Ubiquiti ($UBNT) Investment Thesis

Ubiquiti ($UBNT) is a fast growing network hardware producer. Normally when it comes to hardware and technology, margins and returns on investment are low, but Ubiquiti has managed to dominate its market with a unique approach to the business, one that is not easily replicated. It earns margins over 25% by having no marketing and advertising costs, relying entirely on its products to distinguish themselves from competitors.

The company is growing revenues at 40% per annum, is highly cash generative, yet is selling at a P/E of just 13, excluding cash (yes it has net cash, not debt!). Here is my investment thesis.

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My take on Weight Watchers ($WTW)

Conscious that I haven’t written a post for over a couple of weeks, and without any good prospective investments to write about, I thought I would do an article on the flip side of the coin – i.e. find a terrible company, selling at an absurd valuation and metaphorically tear it to pieces. But then I got thinking, it isn’t hard to find a rubbish investment, neither is it particularly useful to you, the reader, for me to point out that selling at 100x sales is ludicrous. You already know it (I hope).

It would be more useful for me to review a company that I believe is a poor investment, but that others may view as a value investment. When I got to thinking which company to cover, there was one that stood out in my mind that I have seen recommended on some other blogs, Weight Watchers (NYSE:WTW).

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Codan Limited ($CDA.AX)

I went over the investment thesis for Codan Limited ($CDA.AX) in one of my portfolio updates in June. Codan is a company that earned $45m in 2013 and now has a market cap of just $140m. I bought shares at $0.78 and since then shares are only slightly ahead at $0.85, so this is still a good investment opportunity in my opinion. This post isn’t to go over the investment thesis again, but to briefly highlight the recent AGM and chairman’s statement, which I think make this investment even more compelling than before.

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Berkshire Hathaway ($BRK)

I first bought Berkshire Hathaway shares 3 years ago, and a few days ago I sold the entire position. This might be a somewhat controversial decision and when I first bought shares I envisaged holding them forever. But I don’t see that much upside to Berkshire at the moment. That’s not to say I am not a fan of Buffett. I think his investment success speaks for itself and Berkshire has been a highly profitable investment over the last few decades. But there are several reasons I have exited this position, many of which are probably at odds with value investors’ opinions in general. Here is my reasoning

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Legacy Oil – $LEG.TO

Stocks have been moving down recently, and none more so than Oil & Gas companies. Lots of names in the industry are trading at just half their 52 week highs. The reason often given in the news is forecast lower global demand for oil which is being interpreted as bearish for stocks in general. However it has, in mine and others opinion, more to do with the big increase in supply and production from North America predicted in the future. The USA is on track to become the largest producer of oil in the world.

Legacy Oil is a low cost North American producer that can remain profitable at low oil prices and has large upside if oil prices are high in the future.

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Mecom Group – $MEC.L

Mecom Group is a newspaper publisher I’ve been looking at over the last couple of days. It is an interesting special situation which looks appealing. A cash offer has been made for the shares at 155p and the shares currently trade at 140p. The takeover has already been approved by shareholders, but the deal has been delayed while a regulator conducts an investigation into whether it will impede competition. Their preliminary findings were that it does which is why the market is pricing in a big discount.

Regardless of whether the takeover happens, the company currently trades at an EV/EBITDA (adjusted) of just 2.5 and will surely be an acquisition target for other companies if this deal falls through. If the takeover fails you will be left holding a cheap company and can probably buy more shares even cheaper after it is announced. Alternatively if it happens you’ll net an 11% gain, probably in around 2-3 months.

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Bouvet Thesis – $BOUVET.OL

One of my most successful investments over the last couple of years was in Kentz, which was a typical Buffett buy and hold forever type stock. Kentz operates in the oil and gas industry, offering engineering and construction services with high returns on capital. I bought it at a time when the oil & gas industry wasn’t doing too well and it was around a P/E of 13, but Kentz went from strength to strength and netted me a 134% gain in just over a year. If they hadn’t been taken over I would still hold them.

But moving onto Bouvet, this is a Norwegian IT consultant and bears some similarities to Kentz.

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Revisiting Craven House $CRV.L

I haven’t look at CRV for a while, and it was recently covered by another blogger, Expecting Value, which takes the count now to two bloggers that have been skeptical of CRV. I thought I would write a post setting out my thesis again and particularly addressing the issue raised that CRV could be inflating the valuation of its balance sheet.

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