Credit Industriel et Commercial, EPA:CC

[jch548]

I had originally posted this on the General Discussion Board but I'll follow up here on the Investment Idea Board.

 

CC announced an 8.8 Euro dividend on May 24. This is more than double the dividend paid for the prior year. CC pays a single dividend annually. The 8.8 euro dividend provides a 6% yield at the current price.

 

I don't speak french so I can't gleen much info from their web site. They do provide some financial info in english but not the annual reports. I was trying to figure what their exposure to risky soverien debts were. From what I have found they have 1.4 billion invested in the PIIGS and 5.7 billion in Italy. Equity is roughly 10 billion. Without reading their annual report I don't know how accurate this info is.

 

Anyhow The big dividend increase was a pleasant surprise.

 

Here is my original post from a couple of months ago.

 

"I was looking at some french banks via the Euronext web site and noticed quite a few well below book value. Credit Industrial is a plain vanilla home and small to medium enterprise lender. They are trading at around 60% of BV and five times 2010 earnings. Credit Industrial is the fourth largest bank in France. The bank is setup as a mutual or cooperative type bank. Only about 7% of the shares trade as a holding company controls the rest.

 

What I liked about them is they managed to turn a profit throughout the financial melt down. The shares traded at 1.2 times BV at 12-31-07. Looking at their long-term chart I don't think the shares have ever traded at such a discount to BV. They have a market cap of 5.6B euro and BV of 9.6B.

 

I picked up a few shares. Could be a value trap. They pay around a 3% dividend but due to their structure the dividend might be capped to 10% of net income though it appears they have exceeded this level. Their equity has nearly doubled but the divi hasn't really been upped that much. They have financials in english you can access at their web site."