US Economy, Government Finances & Debt – Some of the Gory Details (III)

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% of GDP, budget deficit, Democrats, politicians, Republicans, US economy, US government finances, US government revenues, US government spending, US taxes

Continued from here:

Right, in Part II we surveyed US government spending. While spending spiked to 23.7% of GDP in 2010 (the highest since 1946) due to the financial crisis, it otherwise gradually declined over the past few decades to about 19% of GDP in the early 2000s. The decline appears primarily due to decreased defense spending.

We also noted that total US government spending’s among the lowest in the developed world. Despite this, the accompanying decline in tax revenues over the decades now leaves us in a situation where spending’s at 160% of revenues in 2010. What does that mean in terms of the government’s budget deficit and, of course, debt?

AGI Therapeutics – Anatomy of a Takeover (III)

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AGI Therapeutics, currency allocation, denarii, Event Driven, Expected Value, FX rates, Gross IRR, Gross Return, home bias investing, probabilities, Recommended Cash Offer, takeover offers

Continued from here.

Expected Return‘s probably the most important, and most difficult, return to calculate & focus on. In its simplest form, it’s binary (deal success or failure), but by all means incorporate multiple outcomes into your analysis, if appropriate. In fact, if you’re contemplating other types of Event Driven investing, this multiple outcome approach will prove essential. However many outcomes, you calculate a Gross Return and a likely probability (which must sum to 1.00, of course) for each, and then combine these to arrive at an Expected Return. This will give you a much more accurate (and lower) deal return. Of course, you won’t actually see this return on any single deal – but over time, this is the best risk/reward measure to employ to evaluate deals & your potential average return. Of course, you can calculate an Expected IRR also, if you wish, but let’s not go crazy here..!

AGI Therapeutics – Anatomy of a Takeover (II)

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AGI Therapeutics, binary outcomes, Gross IRR, Gross Return, intangibles, intrinsic value, John Paulson, junior resource stocks, Risk Arbitrage, Warner Chilcott, Warren Buffett

Continued from here. OK, we’ve run through the key components of the AGI Therapeutics (AGI:ID/LN) offer. You now have a pretty good idea of the terms, attractiveness, timeline and likely success of this deal. But how does it stack up from an investment perspective? Well, as I said, let’s not approach this backwards – as with any investment, no matter your excitement or conviction about the company/stock story, intrinsic valuation comes first:

AGI’s most recent balance sheet (Jun-11) is pretty simple – they’ve $9.251 mio of Cash on hand, while Net Payables of about $0.3 mio are offset by a subsequent sale of patents to Warner Chilcott (WCRX:US) for about $0.3 mio also. This sale probably wiped out some/all of the $0.241 mio in recorded Intangibles, and there’s really nothing else to the B/S. btw I tend to ignore balance sheet Goodwill/Intangibles/etc. anyway when calculating Intrinsic Value. You should be able to confirm/calculate the value of intangibles from other sources – like reserve reports, industry comps, superior/sustainable earnings etc. – if you can’t, it’s usually best to ignore these ‘assets‘ (try tell this to your average junior resource company investor, sigh…).

Avangardco Eggcelerating!

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agri-business, Angry Birds, Avangardco, Chuckie Egg, eggs, IPO, Oleg Bakhmatyuk, platformers, trading update, Ukraine, Ukrlandfarming, US ADR program

Please see my recent Avangardco (AVGR:LN) post here. Since then, it’s been interesting to see Bakhmatyuk engaging more actively with the media, for example here and here. Definitely seems to be part of a gradual ramp-up to an IPO for Ukrlandfarming (Ukr) – looks like further news may even come as early as end-May. We still don’t have any real hard info, though, but I’m encouraged by positive noises to date from the company & Bakhmatyuk, and by his explicit pairing of Avangardco & Ukr (eggs & grain) in recent comments/interviews.

However, it’s obvious a significant number of shareholders (potential, or actual) will continue to view this as a stock negative until there’s a specific transaction & terms on the table to evaluate. Ironically, a counterweight to this might well be a potential Ukr transaction itself! The buzz & analyst/media blitz ahead of an IPO would be sure to generate plenty of good publicity/attention for Avangardco also. As I’ve mentioned before, fair/preferential treatment of Avangardco shareholders in a potential Ukr transaction is essential, and would provide valuable support to Bakhmatyuk in pursuit of his longer-term ambitions. Continued maintenance of a foreign listing‘s essential also (in London, obviously, but adding a US ADR program might be attractive eventually).

AGI Therapeutics – Anatomy of a Takeover (I)

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AGI Therapeutics, Ark Therapeutics, Carl Icahn, catalyst, Daniel Loeb, Recommended Cash Offer, Risk Arbitrage, Seth Klarman, TGISVP

This post, and this one here, are good required reading. Yes, AGI Therapeutics (AGI:ID/LN) was the Risk Arb investment to which I was referring.

This is the one Irish share I did not disclose owning during TGISVP. My apologies, readers – but AGI trading volumes were atrocious, and I was still building a position with great difficulty. However, when I got to covering AGI during TGISVP, I simply tagged its fair value as simply being equal to the Recommended Cash Offer – so no issues there, I believe. Now that I recently received my final batch of proceeds from the AGI takeover, I thought it might be useful/interesting to walk through my thinking and exact positioning throughout the process.

Nope, Not Going Any Further with that Drag Queen..!

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Cresud, Argentina, farmland, Margin of Safety, intrinsic value, Trinity Biotech, agri-business, Boy's Own, drag queens, Cristina Kirchner, CDS spreads, Falkland Islands, YPF, Repsol YPF, nationalization, Sell in May, spring cleaning

Remember that twisted Boy’s Own holiday you took with your mates a couple of years back? You know the one, when you ended up in that very dodgy club? Yes, yes, I know it’s all a little hazy. I mean the club where the performers turned out to have a little extra..?!

Remember that blonde & the brunette?! No, not like that, I really think it was more like this. Ah yes, it’s all coming back to you now… So, do you remember when that drag queen sat in your lap, wriggled and muttered something dirty to you? And you were terrified…but strangely aroused also? Yes, shameful, I know – now stop dreaming about it.

US Economy, Government Finances & Debt – Some of the Gory Details (II)

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% of world GDP, EU economy, Euro Area economy, OECD, US economy, US government finances, US taxes

Continued from here:

OK, we’ve looked at US GDP and US government revenues (taxes) so far. The general observation to make is that US taxes have broadly declined as a % of GDP in the past 60 years. This is particularly true of corporate income taxes, despite high headline tax rates. The corporate tax take (as a % of GDP) has declined almost 75% in the same period due to powerful lobbying, more aggressive domestic tax strategies and the booking of v significant profits in low tax overseas subsidiaries. In a global context, the total tax take in the US is among the lowest in the developed world.

So what about government spending..?! Put your gloves on, let’s dig into the guts:

US Economy, Government Finances & Debt – Some of the Gory Details (I)

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% of world GDP, EU economy, Euro Area economy, US economy, US government finances, US taxes

US government finances (and the US economy):  Maybe I’m slow, but I just can’t get an accurate fix on what’s fact or fiction. Everything I read on the web, or hear from our so well informed media, seems to conflict or is agenda-driven, ill-informed or even just plain wrong. And, God forbid, I try my best to pay zero attention to anything emanating from a politician..!

I’ve reached the point where I really need a bit of a sanity check on all this. Why am I focusing on the US government (and economy)? Well, it’s the largest global economy by far, and it affects every one of us around the world in our daily lives (as the financial crisis illustrated in such a ghastly manner) – whither America goes, the rest of the world follows…

The Great Irish Share Valuation Project XII – Thank You!

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TGISVP

Many readers have been kind enough to pass along their feedback & appreciation re TGISVP by email, comments and/or across the message boards! Many thanks to all of you

I should have done this much sooner – here’s a small selection of some of the best comments (btw not my spelling etc., and I’m not bothering with attributions – but if you want them, just ask):

EIIB – So, You Want to Run a Marathon..?!

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Damille, DiamondCorp, discount control mechanism, doughnut boy, EIIB, HBG Holdings, Laxey, marathon, NAV discount, Qannas Investments, quid pro quo, QVT, Rasmala, share buyback, sukuk, tender offer, Total Expense Ratio, track & field, Weiss

C’mon, you’re kidding..? No, seriously, you’re taking the mickey?! In March, the European Islamic Investment Bank (EIIB:LN) (which I last wrote about here) share price looked ready to challenge the GBP 3.9-4.25p resistance zone. This has capped EIIB for almost 3 years now. But here we are, 1 month later, and the price hit GBP 2.8p just in time for Easter – off 24%! No change in volume, or holdings…what’s going on?! And it’s not clear the board have noticed… But I’m sure they’re well aware of EIIB’s intrinsic value, and are focused on the marathon task of their new operating strategy…

All very well but, as any health professional will tell you, before embarking on (and to be successful in) a marathon, you should first do a health check and then scale up with plenty of walking, exercise, jogging, running and even some fartlek. So health check first, then track & field, and then marathon..! But the current share price (and NAV discount) certainly don’t present a healthy diagnosis of the budding athlete…