By David Press on
6/2/2011 9:38 PM
Hansen Technologies Ltd's ( HSN-ASX) management team announced significant profit upgrades for the 2011 financial year earlier this week, which has prompted me to update my analysis of the company which should make for some interesting reading.
Hansen this week revealed internal expectations for full year EBITDA of approximately $19.5m on revenues of around $57m, and an EBIT of approximately $17m. Based on an estimated tax rate of around 22% (a little conservative and may come in slightly lower), I'm anticipating a NPAT somewhere in the $13m region, a very impressive 20% increase on last years results.
As I wrote in my last blog on Hansen Technologies, the company's revenues have been hit by the persistently high value of the Australian dollar, mostly...
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By David Press on
5/20/2011 8:12 PM
Having eagerly followed LinkedIn's IPO and first trading day, I can't seem to shake that strange feeling of deja vu. LinkedIn shares traded as high as $122.70, closing at $94.25, a whopping 109% premium to the company's listing price of $45 per share on the NYSE. It's certainly not the first time a company's first trading day has created a frenzy and pushed shares significantly higher...but the thing that worries me are the all too familiar parallels to the late 1990's early 2000's dotcom boom and bust.
According to Bloomberg, at the close, LinkedIn was valued at $8.91 billion dollars, some 24 times 2011 revenue (annualised from first quarter revenue figures). Should common sense prevail, I feel there may very well be some punters walking away from LinkedIn a little lighter...
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By David Press on
4/5/2011 8:26 PM

Having read QBE's ( QBE-ASX) AGM presentation today, I have to say that I feel pretty comfortable with my decision to hold and buy more of this stock in the last 12 months or so. Despite the fact the share price has underperformed significantly compared to the overall market, the underlying performance of the insurance business has been quite strong, giving me the feeling that at current share prices, this company ticks the boxes of a quality value investment.
To understand why I think QBE offers good value, you need to understand the business and how they derive a profit. To put it simply, QBE derives income from two main sources. The first is the insurance profit they make on writing insurance, that is, the difference between insurance premiums received and insurance claims...
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By David Press on
3/31/2011 5:27 PM
It would appear that for the second time in recent years, institutional investors are looking to make board changes at RHG (previously Rams Home Loans-pre GFC). Steve Johnson and members of the Intelligent Investor group failed in a similar attempt 18 months ago, only to have a group of institutional investors (holding 8.4% of the company) led by Karl Siegling and Geoff Wilson make a second attempt as announced today.
Today's announcement (attached to a substantial holding disclosure) stated that the group intends to requisition the removal of two existing directors (Greg Jones and John McGuigan) and replace them with three new directors (Malcolm McComas, Gabriel Radzyminski and Paul Jensen). Additionally, the announcement details the group's intent to ensure the company remains a listed entity and to distribute surplus cash as dividends (franked wherever possible). The existing share buy-back proposal...
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By David Press on
3/28/2011 10:18 PM

Nido Petroleum ( NDO-ASX) today announced the approval from the Philippines DOE for their upcoming drilling target, Gindara-1. I've noted Gindara as a possible company making prospect a number of times and I now feel that at current prices, Nido may be offering traders and opportunity for a buy early, sell before spud play, and for longer term speculators, an opportunity for serious share price gains on the back of a successful oil find.
Nido and JV partners, Shell and Kairiki are targeting a possible 1 billion barrels of oil at Gindara, with the drill date around May 2011. Having attained approval for the well, as well as securing the “Atwood Falcon” rig, Nido are finalising the required third party logistics and planning and suggest the rig should arrive on site around mid...
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By David Press on
3/22/2011 4:21 PM

Strike Energy ( STX-ASX) announced late last week that they have increased the company's interest in the Louise gas/condensate field and the Eaglewood JV. Strike have spent US$3.75m on increasing their interest in the Louise fields to 40% (from 30%), increasing net production for Strike to 2MMcfe/day (revenue of approximately $350 000 per month at current prices). The deal also increases the interest in the Eaglewood JV, giving strike a 40% interest in future discoveries.
Having recently sold it's Rayburn and Mesquite assets ( blog here), STX are flush with cash (around $20m before the deal) and are embarking...
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By David Press on
3/16/2011 12:25 PM

Australia's dividend imputation system is in place to prevent double taxation of company earnings and has been applauded by Australian investors since it's implementation in the 1980's. However it does mean that investor's need to perform a simple calculation in order to obtain the real return of their dividends when considering the franking credits applied. My recent blog on BHP's share buy back has resulted in a number of questions from fellow investors on how to calculate the real return from dividend payments, so I thought I'd post up a quick blog explaining it in simple terms.
The reasoning behind calculating the 'grossed' or 'franked' up returns (I actually prefer these terms given 'real return' actually requires inflation to be...
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By David Press on
3/11/2011 11:33 AM

In coming days, Australian investors in BHP ( BHP-ASX) will be receiving paperwork detailing the company's recently announced, off-market share buy back. With so many 'Mum and Dad' investors holding BHP, and the technical nature of the buy back being a little difficult to understand, I thought it might be helpful to outline the details as simply as possible for anyone struggling to get their head around it and make their decision a little easier.
In short, investors can opt to sell their shares (or a portion of them) back to BHP. The offer will be at a discount to the trading price of shares on the market, which begs the question, why would you sell? Quite simply, it is in the make up of the payment that you find the answer. A very small proportion of the payment will...
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By David Press on
3/8/2011 5:33 PM
I've been spending some time watching investment based video's and thought it might be an idea to hop on here from time to time and share my favourite videos in the hope you all might enjoy the viewing and hopefully learn something from them.
My first is by author and fund manager, Roger Montgomery. I've discussed his book in my blog before and rate his book Value Able very highly. He has a number of web video's that I think is well worth viewing for everyone, but this one in particular is one I think any budding value investor should view. Avoiding...
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By David Press on
3/8/2011 4:10 PM

Having made my way through a number of half yearly reports in recent weeks, Hansen Technologies Ltd's ( HSN-ASX) performance is a real stand out and sets the company up for a fantastic full year result.
I discussed Hansen in the latter part of 2010 ( blog here) and formed the opinion that the company looked to be trading at a slight discount to it's intrinsic value. Having continued my research into the roll out of smart meters in the US and the technology required, I felt that due to Hansen's product and service offerings and market position in the US (particularly after the NirvanaSoft acquisition), the company was poised for strong growth in coming years. With an exceptionally strong balance sheet and apparently very capable management team, I took my first position in HSN in the low to mid 70c range. ...
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