investment ballance despite the extremely high insider ownership?

Posted

HMG Courtland - disclaimer that I've owned for a few years. Very high insider ownership. 11.5mm in cash. 2.0mm in securities (net). The put 2.5mm into an orlando apt development. Other assets at zero (though they are likely worth something and have spit off cash in the past which can offset the advisor fee drag) less a 500k dividend payment. 10mm market cap.

 

Any suggestions on how to unlock value would be greatly appreciated. Could one conceivably bid for the company and it's cash plus investment ballance despite the extremely high insider ownership?

 

Making a tender offer for a controlled company is almost certainly a waste of time (and professional fees!), but it would shake things up a bit I bet. You'd probably get slightly better capital allocation...

  • 3 weeks later...
Posted

Hi Guys,

 

New to the forum and just beginning my investment career. Looking forward to being part of a great community.

 

My 10 cents - Support.com (SPRT) https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/q/ks?s=SPRT

 

Market Cap - 39.39m with 68.49m in cash on the books. No debt! Negative EV of -0.35

 

Activist investors who control more than 15% of the firm and have notified the board in a recent SEC filing (13D) that they will aim to oust the current board at the next annual meeting in march. 13D filing - http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1104855/000092189516003068/ex991to13da510114013_012516.htm

 

Currently in the red and getting through cash, but not an alarming levels. I think it could be a very nice turnaround story.

 

Let me know what you guys think  :)

 

Phil

Posted

Hi Guys,

 

New to the forum and just beginning my investment career. Looking forward to being part of a great community.

 

My 10 cents - Support.com (SPRT) https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/q/ks?s=SPRT

 

Market Cap - 39.39m with 68.49m in cash on the books. No debt! Negative EV of -0.35

 

Activist investors who control more than 15% of the firm and have notified the board in a recent SEC filing (13D) that they will aim to oust the current board at the next annual meeting in march. 13D filing - http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1104855/000092189516003068/ex991to13da510114013_012516.htm

 

Currently in the red and getting through cash, but not an alarming levels. I think it could be a very nice turnaround story.

 

Let me know what you guys think  :)

 

Phil

 

Why do you think this company has hope? Looking at yahoo finance it has $1.25 cash per share. sells for $0.79 per share and lost $0.45 last year. So another year like last year and the netnet margin is spent.....

 

When I consider netnets the company has to be profitable

 

 

Posted

 

 

Why do you think this company has hope? Looking at yahoo finance it has $1.25 cash per share. sells for $0.79 per share and lost $0.45 last year. So another year like last year and the netnet margin is spent.....

 

When I consider netnets the company has to be profitable

 

$0.26 of that was a non recurring charge in 2nd Qtr of 2015 so that does reduce the normal deficit somewhat. With the likelihood of new management with a focus on cost cutting, margin improvement and realignment of the business, there is the potential for a significant turnaround story. Activist investors have also been increasing their % ownership recently. Earnings for Qtr 4 are out tomorrow and that will provide some more insight - estimates approx -$0.11 per share.

 

I have not invested -just watching at the moment.

Posted

 

 

Why do you think this company has hope? Looking at yahoo finance it has $1.25 cash per share. sells for $0.79 per share and lost $0.45 last year. So another year like last year and the netnet margin is spent.....

 

When I consider netnets the company has to be profitable

 

$0.26 of that was a non recurring charge in 2nd Qtr of 2015 so that does reduce the normal deficit somewhat. With the likelihood of new management with a focus on cost cutting, margin improvement and realignment of the business, there is the potential for a significant turnaround story. Activist investors have also been increasing their % ownership recently. Earnings for Qtr 4 are out tomorrow and that will provide some more insight - estimates approx -$0.11 per share.

 

I have not invested -just watching at the moment.

 

I haven't looked at it, but these are a toss-up.

 

The theory says that money losing net-nets tend to outperform, but you need to own ALL of them and as a group they outperform.  They also have a lot more zeros.

 

I always had a problem owning money losing net-nets.  I understood the theory, but I'm not a computer.  I'm a person with emotions, and I need to sleep well at night.  I would trade slightly lower performance for peace of mind.  Because for me peace of mind meant I could keep the strategy rather than stick in for a bit and quit because I was worried.

 

I'd encourage anyone looking at these to re-read the chapter on net-nets by Graham.  In essence a net-net is a shortcut for an absurd valuation.  But Graham points out that it's better to own something at an absurd valuation that's profitable and is growing rather than destroying shareholder value.

 

If these guys are burning cash then it might be perfectly reasonable to trade for less than NCAV.

 

I've seen plenty of net-nets where the business sucks and burns cash.  And guess what in a lot of those cases the valuation was right, the market was right that value would never be realized.

 

Turnarounds rarely turnaround.  Now if they're going to do something dramatically different that's another story.  But turnarounds are rare, unless there are circumstances that indicate otherwise I usually pass on turnarounds.

Posted

I saw several of these in japan pop up recently.  These appear to be decent businesses if you strip out excess cash and securities, the trouble is a lot of these guys have been piling up cash forever and there is no reason to believe they'll stop.  The devil is in the details with these things and I think you'd need to be able to speak japanese to figure out what was going on.  If there is anyone out there who does and would like to partner up, I can provide a list of names that are quantitatively cheap but that's about all I'm good for here.

 

These are always around.  As Nate says, the trouble is not in finding them but in sifting out the bad ones.  I posted a link to a backtest of this strategy a while back that showed underperformance, going back to the 80's if I recall correctly.  I think it is easy to see what happened.  Graham popularized this strategy, people made a lot of money on it, and it rose in popularity until it no longer worked.  People kept drifting lower and lower on the quality curve until the pool of net nets was comprised mostly of companies that deserved to be there.

 

I  can think of two ways to go about this today.  One is to wait for big market declines to produce big piles of net nets.  When that happens decent businesses are grouped in with the crappy ones and they tend to outperform by a substantial amount when the market recovers.  The other is to sift through them and find the good ones.  One place to find these is in the otc market.  It's kind of like going back in time.  In a lot of cases computers can't look there and it takes work to sift through them.

Posted

 

 

Ya some stocks in Japan are absurd. I have one 8159:TYO:

 

price/shr: 1060 yen

equity/shr: 2180 yen

EPS: about 180 yen

 

and earnings are growing, and no debt!

 

I am glad to see the company bought back 3% of shares a week ago. But seems like to me management has little motivation to return money to shareholders.  I wish Japanese executives are compensated like the west. As it is now, they seem to be content to just hoard money and keep the enterprise going.  I don't know how this company will play out. Of course my worst fear is if they start squandering money going into areas outside of their area of competence.

 

What we need is a fundemental change in attitude in this Japanese companies!

 

 

  • 4 weeks later...
Posted

SXCL just delisted from NASDAQ.

Mandated selling from small funds.

Business is being valued at $0.

Company will still post 10-Qs to website.

Market cap = $128M

 

" generated $11.7 million of adjusted EBITDA and have a strong balance sheet with $127.9 million of cash and marketable securities"

Posted

SXCL just delisted from NASDAQ.

Mandated selling from small funds.

Business is being valued at $0.

Company will still post 10-Qs to website.

Market cap = $128M

 

" generated $11.7 million of adjusted EBITDA and have a strong balance sheet with $127.9 million of cash and marketable securities"

 

I went to their website (http://steelexcel.com/) and under investors and under the "investors section" there is only the 2013 (!) Annual Meeting.

 

This also appears to be a company losing money (FY2015 and FY2014). Do you have more information?

Posted

SXCL just delisted from NASDAQ.

Mandated selling from small funds.

Business is being valued at $0.

Company will still post 10-Qs to website.

Market cap = $128M

 

" generated $11.7 million of adjusted EBITDA and have a strong balance sheet with $127.9 million of cash and marketable securities"

 

I went to their website (http://steelexcel.com/) and under investors and under the "investors section" there is only the 2013 (!) Annual Meeting.

 

This also appears to be a company losing money (FY2015 and FY2014). Do you have more information?

They had some impairments. Check the cashflows. (I don't know much else - just took a quick glimpse at financials)

Posted

SXCL just delisted from NASDAQ.

Mandated selling from small funds.

Business is being valued at $0.

Company will still post 10-Qs to website.

Market cap = $128M

 

" generated $11.7 million of adjusted EBITDA and have a strong balance sheet with $127.9 million of cash and marketable securities"

 

I went to their website (http://steelexcel.com/) and under investors and under the "investors section" there is only the 2013 (!) Annual Meeting.

 

This also appears to be a company losing money (FY2015 and FY2014). Do you have more information?

They had some impairments. Check the cashflows. (I don't know much else - just took a quick glimpse at financials)

 

Ya, it is clear that operating income was $(14)M but they also had $(85)M of imparements for 2015. Now at the risk of mouthing off before I have read enough of the company....... the incentive structure seems unfair. Management owns a company which owns Steel Excel and Steel Excel pays that company management fees. I'd be afraid those managers are milking the netnet position.

 

Can anyone else comment? 

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