Boys’ toys
This is going to be a harder profile than usual to write objectively. I love Dart (DTG). It’s a great share for Dads to own. On any tedious trip, by road or by air, something rumbling and impressive, a huge articulated lorry with Fowler Welch-Coolchain emblazoned down the side, or a red and...
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Backing VHS
Looking back, I was somewhat reluctant when I added Anite (AIE) to the Thrifty 30 portfolio in October.
The company seemed to be financially strong, but a valuation based on past earnings was hazy at best because it’s not the company it was. Having sold off disparate software businesses, it now focuses exclusively...
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Rebuilding its fortress
Mark Wells, chief executive of Games Workshop (GAW), is as clear about what his company isn’t, as what it is, in its latest annual report.
It’s a manufacturer, not a retailer. It sells games and models people play together, really, not virtually ‘with a screen’. It makes fantasy war games, models and figures,...
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The loneliness of the long-distance contrarian
If you think it’s tricky buying shares everyone else wants to sell, you should try selling one everybody else wants to buy! XP Power (XPP) has done everything right and made the Thrifty 30 money, yet I’ve removed it from the portfolio and added International Greetings, which may just...
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Synergise to maximise
It’s surprising how much money there is in the most prosaic things. Take the manufacture of gift wrap, a product we use a few times a year and discard almost immediately.
Last year, hardly a vintage year but one in which the company showed early signs of recovering from a near-death experience, International...
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Back to basics #2
A shop assistant on the cover of DSG International’s annual report asks:
Hello, what brings you to our store today?She might well ask, because I can’t remember the last time I went into a Currys or PC World and bought anything. Actually, I think I can. It was Microsoft Office...
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Rarer than the Chinese Crested Tern
Such is my ignorance of banking in China, before writing this blog I had to check the yuan is the Chinese unit of account, like the pound is the UK’s, and renminbi is the currency, like sterling. So let’s talk yuan, and whether BlueStar SecuTech (BSST), a manufacturer...
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Nice to see you…
Having released Marks & Spencer back into the financial ocean, I’m hauling up schools of big fish in my thrifty nets.
United Utilities, Dixons and HMV have yet to publish their annual reports but, even though I’m suspicious of retailers and have ruled-out HMV in the past, I’m interested in another,...
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Crisis, what crisis?
One of the prosaic, but educational features of the Barel Karsan blog, is chapter-by-chapter reviews of classic investment books. At the moment it’s reviewing David Dreman’s Contrarian Investment Strategies: The Next Generation.
Dreman’s quantitative approach inspired a generation of stock screeners and, considering how towards the end of his life Benjamin Graham...
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A long and winding road
Last October, I added Castings (CGS) to the Thrifty 30 portfolio when its market, iron castings and components for vehicles, had collapsed.
Sales were down 15% and profitability (return on total assets) had fallen sharply. Casting’s manufacturing sites were operating at 50% of their capacity, it had laid off 350...
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