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Archive for the ‘Liquidation’ Category

Performance of Japanese sub-liquidation value stocks: the results

Posted in About, Liquidation, Liquidation Value, Value Investment, tagged , , , , , , , , on February 9, 2010| 6 Comments »

Since last week’s Japanese liquidation value: 1932 US redux post, I’ve been attempting to determine whether the historical performance of Japanese sub-liquidation value stocks matches the experience in the US, which has been outstanding since the strategy was first identified by Benjamin Graham in 1932. The risk to the Japanese net net experience is the perception (rightly or not) that the weakness of shareholder rights in Japan means that net current asset value stocks there are destined to continue to trade at a discount to net current asset value. As I mentioned yesterday, I’m a little chary of the “Japan has weak shareholder rights” narrative. I’d rather look at the data, but the data are a little wanting.

As we all know, the US net net experience has been very good. Research undertaken by Professor Henry Oppenheimer on Graham’s liquidation value strategy between 1970 and 1983, published in the paper Ben Graham’s Net Current Asset Values: A Performance Update, indicates that “[the] mean return from net current asset stocks for the 13-year period was 29.4% per year versus 11.5% per year for the NYSE-AMEX Index. One million dollars invested in the net current asset portfolio on December 31, 1970 would have increased to $25,497,300 by December 31, 1983.” That’s an outstanding return.

In The performance of Japanese common stocks in relation to their net current asset values, a 1993 paper by Bildersee, Cheh and Zutshi, the authors undertook research similar to Oppenheimer’s in Japan over the period 1975 and 1988. Their findings, described in another paper, indicate that the Japanese net net investor’s experience has not been as outstanding as the US investor’s:

In the first study outside of the USA, Bildersee, Cheh and Zutshi (1993)’s paper focuses on the Japanese market from 1975 to 1988. In order to maintain a sample large enough for cross-sectional analysis, Graham’s criterion was relaxed so that firms are required to merely have an NCAV/MV ratio greater than zero. They found the mean market-adjusted return of the aggregate portfolio is around 1 percent per month (13 percent per year).

As an astute reader noted last week “…the test period for [the Bildersee] study is not the best. It includes Japan’s best analog to America’s Roaring Twenties. The Nikkei peaked on 12/29/89, and never recovered:”

Many of the “assets” on public companies’ books at that time were real estate bubble-related. At the peak in 1989, the aggregate market price for all private real estate in the city of Tokyo was purportedly greater than that of the entire state of California. You can see how the sudden runup in real estate during the bubble could cause asset-heavy companies to outperform the market.

So a better crucible for Japanese NCAVs might be the deflationary period, say beginning 1/1/90, which is more analogous to the US in 1932.

To see how the strategy has performed more recently, I’ve taken the Japanese net net stocks identified in James Montier’s Graham’’s net-nets: outdated or outstanding? article from September 2008 and tracked their performance from the data of the article to today. Before I plow into the results, I’d like to discuss my methodology and the various problems with it:

  1. It was not possible to track all of the stocks identified by Montier. Where I couldn’t find a closing price for a stock, I’ve excluded it from the results and marked the stock as “N/A”. I’ve had to exclude 18 of 84 stocks, which is a meaningful proportion. It’s possible that these stocks were either taken over or went bust, and so would have had an effect on the results not reflected in my results.
  2. The opening prices were not always available. In some instances I had to use the price on another date close to the opening date (i.e +/1 month).

Without further ado, here are the results of Montier’s Graham’’s net-nets: outdated or outstanding? picks:

The 68 stocks tracked gained on average 0.5% between September 2008 and February 2010, which is a disappointing outcome. The results relative to the  Japanese index are a little better. By way of comparison, the Nikkei 225 (roughly equivalent to the DJIA) fell from 12,834 to close yesterday at 10,057, a drop of 21.6%. Encouragingly, the net nets outperformed the N225 by a little over 21%.

The paucity of the data is a real problem for this study. I’ll update this post as I find more complete data or a more recent study.

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Performance of Japanese sub-liquidation value stocks

Posted in About, Liquidation, Liquidation Value, Net Current Asset Value, Net Quick Stocks, Stocks, tagged , , , on February 8, 2010| 2 Comments »

Following on from last week’s Japanese liquidation value: 1932 US redux post, I’ve been trying to determine whether the historical performance of Japanese sub-liquidation value stocks matches the experience in the US. The question arises because of the perception (rightly or not) that the weakness of shareholder rights in Japan means that net current asset value stocks there are destined to trade at a discount to net current asset value. I’m always a little chary of the “Japan has weak shareholder rights” narrative (or any narrative, for that matter). I’d rather look at the data. In this instance, unfortunately, the data are wanting.

In The performance of Japanese common stocks in relation to their net current asset values, a 1993 paper by Bildersee, Cheh and Zutshi, the authors analyzed the performance of Japanese net nets between 1975 and 1988. Here are their findings described in another paper:

In the first study outside of the USA, Bildersee, Cheh and Zutshi (1993)’s paper focuses on the Japanese market from 1975 to 1988. In order to maintain a sample large enough for cross-sectional analysis, Graham’s criterion was relaxed so that firms are required to merely have an NCAV/MV ratio greater than zero. They found the mean market-adjusted return of the aggregate portfolio is around 1 percent per month (13 percent per year).

Not a great return, but obviously a difficult period through 1987 and not an exact facsimile of Graham’s strategy. An astute reader notes that “…the test period for that study is not the best. It includes Japan’s best analog to America’s Roaring Twenties. The Nikkei peaked on 12/29/89, and never recovered:”

Many of the “assets” on public companies’ books at that time were real estate bubble-related. At the peak in 1989, the aggregate market price for all private real estate in the city of Tokyo was purportedly greater than that of the entire state of California. You can see how the sudden runup in real estate during the bubble could cause asset-heavy companies to outperform the market.

So a better crucible for Japanese NCAVs might be the deflationary period, say beginning 1/1/90, which is more analogous to the US in 1932.

It would be interesting to see an update of the performance, but, as far as I am aware, none exists. To that end, I’ve undertaken a little research project of my own. I’ll publish the results tomorrow.

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Japanese liquidation value: 1932 US redux

Posted in About, Liquidation, Liquidation Value, Net Current Asset Value, Net Quick Stocks, Net Quick Value, tagged , , , , , on February 4, 2010| 14 Comments »

Zero Hedge has an article Uncovering Liquidation Value… In Japan? discussing SocGen’s Dylan Grice’s Are Japanese equities worth more dead than alive. The title is a nod to Benjamin Graham’s landmark 1932 Forbes article, Inflated Treasuries and Deflated Stockholders, where he discussed the large number of companies in the US then trading at a discount to liquidation value:

…a great number of American businesses are quoted in the market for much less than their liquidating value; that in the best judgment of Wall Street, these businesses are worth more dead than alive. For most industrial companies should bring, in orderly liquidation, at least as much as their quick assets alone.

Grice writes:

In the space of a generation, Japan has gone from the world economy’s thrusting up-and-coming superpower to its slowing silver-haired retiree. Accordingly, the Japanese market attracts a low valuation. The chart [below] shows FTSE Japan’s equity price to book ratio and enterprise price to book ratio, since equity P/B ratios alone can be distorted by leverage. Both metrics show Japan to be trading at a low premium to book compared to its recent history. So it’s certainly cheap. But does it offer value? The answer can be seen in the chart above, which shows corporate Japan’s RoEs and RoAs over recent decades to have averaged a mere 6.8% and 3.8% respectively. This is hardly the sort of earnings power which should command any premium over book value at all. Indeed, to my mind the question is one of how big a discount the market should trade at relative to book.

The fundamental problem in 1932 America, according to Graham, was that investors weren’t paying attention to the assets owned by the company, instead focussing exclusively on “earning power” and therefore “reported earnings – which might only be temporary or even deceptive – and in a complete eclipse of what had always been regarded as a vital factor in security values, namely the company’s working capital position.” Graham proposed that investors should become not only “balance sheet conscious,” but “ownership conscious:”

If they realized their rights as business owners, we would not have before us the insane spectacle of treasuries bloated with cash and their proprietors in a wild scramble to give away their interest on any terms they can get. Perhaps the corporation itself buys back the shares they throw on the market, and by a final touch of irony, we see the stockholders’ pitifully inadequate payment made to themwith their own cash.

In his article, Grice makes a parallel argument about valuations based on earnings in Japan now:

Regular readers will know I favour a Residual Income approach to valuation. It’s not perfect, and it’s still a work in process, but anchoring estimates of intrinsic value on the earnings power of company assets (relative to a required rate of return, which I set at an exacting 10%) helps avoid value traps. Things don?t necessarily come up as offering value just because they’re on low multiples. The left chart below shows Japan’s ratio of Intrinsic Value to Price (IVP ratio, where a higher number indicates higher value) to be only 0.6, suggesting that in an absolute sense, Japan is intrinsically worth only about 60% of its current market value.

Grice arrives at the same conclusion about Japan as Graham did in 1932 about the US:

But here the tension between “going concern” valuation and “liquidation” valuation becomes important. Let’s just imagine the unimaginable for a second, and that my IVP ratios are correct. Japan currently trades on a P/B ratio of 1.5x, but if it is only worth 60% of that, its “fair value” P/B ratio (assuming we value it as a going concern) would be around 0.9x. Of course, that would only be true on average. Nearly all stocks would trade either above or below that level. And of those trading below, some would trade slightly below, others significantly below. And of those which traded significantly below, some might be expected to flirt with liquidation values which called into question whether or not the “going concern” valuation was appropriate. Indeed, this is exactly what is beginning to happen.

It seems that there are quite a few stocks trading at a discount to net current asset value in Japan:

Grice likes the net current asset value strategy in Japan (sort of):

Not only are these assets cheap but, unlike the overall market, they probably offer value as well. My Factset backtest suggests such stocks trading below liquidation value have averaged a monthly return of 1.5% since the mid 1990s, compared to -0.2% for the Topix. There is no such thing as a toxic asset, only a toxic price. It may well be that these companies have no future, that they shouldn’t be valued as going concerns and that they are worth more dead than alive. If so, they are already trading at a value lower than would be fetched in a fire sale. But what if the outlook isn’t so gloomy? If these assets aren’t actually complete duds, we could be looking at some real bargains…

…

So should we be filling our boots with companies trading below liquidation value? Not necessarily. But I would say the burden of proof has shifted. Why wouldn’t you want to own assets that have been generating shareholder wealth yet which trade at below their liquidation values?

It is interesting that this article echoes another SocGen article, this one a September 2008 report by James Montier called Graham’’s net-nets: outdated or outstanding? in which Montier looked at Graham sub-liquidation stocks globally. Of the 175 stocks identified around the world, Montier found that over half were in Japan.

Now all we have to do is figure out how to invest in Japan.

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Convera Corporation (NASDAQ:CNVR)

Posted in Convera Corporation (NASDAQ:CNVR), Liquidation, Stocks, tagged , , on November 11, 2009| 7 Comments »

Convera Corporation (NASDAQ:CNVR) is a liquidation play. The stock closed yesterday at $0.221. The company estimates the value of the distributions to be in the range of $0.37 to $0.45 per share.

Approvals

According to the 14(c) information statement:

The board approved the plan of dissolution on May 29, 2009. The liquidation will not be put to a shareholder vote as “the affirmative vote of holders of a majority of all outstanding shares of our Class A Common Stock is required. In order to approve the election of directors, the affirmative vote of a plurality of all outstanding shares of our Class A Common Stock is required. As of the close of business on September 22, 2009, the Record Date for the approval of the above matters, there were 53,501,183 shares of our Class A Common Stock issued and outstanding, which shares are entitled to one vote per share. Holders of our Class A Common Stock which represented a majority of the voting power of our outstanding capital stock as of the Record Date, have executed a written consent in favor of the actions described above and have delivered it to us on September 22, 2009, the Consent Date. Therefore, no other consents will be solicited in connection with this Information Statement.”

Distributions

From the information statement:

We plan to distribute $10,000,000 shortly after the closing of the Merger, with the remaining $4,000,000 to be distributed in $2,000,000 increments at six months and 12 months after the closing of the Merger, subject to possible holdbacks for potential liabilities and on-going expenses deemed necessary by our board of directors in its sole discretion.

The present value of this cash distribution, assuming a discount rate of 10%, is estimated at $0.26 per share.

CNVR 1

Hempstead assessed the value indication associated with a one-third equity interest in VSW based upon the discounted cash flows methodology. Specifically, under a discounted cash flows methodology, the value of a company’s stock is determined by discounting to present value the expected returns that accrue to holders of such equity. Projected cash flows for VSW were based upon projected financial data prepared by our management. Estimated cash flows to equity holders were discounted to present value based upon a range of discount rates, from 25% to 35%. This range of discount rates is reflective of the required rates of return on later-stage venture capital investments. The resultant value indications for the VSW component of the transaction, on a per-Convera share basis, are as follows:

CNVR 2

Based upon the above analyses, the value indications for the cash and VSW stock to be received by our stockholders in exchange for their current Convera shares are within a range of $0.37 to $0.45 per Convera share.

Conclusion

The trading price of the VSW stock is an unknown, but the $0.26 in cash distributions offer some protection at yesterday’s close of $0.221. Buying up to say $0.23 means getting paid $0.03 to hold a free option on the VSW stock, which, according to Hempstead, the financial consultant providing the fairness opinion, could be worth between $0.11 and $0.19 per share. It’s very thinly traded at this price, so good luck getting set, but it’s worth buying if you can get a reasonable line of stock. I’m going to add it to the Greenbackd Portfolio at yesterday’s close.

CNVR closed yesterday at $0.221.

The S&P500 closed yesterday at 1,093.01.

Hat tip to Sean.

[Full Disclosure:  We do not have a holding in CNVR. This is neither a recommendation to buy or sell any securities. All information provided believed to be reliable and presented for information purposes only. Do your own research before investing in any security.]

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Sub-liquidation value ten baggers

Posted in About, Greenbackd, Liquidation, Liquidation Value, Net Current Asset Value, Net Quick Stocks, tagged , , , , , on August 5, 2009| 12 Comments »

Bespoke Investment Group (via The Reformed Broker) has a list of the biggest gainers for 2009. It should come as no surprise to regular readers of Greenbackd that a number of the stocks are former sub-liquidation value plays (most of which we missed):

Little ten baggersWe opened a position in VNDA and got a great return. We lost our nerve with BGP and missed out on a great return. We completely ignored ATSG, DTSG, SMRT, RFMD, PIR and CHUX although all appeared on our NCAV screen at some stage earlier this year. A little more evidence that diamonds can be found if you dig through enough trash.

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NSTR pays initial distribution of $2.06

Posted in Activist Investors, Catalysts, Liquidation, Net Cash Stocks, Northstar Neuroscience Inc (NASDAQ:NSTR), Stocks, tagged , , on July 16, 2009| 8 Comments »

Northstar Neuroscience Inc (NASDAQ:NSTR) has paid an initial distribution of $2.06 per share.

We’ve been following NSTR (see our post archive here) because it was a net cash stock that had announced a plan to liquidate. We estimated that the final pay out figure in the liquidation would be around $59M or $2.26 per share, which presented an upside of around 18% from our initial $1.91 position. The company had estimated a slightly lower pay out figure of between $1.90 and $2.10 “assuming we are unable to sell our non-cash assets” and expected the initial distribution to be approximately $1.80 per share. The $2.06 distribution returns our initial capital and makes our profit since inception 7.9%, with further distributions to come.

From the relevant report:

As previously disclosed, on June 12, 2009 Northstar Neuroscience, Inc. (the “Company”) filed Articles of Dissolution (the “Articles of Dissolution”) with the Secretary of State of the State of Washington in accordance with the Company’s Plan of Complete Liquidation and Dissolution (the “Plan of Dissolution”). The Articles of Dissolution became effective, and the Company became a dissolved corporation under Washington law, on July 2, 2009 (the “Effective Date”) at 5:00 p.m. Pacific Time.

In addition, the Company’s common stock (the “Common Stock”) was officially delisted from the NASDAQ Global Market at the opening of trading on the Effective Date, pursuant to the previously filed Form 25, which the Company filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission and The NASDAQ Stock Market, Inc. on June 22, 2009. The Company has instructed its transfer agent to close the Company’s stock transfer records as of the close of business on the Effective Date and no longer to recognize or record any transfers of shares of the Common Stock after such date except by will, intestate succession or operation of law.

On July 13, 2009, pursuant to the Plan of Dissolution, the board of directors of the Company approved an initial liquidating distribution of $2.06 per share to the shareholders of record of the Common Stock as of the Effective Date. The Company expects to pay this initial liquidating distribution in cash on or about July 15, 2009.

Pursuant to the requirements of Washington law, the Company intends to retain certain of the remaining assets of the Company to satisfy and make reasonable provision for the satisfaction of any current, contingent or conditional claims and liabilities of the Company until such time as the Company’s board of directors determines that it is appropriate to distribute some or all of such remaining assets. The amount and timing of any subsequent and final distributions will be at the discretion of the Company’s board of directors.

(emphasis added)

[Full Disclosure:  We do not have a holding in NSTR. This is neither a recommendation to buy or sell any securities. All information provided believed to be reliable and presented for information purposes only. Do your own research before investing in any security.]

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Seth Klarman on Investing in Corporate Liquidations

Posted in About, Liquidation, Liquidation Value, Seth Klarman, Stocks, tagged , on March 20, 2009| 1 Comment »

Today we complete our series on Seth Klarman, the founder of The Baupost Group, a deep value-oriented private investment partnership that has generated an annual compound return of 20% over the past 25 years, and the author of an iconic book on value investing, Margin of Safety: Risk-Averse Value Investing Strategies for the Thoughtful Investor

Following on from our earlier posts, Seth Klarman on Liquidation Value, and Seth Klarman on Catalysts, we present Seth Klarman’s application of liquidation value investment principles to a specific case: the City Investment Liquidating Trust (from Chapter 10 Areas of Opportunity for Value Investors: Catalysts, Ineficiences, and Institutional Constraints):

Investing in Corporate Liquidations

Some troubled companies, lacking viable alternatives, voluntarily liquidate in order to preempt a total wipeout of shareholders’ investments. Other, more interesting corporate liquidations are motivated by tax considerations, persistent stock market undervaluation, or the desire to escape the grasp of a corporate raider. A company involved in only one profitable line of business would typically prefer selling out to liquidating because possible double taxation (taxes both at the corporate and shareholder level) would be avoided. A company operating in diverse business lines, however, might find a liquidation or breakup to be the value-maximizing alternative, particularly if the liquidation process triggers a loss that results in a tax refund. Some of the most attractive corporate liquidations in the past decade have involved the breakup of conglomerates and investment companies.

Most equity investors prefer (or are effectively required) to hold shares in ongoing businesses. Companies in liquidation are the antithesis of the type of investment they want to make. Even some risk arbitrageurs (who have been known to buy just about anything) avoid investing in liquidations, believing the process to be too uncertain or protracted. Indeed, investing in liquidations is sometimes disparagingly referred to as cigarbutt investing, whereby an investor picks up someone else’s discard with a few puffs left on it and smokes it. Needless to say, because other investors disparage and avoid them, corporate liquidations may be particularly attractive opportunities for value investors.

City Investing Liquidating Trust

In 1984 shareholders of City Investing Company voted to liquidate. The assets of this conglomerate were diverse, and the most valuable subsidiary, Home Insurance Company, was particularly difficult for investors to appraise. Efforts to sell Home Insurance failed, and it was instead spun off to City Investing shareholders. The remaining assets were put into a newly formed entity called City Investing Liquidating Trust, which became a wonderful investment opportunity.

Table 2

table-2-margin-of-safetyAs shown in table 2, City Investing Liquidating Trust was a hodgepodge of assets. Few investors had the inclination or stamina to evaluate these assets or the willingness to own them for the duration of a liquidation likely to take several years. Thus, while the units were ignored by most potential buyers, they sold in high volume at approximately $3, or substantially below underlying value.

The shares of City Investing Liquidating Trust traded initially at depressed levels for a number of additional reasons. Many investors in the liquidation of City Investing had been disappointed with the prices received for assets sold previously and with City’s apparent inability to sell Home Insurance and complete its liquidation. Consequently many disgruntled investors in City Investing quickly dumped the liquidating trust units to move on to other opportunities. Once the intended spinoff of Home Insurance was announced, many investors purchased City Investing shares as a way of establishing an investment in Home Insurance before it began trading on its own, buying in at what they perceived to be a bargain price. Most of these investors were not interested in the liquidating trust, and sold their units upon receipt of the Home Insurance spinoff. In addition, the per unit market price of City Investing Liquidating Trust was below the minimum price threshold of many institutional investors. Since City Investing Company had been widely held by institutional investors, those who hadn’t sold earlier became natural sellers of the liquidating trust due to the low market price. Finally, after the Home Insurance spinoff, City Investing Liquidating Trust was delisted from the New York Stock Exchange. Trading initially only in the over-the-counter pink-sheet market, the units had no ticker symbol. Quotes were unobtainable either on-line or in most newspapers. This prompted further selling while simultaneously discouraging potential buyers.

The calculation of City Investing Liquidating Trust’s underlying value in table 2 is deliberately conservative. An important component of the eventual liquidating proceeds, and something investors mostly overlooked (a hidden value), was that City’s investment in the stock of Pace Industries, Inc., was at the time almost certainly worth more than historical cost. Pace was a company formed by Kohlberg, Kravis and Roberts (KKR) to purchase the Rheem, Uarco, and World Color Press businesses of City Investing in a December 1984 leveraged buyout. This buyout was profitable and performing well nine months later when the City Investing Liquidating Trust was formed.

The businesses of Pace had been purchased by KKR from City Investing in a financial environment quite different from the one that existed in September 1985. The interest rate on U.S. government bonds had declined by several hundred basis points in the intervening nine months, and the major stock market indexes had spurted sharply higher. These changes had almost certainly increased the value of City’s equity interest in Pace. This increased the apparent value of City Investing Liquidating Trust units well above the $5.02 estimate, making them an even more attractive bargain.

As with any value investment, the greater the undervaluation, the greater the margin of safety to investors. Moreover, approximately half of City’s value was comprised of liquid assets and marketable securities, further reducing the risk of a serious decline in value. Investors could reduce risk even more if they chose by selling short publicly traded General Development Corporation (GDV) shares in an amount equal to the number of GDV shares underlying their investment in the trust in order to lock in the value of City’s GDV holdings.

As it turned out, City Investing Liquidating Trust made rapid progress in liquidating. GDV shares surged in price and were distributed directly to unitholders. Wood Brothers Homes was sold, various receivables were collected, and most lucrative of all, City Investing received large cash distributions when Pace Industries sold its Rheem and Uarco subsidiaries at a substantial gain. The Pace Group debentures were redeemed prior to maturity with proceeds from the same asset sales. Meanwhile a number of the trust’s contingent liabilities were extinguished at little or no cost. By 1991 investors who purchased City Investing Liquidating Trust at inception had received several liquidating distributions with a combined value of approximately nine dollars per unit, or three times the September 1985 market price, with much of the value received in the early years of the liquidation process.

That concludes our series on Seth Klarman.

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Seth Klarman on Catalysts

Posted in About, Catalysts, Liquidation, Liquidation Value, Seth Klarman, Share buy-backs, Stocks, tagged , , on March 19, 2009| 10 Comments »

Following on from our earlier post, Seth Klarman on Liquidation Value, we present the second post in our series on Klarman’s Margin of Safety: Risk-Averse Value Investing Strategies for the Thoughtful Investor.

As we discussed in our first post, Klarman is the founder of The Baupost Group, a deep value-oriented private investment partnership that has generated an annual compound return of 20% over the past 25 years. Klarman detailed his investment process in the iconic Margin of Safety. The book is required reading for all value investors, but is long out-of-print and notoriously difficult to obtain.

In today’s extract, drawn from Chapter 10 Areas of Opportunity for Value Investors: Catalysts, Ineficiences, and Institutional Constraints, Klarman discusses the importance of the catalyst in the investment process:

Once a security is purchased at a discount from underlying value, shareholders can benefit immediately if the stock price rises to better reflect underlying value or if an event occurs that causes that value to be realized by shareholders. Such an event eliminates investors’ dependence on market forces for investment profits. By precipitating the realization of underlying value, moreover, such an event considerably enhances investors’ margin of safety. I refer to such events as catalysts.

Some catalysts for the realization of underlying value exist at the discretion of a company’s management and board of directors. The decision to sell out or liquidate, for example, is made internally. Other catalysts are external and often relate to the voting control of a company’s stock. Control of the majority of a company’s stock typically allows the holder to elect the majority of the board of directors. Thus accumulation of stock leading to voting control, or simply management’s fear that this might happen, could lead to steps being taken by a company that cause its share price to more fully reflect underlying value.

Catalysts vary in their potency. The orderly sale or liquidation of a business leads to total value realization. Corporate spinoffs, share buybacks, recapitalizations, and major asset sales usually bring about only partial value realization.

…

Value investors are always on the lookout for catalysts. While buying assets at a discount from underlying value is the defining characteristic of value investing, the partial or total realization of underlying value through a catalyst is an important means of generating profits. Furthermore, the presence of a catalyst serves to reduce risk. If the gap between price and underlying value is likely to be closed quickly, the probability of losing money due to market fluctuations or adverse business developments is reduced. In the absence of a catalyst, however, underlying value could erode; conversely, the gap between price and value could widen with the vagaries of the market. Owning securities with catalysts for value realization is therefore an important way for investors to reduce the risk within their portfolios, augmenting the margin of safety achieved by investing at a discount from underlying value.

Catalysts that bring about total value realization are, of course, optimal. Nevertheless, catalysts for partial value realization serve two important purposes. First, they do help to realize underlying value, sometimes by placing it directly into the hands of shareholders such as through a recapitalization or spinoff and other times by reducing the discount between price and underlying value, such as through a share buyback. Second, a company that takes action resulting in the partial realization of underlying value for shareholders serves notice that management is shareholder oriented and may pursue additional value-realization strategies in the future. Over the years, for example, investors in Teledyne have repeatedly benefitted from timely share repurchases and spinoffs.

Tomorrow we present the final installment in the series, Seth Klarman on Investing in Corporate Liquidations.

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And never breath a word about your loss

Posted in About, Liquidation, Liquidation Value, Net Current Asset Value, Net Quick Stocks, Net Quick Value, Stocks, tagged , on February 6, 2009| 4 Comments »

CNBC has an interview with Ricardo Salinas, the Mexican billionaire who took a position in Circuit City Stores Inc (OTC:CCTYQ) after it fell into bankruptcy and lost $41 million. In the interview with Michelle Caruso-Cabrera, Salinas explains why he made his bet on CCTYQ and how it went wrong. Although Salinas’ CCTYQ investment wasn’t a Grahamian net net, his explanation does capture some of the pitfalls of investing based on asset values:

Mr. Salinas made the majority of his $41 million investment in Circuit City after the troubled chain filed for bankruptcy protection in November. He amassed a 28 percent stake in the company and then began trying to work out a deal with Circuit City’s suppliers in an effort to take the chain private.

But Mr. Salinas backed out of the deal just before the company decided to liquidate, according to a recent account in The Richmond Times-Dispatch.

“It was much more complicated than he expected it to be,” an unidentified source told the newspaper. Pricing on some inventory “was just too high” and the support from banks and vendors “just wasn’t there,” the Times-Dispatch quoted the source as saying.

In his CNBC interview, Mr. Salinas expressed regret about not capturing Circuit City at a bargain-basement price and losing his investment, but acknowledged that it was for the best.

“I don’t care how rich you are, it must hurt to lose $41 million,” Ms. Caruso-Cabrera said to Mr. Salinas on location in Mexico.

“You know – when you’re talking about investments and businesses- it doesn’t pay to be afraid,” Mr. Salinas said, according to a transcript of the interview, which will be broadcast Wednesday night on CNBC. “It doesn’t pay, because fear is not a good counselor. Fear makes you do stupid things. So, of course it hurts.”

Mr. Salinas said he is moving on from his experience but is still looking at buying American assets.

“Well, we’re looking at a couple of mining companies that have been really pounded by the declining commodities,” he said in the interview. “And we think that, you know, mining is a great business. So we might go into a new tack there.”

(Via The New York Times Dealbook)

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