2013 – The Great Irish Share Valuation Project (Part II)

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First Derivatives, Fyffes, Irish Continental Group, Irish shares, Irish value investing, Ormonde Mining, Petroneft Resources, Rathdowney Resources, TGISVP, The Great Irish Share Valuation Project, Total Produce

Continued from here. Why don’t we just jump into the next (er, smaller!) batch of TGISVP stocks:

Company:   Ormonde Mining

Prior Post:   Here

Ticker:   ORM:LN

Price:   GBP 7.25p

ORM message boarders really took exception to my comments last year – clearly, they’re nuttier than the average Snickers bar… For God’s sake, I posted a marginally bullish valuation! Suggesting dilution might prove an issue seems to have caused most offence & was emphatically rejected. Er, what about the two subsequent placings in 2012 (one arrived a mere 5 weeks after my post)?! Muppet magic… Jesus, they probably won’t even like this year’s valuation!

Tetragon – Ready To Be A Star

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alternative assets, asset managers, CLOs, hedge fund seeding, Leon Cooperman, leveraged loans, Paddy Dear, Polygon, Reade Griffith, residual equity tranches, Tetragon Financial Group, TFG

Continued from here.

The ultra-quick recap:  Leveraged loans avoid most interest-rate price risk & enjoy better (default) recoveries than junk bonds, while CLOs offer diversification & loss mitigation, plus varying levels of tranche risk. These defensive attributes, coupled with current CLO yield spreads, may offer the best credit opportunity for 2013.

I like that risk/reward profile, but honestly, current yields & potential returns from leveraged loans/most CLO tranches don’t offer the level of return I’m seeking. Yes, you know where this is going… I want to take those defensive attributes & re-invest them into a more aggressive investment – residual equity tranches!

Time now for a proper introduction:  Tetragon Financial Group (TFG:NA)

Tetragon IPO’d at $10 in 2007, as an Amsterdam listed closed-end investment company, primarily investing in US CLO residual equity tranches. Some funds & business development companies (BDCs) have recently added CLO equity exposure, but TFG’s one of the few pure plays out there. It’s managed by Tetragon Financial Management (TFM), which is controlled by the founders of Polygon Global Partners. Um, let’s just dive straight into the bad stuff…

Where’s The Credit Opportunity In 2013?

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CDOs, CLOs, Collateralized Loan Obligations, Colony Financial, Fed, income/dividend bubble, junk bonds, leveraged loans, mortgage hedge funds

Owning Colony Financial (CLNY:US) was v rewarding. I bought it as a cheap distressed assets play, but I suspect my gains actually came from income investors, who are now rushing into the stock. That got me thinking… And it hammered home a couple of lessons: a) Never under-estimate the desperation of income investors, and (more seriously) b) Don’t fight the Fed! Now, that may sound like a contrarian challenge to some – sure, sometimes it can prove v profitable to fight a rising tide.

Except surfing the big waves is simply far more rewarding most of the time. Do you really want to be the investor who faces down the Fed’s steamrolling printing press? Especially with a ravenous horde of zombie income investors chasing after it?!

But it’s becoming increasingly difficult to exploit those lessons. Look around, most yields are too low, most prices too high… Look at property REITs, mortgage REITs, MLPs, closed-end funds (esp. Pimco!), and other assorted dividend story stocks. Most are now sporting fairly nauseating valuations & leverage – while the dregs are simply Ponzi schemes, relentlessly issuing stock & debt to fund excessive dividends. But what’s the alternative – Treasuries?! Oh please, just stab me with a rusty fork.

2013 – The Great Irish Share Valuation Project (Part I)

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Aminex, Aryzta, Connemara Mining, Continental Farmers Group, Independent News & Media, Irish shares, Irish value investing, iShares MSCI Ireland ETF, Kenmare Resources, Kerry Group, TGISVP, The Great Irish Share Valuation Project, Tullow Oil, UTV Media

I finished my last post with a question: ‘So, shall we continue with this TGISVP experiment in 2013..?!‘

Despite the relative comment silence, an emphatic ‘Yes!‘ appears to be in order. The success of the series was evidenced by the strong surge in Q1-2012 page views, and the significant level of out-performance enjoyed by each of the TGISVP Alpha & Beta Portfolios last year. I’d first recommend a quick review of my first TGISVP post last year as a primer, but we need to cover some important points here:

– I’m planning to (briefly) review & set a price target for all Irish companies.

– An Irish company is any company which conducts a major portion of its business in Ireland, is (genuinely) headquartered in Ireland, and/or whose management/directors/shareholders/history are predominantly Irish.

– Sure, it would be marvelous if I covered all companies simultaneously. But life (& investing) are never so convenient… I reckon there’s about 70 companies to cover, so I’ll give myself an end-March completion deadline.

– This is TGISVP-Yr II, so perhaps this will all move along much quicker this year – who knows?! To add some spice, I plan to cover companies in random order this time ’round.

TGISVP – 2012 Portfolio Performance

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Alpha Portfolio, Beta Portfolio, Irish shares, ISEQ, portfolio performance, Smart Alpha Portfolio, Smart Beta Portfolio, TGISVP, The Great Irish Share Valuation Project

I launched The Great Irish Share Valuation Project in Jan-2012 with all due confidence & bravado. [The ultimate irony in business & government is that people quickly learn (insane) confidence is the best way to get ahead, while ignoring it can also lead to the most spectacular of downfalls!]. It was actually a rather daunting proposition at the time…

Not necessarily because of the number of stocks involved – Ireland’s one of the few developed markets where it’s entirely possible to roll up your sleeves & get to know each stock pretty well. [I count 70 stocks in my latest file]. That may or may not float your boat, but I think it’s another good reason to put the Irish market on your to-do list this year. Picking out 2 or 3 safe & cheap stocks is a real luxury – it’s infinitely more challenging to tag every single stock with a bull or bear call (let alone a price target!), and to then up the stakes with an aggressive weighting on each stock holding.

Irish Shares 2012 – The Good & The Bad

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Aer Lingus, FBD Holdings, Greencore, Irish shares, Petrel Resources, Petroneft Resources, Providence Resources, TGISVP, The Great Irish Share Valuation Project, Total Produce, US Oil & Gas, Worldspreads

I’m just finalizing my review of The Great Irish Share Valuation Project (TGISVP) for 2012. My end-Q3 review is here & here for reference (and this post’s relevant also – it may even offer some interesting commentary on general stock selection & valuation). In this post I’ll cover last year’s winners & losers.

NB: FY 2012 performance is TGISVP specific, i.e. it’s only measured from the specific date I set a target price for each stock in Q1 2012. [Apologies if you’d prefer actual FY 2012 stock performances – but I’m sure there would be a high degree of overlap, anyway]. There’s no M&A to highlight for Q4 – the only items of note are i) United Drug (UDG:LN) abandoned its Irish listing in favour of London, and ii) Elan (ELN:US) spun out its drug-discovery unit, Prothena Corp (PRTA:US) – but the impact for shareholders was minimal.

Here’s the 2012 Top 10 Winners:

Heading Into 2013…

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Alternative Asset Opportunities, Argo Group, Asta Funding, Avangardco, correlation, EIIB, FBD Holdings, Fortress Investment Group, JPMorgan Russian Securities, KWG Kommunale Wohnen, Livermore Investments, Margin of Safety, Petroneft Resources, portfolio allocation, portfolio performance, Richland Resources, shareholder activism, Sirius Real Estate, Total Produce, Trinity Biotech, Universe Group, Vietnam Opportunity Fund

There was a gratifyingly large surge of page views yesterday checking in on my 2012 Portfolio Performance! I’m suitably humbled by the attention – gulp, makes me wonder what challenges 2013 will throw up?! Hopefully the blog’s sparked a few decent ideas & stock picks for you in the last year or so, and you’re pleased with the progress of your own portfolio in 2012. It’s certainly been rewarding for me – most obviously in terms of improving my investment focus & analysis, but also in terms of the constant stream of questions, challenges, feedback, gossip, ideas, etc. from blog readers.

As a result, I now feel somewhat honour-bound to cough up some kind of 2013 Portfolio. I should immediately flag that some of you may find this a bit of a cop-out… 😦 But, in my defence, let me say:

– The start of a new year really means little to me, I don’t suddenly discover I have whole new batches of stocks to buy & sell!

– I rarely write about stocks I don’t own. This is pretty deliberate – my intention was never to simply fill up blank space with an idea each day/each week. I think people can really only judge your level of analysis & conviction against whether you actually own a stock – and, of course, by how much stock you own!

– I also don’t write about stocks I track, or discard, very much. First, mostly because they’re far too numerous! Second, I’m not sure I’d always manage a proper (in-depth) write-up about such stock(s). And third, I’ve sometimes tracked stocks every single day for literally years on end before buying – how often do you want to hear about them?!

2012 – Aaah, How Was It For You..?

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alternative assets, Argentina, Argo Group, Avangardco, Baker's Dozen, diversification, dividend yield, EIIB, frontier markets, hedge funds, home bias investing, Irish shares, JPMorgan Russian Securities, NAV discount, Petroneft Resources, portfolio allocation, portfolio performance, Renaissance Russia Infrastructure Equities, Richland Resources, Russia, Sirius Real Estate

[Here’s my last performance report, for reference].

OK, just in time, my performance analysis got a bit more sophisticated. It now includes dividends, and is calculated on a weighted average gain basis, so now the impact of larger & smaller portfolio stakes is recognized. I think I’ve tracked any increase/decrease in portfolio holdings pretty well during the year, via Twitter (so plse sign up as a follower!) & blog comments. [No point in having interested readers if I don’t post such relevant info on a timely basis]. This allowed me to calculate an average portfolio stake for each holding, which I think is the best metric to use.

I did, however, stick with my original yr-end 2011 or 2012 write-up prices as a cost base – I didn’t want to drive myself crazy calculating average net purchase prices! However, I know I’ve subsequently added to portfolio holdings at higher & lower prices, so I think that pretty much cancels itself out. It also means I’ve omitted partial profits harvested on certain holdings, so my total return may be marginally understated.

Overall, eyeballing my respective analyses, dividends & portfolio weightings have in total (on a pretty even split) added about 2-3% to my annual return. The pretty low contribution from dividends may surprise you, but don’t forget I’m none too enamoured with them… See here, here & here. As far as I’m concerned, if you’re impressed enough with a stock’s valuation & prospects to actually buy it, surely you’d prefer to see it compound its earnings?! Only a third of my holdings pay a dividend.