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

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Aer Lingus Group, Anton Bilton, distressed investing, equine DNA, Greencore Group, IMC Exploration Group, Irish shares, Irish value investing, ISEQ 20 ETF, iShares MSCI Ireland ETF, New Ireland Fund, Orogen Gold, Pension Deficit, Ryanair Holdings, Smurfit Kappa Group, TGISVP, The Great Irish Share Valuation Project, Uniq plc

Continued from here.

Company:   Greencore Group

Prior Post:   Here     (valuation, see here & here for commentary!)

Ticker:   GNC:LN

Price:   GBP 95.75p

Well, I guess my perspective on Greencore last year was horribly wrong..! I’ve long considered GNC a distressed company, but the market clearly disagrees. So much so, the share price rallied almost 70% in the past year – my price target (of GBP 32.5p) was certainly left choking in the dust! But if my distressed premise is correct – and, objectively, I can’t see how you’d disagree with me – this rally isn’t so surprising. What..?! But companies like this are always a binary proposition – they simply die, or they survive & maybe even thrive eventually. And if everybody still feels blithely happy about them, they present a temptingly cheap buy. Greencore’s also a nice scary reminder of how dangerous shorting can be – poor underlying fundamentals are often ignored far longer than you can take the pain…

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Avon Products – All Pig, No Lipstick…

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Andrea Jung, Avon Products, bad debt, Brink's, capital expenditure, Coty, debt, free cash flow, intrinsic value, Johnson & Johnson, JP Morgan, M&A, offshore cash, Pension Deficit, Risk Arbitrage, share repurchase, Silpada, Venezuela, Wal-Mart

– Avon Products (AVP:US) has high quality beauty products, a long/distinguished history and a premier reputation in direct sales. It offers its 6.4 million direct sales reps. (‘Avon ladies‘) a compelling income/empowerment opportunity, while offering investors attractive global/emerging markets exposure (83% non-US revenues)

– Sounds like the start of an interesting investment write-up?! But what on earth’s happened to Avon in the past several years? Good God, it’s like hearing your dear old maiden aunt’s been raped by Somalian pirates..!

The Worm in the Greencore (II)

Tags

distressed, Greencore, IFG Group, Interest Coverage, Margin of Safety, Operating FCF, Pension Deficit, Rights Issue, Uniq

Greencore Group plc (GNC:ID or GNC:LN)

• Mkt Price:  EUR 0.635
• Mkt Cap:  EUR 244.2 mio
• P/E:  3.9   (well, sorta…based on 2011 Cont Adj EPS)
• P/S:  0.19
• Div Yield:  8.5%      

Continued from here… Before we look at Uniq, there’s two other acquisitions to tackle: First is the abortive (recommended) merger with Northern Foods. I was shocked when this was announced in Nov-2010. What the hell were they doing? Despite the management guff, clearly they already had enough on their plate. At least it was a nil premium merger, and promised GBP 40 mio of annual savings within 3 years. On that basis, things might not necessarily get any worse after the merger, and just might get better..! The market certainly shared this conclusion, with GNC’s share price actually rallying sharply.