Madara Cosmetics: Bet on entreprenaurship

Madara is fast growing premium organic cosmetics brand from Latvia. It started from garage in 2005 and is now the leader in organic cosmetics in Finland and Latvia. It has strong distribution position in the main cosmetic outlets and e-commerce sites in the two home-markets. It has started to expand to new markets, mainly France, …

Short unfinished thought: Fila fad or value?

Someone mentioned Fila during COVID mayhem. I found time to look at it last weekend. It's pretty interesting. They have their own business in Korea and US, but RoW is lisenced. They get percentage of all worldwide revenues without putting in capital. The lisencees seem to have quite a lot of freedom how to market …

Carnival bought 8 months more life time

Few notes on latest equity offering: New shares from equity offering 62,5 m. and from convertibles offering 175m. if converted (virtually certainty if Carnival survives) Existing shares 657 m. So total diluted shares 895 m New money coming in total, with credit facilities etc., is 9 BUSD Current cash burn 1 BUSD month So current …

I’m all over the place

Busy day today, bought some Jedat before the Japan close, then tiny positions to FNAC in France and Unicret in Italy during the day, and now Capri Holdings before the US close. And yesterday I was in Singapore and Vietnam (bought some more PYN Elite). I think I will increase my emerging Asia allocation more …

Japanese software netnet: Jedat

This is pretty simple nanocap netnet idea. Jedat is Japanese electronic design automation software company. You can plan electronics, flat panels etc. with the software. Customers are semi-conductor type manufacturers. It's nanocap and competing against Autodesks but seems to have carved nice niche. Design software has some learning curve so customers can be sticky. If …

9.2.2020 Investment Journal: Vente-Unique update

Vente-Unique is a rusty growth company that has been one of my genius stock picks, currently clocking -50 %, give or take, from my purchase price. I was down even more during last year so I have been fighting with some negative reinforcement here for a while. At the time of the original writeup, I …

Boustead Projects: NAV discount with catalyst

I recently bought 2,5 % position in Boustead Projects. The business operates from Singapore, so I'm quite far away from my self imposed North Europe mandate. I didn't do much research on it though, because the idea is so simple. Firstly, Boustead Projects' net financial assets, including real estate and real estate development JVs measured …

CAFOM: Corporate restructuring special situation

CAFOM is the largest electronics and furniture retailer in France’s overseas islands in Caribbean (“Outre-Mer"). It's operator of BUT furniture and DARTY electronics brands under franchise agreements. It also has 59% ownership in growing and profitable online only furniture retailer operating across Europe (“Vente-Unique”). Main owners are long time entrepreneurs. They have excellent track in …

Against the credit in Russia: Case Tinkoff

INTRODUCTION Tinkoff Credit, Russian fintech Low 6.4x P/E 2019E, based on guided profit for 2019, which management kind of indicated will be beaten Modern digital only consumer "financial supermarket", focus on credit cards Probably the biggest and most profitable digital-only bank in Europe (~8,4 m. customers) Excellent long-term growth track record, 38 % net profit …

PYN Elite fund: You don’t have to do everything yourself

Considering to outsource about 10 % of my portfolio to outside manager due to long time period of big cash position due to my inability to find ideas in what I consider my home markets (say Nordics and Europe). So I stumbled on Petri Deryng / PYN Elite fund and here are my random notes of him. …