This is my current portfolio snapped as of yesterday, I will make a short comment on each holding, starting from the top.
Nagacorp
My clear leader performance wise, with a large contribution to my performance over the past years (first investment in January 2017). I have a few reasons for keep liking this holding. Currently the market seems to entirely have forgotten about the Vladivostok project in Russia. Although there have been delays (issues with the Chinese construction company), which probably will lead to cost overruns. When the Russian casino is up and running in about 2 years, it should contribute positively to the share price. The VIP business is set to grow further and as we know most of Macau revenue is from this small group of players. Nagaworld still have empty rooms to fill with more junket operators taking up space in the casino, still in ramp up mode so to say. The Hong Kong situation has been negative for Macau, where naturally many Macau visitors want to combine the visit with going to Hong Kong. It might be easier to try the Cambodia casino instead under these circumstances. Tourism in general continues to increase very strongly to Cambodia (see report), 10.7% growth in 2018 compared to the year before. The increase to Phnom Penh is even much stronger at 36.5% YoY. With all this strong tailwinds one would think that the discount of Nagacorp vs it’s Macau peers should have vanished. I would argue it should trade to a premium. Depending on the metrics and which peer, it’s rather trading at a 20-30% discount. Given all this I still see strong upside both short and long term.
Swedish Match
The tobacco industry is very much in the news lately (vaping poisoning etc) and many companies has been hammered. For Swedish Match it has been the potential ban on flavored cigars. I think the Swedish Match ZYN story is underestimated, the big driver is not cigars but the development for ZYN. This is a product that is truly tested for many many years to actually be much less harmful than smoking. This is what the vaping crowd should go for, not going back to cigarettes. Sure there is competition in this space as well, but I think getting help from the giants to lift the awareness of the product will for Swedish Match be net positive. Adding to that, the company is run in such a solid way, with big share buybacks a large dividend. I almost see it as a risk that I get bought out by one of the major tobacco players. I would like to keep holding this for many years preferably.
Tonly Electronics
Somewhat stuck in value trap land here, P/E 6, Net cash 25% of MCAP, with 5.5% dividend yield. A lot of stocks of this type are valued low (including Tonly’s majority owner TCL) on the HK and China exchanges right now. There is a bit more to worry about with a company like Tonly. The electronics market is fast shifting and history shows that revenues can also drop fast. That said, Tonly delivered a solid report, 25% revenue growth and 18% profit growth, but apparently nothing that blew the market away (no margin improvement). I’m slightly disappointed that they haven’t grown more in the smart speaker space, given how well the actual market has developed. Tonly seems to be stuck in value trap land for now, which is annoying given the large weight in my portfolio.
Olvi
Continued to slowly compound and deliver with their conservative disciplined approach. Some markets showed extraordinary growth in the last report. Given that the company doesn’t really use debt to finance growth and acquisitions + how small and illiquid the company is, the market is not really repricing the stock to the same multiple as it’s larger competitors. Royal Unibrew which I owned in the past has for example expanded it’s multiple much more (but they have also grown quicker). I continue to see this a stable defensive holding that fly under the radar for most investors. Currently not cheap, but also not very expensive.
LG Chem
Korean stocks have in general performed very poor lately. The KOSPI 200 is up some 5% in local currency and down -1% in USD year to date. LG Chem is some 10% worse than that on the back of a very weak Q2 report. What is important to me is that LG continues to be a leader in the battery space, which they are. They are leaders to such a point that SK Innovation has poached over 70 people working at LG Chem (which of course is a worry). This is my only holding left, from my investment in the “EV theme” and I’m keeping it for the long term, betting that LG Chem comes out as a winner/leader in this space.
Dream International
Similarly to Tonly, solid results, also stuck in value trap land. P/E 7, Net cash 10% of MCAP, 2.7% dividend yield. Revenue growing 16% and net income 8% in the first half of 2019 (vs H1 2018). Dream having most of its toy factories in Vietnam is actually a winner on the trade war, they should have a strong competitive advantage over toy producers in China, as soon as the tariffs are in place. They didn’t say who, but I’m pretty sure the master purchase agreement put in place should be with Funko. Funko is growing it’s sales with some 20-25% YoY which should continue to increase Dream’s sales. Given that toy sales is not nearly as volatile as electronics sales and Dream being a world leader in this space, I can’t get my head around the low valuation. I will be patient and hold until the market rewards me a bit better than this.
AK Medical Holding
My latest addition to the portfolio is already my second largest gainer. The company blew every expectation out of the water in it’s latest results. Revenue grew 59% and Net income 40% YoY, almost unbelievable figures. These kind of figures are hard to find outside of China, it really shows the power China’s huge population has, when you have a innovative product at a competitive price point. The majority shareholder and the second largest shareholder have recently placed 50m and 25m share blocks respectively in the market at some 10% discounts to the stock price of that day (the stock was running up quickly). That is some 7.5% of the company, as long as they are not selling out more I see it as a net positive that large institutions are eager to take blocks at these prices even after such a quick run-up. My hope long term is that this is just the start for a innovative medical company with many years of growth going for them. But the valuation has run away quite a lot now, so expectations are for further strong growth and it will take some time to “grow” into this valuation. Typical for HK listed stocks though is that momentum follows through to very stretched valuations.
Irisity
I have through interviews got confirmation that they this company has a solid product. But so far the CEO is over promising and under-delivering in terms of new contracts. The market is getting tired of this and selling down the shares quite rightfully. Owning this stock is a bit like a call option, you lose time value as long as no positive news come out. I’m not sure how long I will hold out, a bit longer I think. A rights issue might also be in the cards fairly soon, so positive news are needed. This is truly my most speculative holding, large up and downside over the coming year (if I dare to hold that much longer).
Sbanken
i’m guessing the company has been hurt a bit from the name change from Skandiabanken to Sbanken. Growth has come down somewhat and ROE quite a lot, customer seems happy still though, which is important. Share price has been hurt even more from the general bank sell-off, even though there has been a small rebound lately the valuation feels quite undemanding at forward P/E of 10 and P/B 1.15, in line with the local leader DNB.
Diageo
Just like Olvi this is another of my slow compounders. Here I have definitely been riding a multiple expansion story. Although not cheap, with increasing wealth levels in the world, I see this a very solid long-term defensive holding.
Vinda
A have a similar thinking around Vinda as Diageo, but with totally different products and focus on China. Long term use of tissue paper, diapers (for both young and old) and other paper base products, will just increase as China becomes wealthier and older. As a premium product market leader and a very solid majority owner (Essity) I sleep well at night holding this long term. Given the low liquidity and listing in HK it again fly quite a bit under the radar.
Modern Dental Group
My bet on the dental industry got a pretty shaky start with the stock tanking some -35% on low volume (without any real news coming out). Luckily I had faith in my DD and did not stop loss out of the holding, but I didn’t dare to buy more either. When the semi-annual was released there was nothing amazing in it, but also nothing worrying and the stock has now quickly rebounded and then some. The most positive to me in the report that the large acquisition done in USA which was bleeding money, stopped bleeding. This proves to me that the families running Modern Dental knows what they are doing and are able to turn around a business. I’m very curious in what way they will be able to shape this company over the coming years, if I see continued good execution in the next semi-annual I plan to add to my holding.
LiveChat Software
A very new holding so not much to add yet. The latest monthly customer growth figures confirms a continued turn-around, which is positive. What would lift the stock to the next level is improvements in up-selling of their new products.
Swedbank
Bank stocks has been pretty controversial holdings lately and Swedbank maybe more than most. Göran Persson is in place as the new chairman and he appointed somebody he knew well and trusted as CEO. This was not intended to become a long term holding, my speculation started off well, but has after that gone into losses. With this latest rebound getting me back to flattish I am tempted to sell and just give up on this “case” where I thought risk/reward looked attractive. You can’t win them all.
Dairy Farm
This turned into a real turn around stock, with a new CEO that seems really good. But as a good CEO does, he takes up all the shit to the surface and starts to clean out. Given how large this company is, this is long process (which the CEO said himself on the latest conf call). Adding to that a decent portion of Dairy Farm’s sales are in Hong Kong. With the situation there, sales are not going to be good short term. If the share keeps getting pressured on back of issues in Hong Kong I think the stock is setting up for a really good long term entry point. I will just have to try to time this decently (easier said than done). I’m still positive long term, especially thanks to the new CEO.
Inditex
A bit of a head scratching here, the peer H&M has traded up significantly lately. Zara keeps delivering in a brutal retail market, but is not getting much love from the market. Sure valuation wise this is not a cheap company, but it has never really been cheap. That H&M trades on a higher P/E than Inditex doesn’t feel right. But my conviction level here and my ability to outsmart other investors is low. So this is probably my second holding (Swedbank being the other) which is hanging a bit loose if something more interesting comes along.
Philip Morris
Finally PM where a lot has happened lately. Very serious merger rumors with Altria started to circulate and the stock tanked. Then the vaping issues started to spread in the news and the stock tanked some more. Very frustrating as I thought I had entered this company and a very good level and had a quick gain. But sometimes even the best investments gets disrupted by management not doing what is best for their investors, but instead is building empires. Or other concerns like these vaping issues which was very hard to forsee. Basically the vaping concerns goes 180 degrees in the other direction to the documentary 1 billion lives. Which argues how stupid it is to ban vaping, since it’s such a better alternative to regular cigarettes. So now if vaping gets banned, are people going back to regular cigarettes? A very volatile environment indeed, with a lot of big questions but few answers. I’m hoping PM will cancel the merger with Altria and if that is the case I might weather out the storm here and keep PM long term as intended.
I think you focused too much on forecasting the outcome of the industry or management etc.. Many stocks in the list have a declining ROIC and some of them high debt. How can you so sure about their turn-around? Investing is more about managing risk, in my opinion. For examble, Sbanken has an average ROA of less than 1%. That’s a clear sign is not a good bank. Dairy Farm has a ROIC of 3% this year.
I don’t understand these moves. I like Dream International and NagaCorp, though
Agree that Sbanken and Dairy Farm are two businesses that did not perform that well. Sbanken I sold now, like I wrote in the comment. Dairy Farm I have been close to selling multiple times, but I haven’t given up hope on the turn around. I think you are wrong on high-debt though. Not many of my companies have high debt. This is something I consciously changed a few years back after making some bad investments in highly leveraged companies. If you do a quick screening it might seem some companies are highly leveraged due to the recently changed accounting standards where leasing goes on the balance sheet. So for example Dairy Farm leasing/renting their shops that goes on the balance sheet as debt. I would say Dream International is a fairly troublesome stock in its own way, cheaper than that is hard to find anywhere in the world though!
Appreciate your comments though and food for thought. I do think I try to manage the risk more than most. I very rarely buy expensive companies, which in a way is managing risk, but maybe I should redefine it, so I don’t buy melting ice cube businesses…
Thanks for sharing.
Inditex has somewhat of a premiumized appearance and relatively low production costs (not so different from H&M), which should allow to secure better margins long-term. Brand value is a continuous investment and Inditex have been great at it (see cocacola). With developing income of some middle classes across the globe (china and alikes), affordable clothes with premium appearance imho has better perspectives than H&M. Accidentally, analysts also estimate H&M overvalued and Inditex somewhat undervalued (wrt consensus price).
On PMI, they have weathered many ups & downs and ultimate question is the published results. Period after period they were solid, not astonishig (but considering the challenges they are exposed to, PMI results are quite spectacular).