A project to record the evolution of an investment portfolio over the long term, with the aim of maximising total return.
Tuesday, 26 November 2013
I made a couple of changes to my portfolio in the last few days. I sold Veripos because it is in the midst of a takeover battle, and it felt like a good time to turn the position into cash. I sold Euromoney to make room for a new holdings - MS International. This is a small company, that's just moved to AIM. They aren't very good at being a public company as their disclosure is minimal. They won't engage with me and help me learn more about the business. But from what little information they provide, I think I know enough that the stock is cheap and sentiment could turn very quickly. They have three divisions: 1) Defence - Lumpy earnings, decent returns on capital, and a horrible recent result, prompted (I reckon) by US defence shut downs and UK budget cuts. There is scope for a positive surprise here. 2) Forgings - An old fashioned business which earns horrible returns but may have a few puffs left as the UK economy improves. 3) Structures - A business building and repairing petrol station canopy structures. It sounds boring, but it is growing (helped by an Eastern European business), and has extremely high returns on capital. There may even be some competitive advantages as the website talks about a database of old petrol station designs, which no one else has. All in all, the company is silly cheap, probably because no one can make head nor tail of it. It has lots of cash, a scary looking pension deficit which isn't scary when you delve into it. Plenty of catalysts, and run by a guy who has been there for ever, owns a big chunk, and looks to be fairly competent. I think there's a lot of scope for positive surprises when half year results come out in a few days.