Alpha Vulture

Some good posts at Greenbackd

Hielko — Sat, 12 May 2012 11:13:46 +0000

The past few weeks Greenbackd.com has published a series of articles about value investing; why it works or doesn’t work, what kind of statistical measures for cheapness perform best and what not to do if you want to outperform. Since I’m … Continue reading →

London Finance (LFI.L)

Hielko — Fri, 11 May 2012 16:12:46 +0000

Reading my blog you would probably get the impression that almost every time I research a company I end up buying shares. That’s not really the case, but often I find early on in the research process reasons for not … Continue reading →

Origen Financial (ORGN.PK)

Hielko — Thu, 10 May 2012 16:24:31 +0000

Origen Financial manages a portfolio of manufactured housing loans and asset backed securities (ABS). The company delisted in 2008 and is in liquidation mode since. It sold the loan originating and servicing business and is now only managing seven separate trusts that were created … Continue reading →

Asta Funding Q2 2012 results

Hielko — Wed, 09 May 2012 13:02:51 +0000

Asta Funding (ASFI) announced financial results for the second quarter of fiscal 2012 today. The company disappointed in the previous quarters because of the lack of share repurchases after it announced a $20 million discretionary buyback program in the summer … Continue reading →

Fibrek tender offer update

Hielko — Fri, 04 May 2012 12:52:17 +0000

One of the best opportunities to learn is when reviewing mistakes, and in the case of Fibrek I certainly made one. I did not properly read the tender offer documents and assumed (you know what they say about assumptions…) that … Continue reading →

Capital Southwest (CSWC)

Hielko — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 15:28:55 +0000

In the comments on my Urbana update a reader pointed me to an article of Geoff Gannon about Urbana and Capital Southwest. Just as Urbana Capital Southwest is in essence a closed-end fund that is trading at a significant discount to NAV. Capital Southwest … Continue reading →

Fibrek tender offer arbitrage

Hielko — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 17:38:37 +0000

Today Fibrek’s share price dropped 11% to CA$0.96 after a court decision related to the battle over the control of the company. This is interesting because Resolute has made a tender offer for CA$1.00/share and Mercer is trying to buy the … Continue reading →

Urbana Corporation update

Hielko — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 23:35:30 +0000

Urbana Corporation, in essence a closed-end fund focused on stock exchanges, released it’s annual report for the year 2011 previous month. Initially I didn’t intend to write an update because the report didn’t really contain any news. The company is publishing … Continue reading →

China Mass Media (CMMCY.PK)

Hielko — Thu, 05 Apr 2012 22:46:25 +0000

A reader pointed me in the direction of China Mass Media (CMMCY.PK), another Chinese company that’s trading for less than the cash on the balance sheet. The company paid a special dividend of $22.98/share at the end of December last … Continue reading →

SGF tender offer results

Hielko — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 16:53:53 +0000

I closed my position in SGF today for a loss of 1.74 percent. While the main part of the thesis proved to be correct, the acceptance rate was 51.3% instead of the 25% worst case scenario, the discount to NAV of the fund … Continue reading →