Anyone ever invested in Slovenia?

[matjone]

This may sound crazy, but I was just looking at some Slovenian stocks that look cheap.  I am wondering if anyone has any experience investing there, and if so, what broker they used.  TIA

[udravi]

It is not that crazy of an idea if you can find good investments.

I am a Slovenian citizen but not currently a resident. Have owned shares in the past but through local brokers.

Not sure if there are any international discount brokers for the Slovenian stock market.

 

Some local brokers:

http://www.gbd.si/Default.aspx

http://www.ilirika.com/ - I am afraid online accounts are available for Slovenian citizens only, to be checked.

 

In the recent years I was thinking to buy some shares but could never decide: not cheap enough, too much trouble with opening an account, tax issues.

If prices were to fall further I might consider opening an account.

 

Good luck ;)

[gg]

matjone - any specific reason you decided to look at Slovenia? I know nothing about the place, simply curious if there is a reason you are looking for value there

[matjone]

Since the u.s. market is kind of high right now, I was looking around at other countries.  I ran a screen for each country on ft.com's screener and looked at the % of stocks selling below book.  I think that in slovenia something like 3/4 of them were below book, so I started looking through them.  If you go to this page you can get an idea of the valuations http://www.ljse.si/cgi-bin/jve.cgi?doc=1520&sid=

 

Also, after re-reading this I realized that calling investing in slovenia "crazy" could be seen as an insult and I didn't mean it to be, hopefully no one was offended.

[udravi]

No hurt feelings, matjone. The fact is that investing in Slovenia or in other “similar” markets (Eastern Europe, south-east Europe or even Russia, etc.) is, everything else being equal, riskier than in other “developed” markets.

 

I do not think that WB would invest in these countries even if the size of the companies were appropriate and selling at very low valuations. On his visit to Europe he was asked if he would consider investing in the Czech Republic. He diplomatically said no.

 

Many factors play a role in the relatively low prices in SLO: economic challenges, cultural issues, corruption, rule of law or lack thereof, state control of the economy, size of the market, lack of liquidity, lack of foreign investors, non-shareholder friendly culture, relatively low profitability (most companies have ROE lower than 10%).

 

That said, Slovenia will not disappear and at a right price there might be some interesting risk-adjusted opportunities.