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).

Continue Reading →

Charlie and the chocolate factory

1972 was an important year for Warren Buffett. It is the year in which he made an investment that was what I consider to be the turning point in his investing career that was inspired by none other than his partner in crime, Charles Munger. Some of you may have already guessed what I’m talking about (perhaps the title gave it away?) – See’s Candy.

This was a company trading at 3x book value and Buffett had likely never paid more than 80% of book value for a company in his life. Yet he saw something new in this investment and was willing to break with all he had known for most of his adult life. I’m going to look at the arguments for these types of businesses that likely persuaded him to do so.

Continue Reading →