Preference shares are an underappreciated asset class, particularly for income-seeking private investors who are less constrained than institutions when it comes to liquidity. But what are preference shares? Preference shares are shares with special rights attaching to them. Each preference share is unique but most have the following characteristics: Dividends: Preference shares typically pay a…
Author: Keith McLachlan
Founder of SmallCaps.co.za over a decade ago, Keith McLachlan (CA (SA)) has been analyzing, understanding and actively investing in listed equity since before even then.
Trellidor: Building up to a Rally
Originally published over here. Cashbuild (CSB) recently indicated that their sales till end of December 2020 had jumped +24% y/y. Massmart too has indicated a strong second-half recovery in their Builders Warehouse sales with Spar’s BuildIT outfit echoing the same sentiment. While these are great results, they are not unique. Building materials, DIY and home…
Afrocentric vs. Discovery
ORIGINAL ARTICLE APPEARS HERE. Having listed on the JSE in 1999, Discovery Ltd (DSY) has been a phenomenal success generating early investors multiples of their money. The Group administers the Discovery Medical Aid (a separate legal entity to the listed company) and, through data mining, clever incentives and cross-selling, the Group has won huge medical…
Redefine Properties: Is this REIT-listic?
Late on Friday, Redefine Properties (RDF) published its long-awaited dividend announcement for the year-ended August 2020. You can find the full announcement here: LINK. A Real Estate Investment Trust (i.e. “REIT”) has some special privileges and they come with some onerous requirements. If you don’t satisfy the requirements of being a REIT, you lose the…
Timing Your Market Exits
‘A good exit starts with a good entry’ — Keith McLachlan. Full interview found here: LINK.
Finding value in SA’s small- and mid-cap sector
Diversification across sectors is the best hedge against bad luck, stresses Keith McLachlan in a Moneyweb interview. Find the full interview over here: LINK.
Small & Mid Cap Snap Back
Click on the embedded video below to play it.
How to Fix the JSE
We cannot fix problems if we cannot be honest enough to admit that they exist. If we are honest with ourselves, there is something deeply wrong with the JSE’s stock market and it appears systemic. One way to see it is that the JSE’s ecosystem is stuck in a negative feedback loop. Our stock market…
Ascendis Health: Why I Sold
OLD ARTICLE – Original posted on March 29, 2017 I have been following Ascendis Health since it listed and, while I was sceptical at first, I warmed to the company as I saw management executing their stated strategy. If you see here, I even use them as an example of how acquisitive growth can work: How…
EOH: The Cracks Appearing
OLD ARTICLE – Original posted on July 28, 2017 It may sound like I am picking on EOH Holdings (EOH), but I am not. My job is to look critically at companies and, where appropriate, disagree with the consensus view. Even if this is uncomfortable and hurts peoples feelings, it is important that I do…
Master Drilling: Illustrating Value
OLD ARTICLE – Original posted on March 22, 2018 I have written about Master Drilling (MDI) previously and I refer you back to these articles for some of the narrative: Master Drilling: Hidden Gem Master Drilling: The Big Mistake You will notice a consistent theme: I like them. The Group recently put out some soft…
Master Drilling: The Big Mistake
OLD ARTICLE – Original posted on August 26, 2016 Previously I wrote the following article on Master Drilling (Master Drilling: Unknown Gem). I will not rewrite the investment case that I noted in that article for Master Drilling as a world-class, niche industrial technology play with global, growing scale and sophistication. Pretty much all of that…
Master Drilling: Hidden Gem
OLD ARTICLE – Original posted on March 29, 2016 When I first encountered Master Drilling (MDI), I was mildly impressed and put them on the radar to follow closer. Over the subsequent three years, I began to become quite impressed with the business and its operations. Did you know that Master Drilling (run out South…
Santova: Growing & Undervalued
OLD ARTICLE – Original posted on October 11, 2017 Santova (SNV) is a non-asset based supply chain manager with more than 65% of its earnings coming from outside of South Africa, including the majority of hard currency in this. Santova put out a H1:18 trading statement yesterday that can be summarised as follows: H1:18 EPS and…
Good Businesses Tend To Stay Good
OLD ARTICLE – Original posted on January 24, 2018 I have a counter-intuitive argument that scale can create problems. Why do I say this? Anecdotally, we know that you cannot choose which stock to invest in based purely on the size of the company. We know that investing is not that easy. But can we prove…
Warning Signs: Retailers, Shopping Centres & Retail REITs (Part 2 of 2)
OLD ARTICLE – Original posted on November 24, 2016 See Part 1 over here: Warning Signs: Retailers, Shopping Centres & Retail REITs (Part 1 of 2). There are three harmonious parts to a Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT): Income: These are predominantly rentals from tenant renting space from the REIT. The lower the vacancy rate…
Warning Signs: Retailers, Shopping Centres & Retail REITs (Part 1 of 2)
OLD ARTICLE – Original posted on November 22, 2016 Following an exchange with Byron Lotter on Twitter (see here) after what I believe (and the market believes) was a very poor trading update from Woolies (WHL). But Woolies is not alone in this regard. Here are the key listed retailers, their like-for-like same-store growth, inflation…
Management Shareholding Abuses
OLD ARTICLE – Original posted on June 21, 2018 A traditional view wants a listed company to have their management as large shareholders. This gives them skin in the game, aligns them to shareholders and incentivizes them to succeed. All perfectly good reasons. But, this did not prevent Steinhoff from happening. If anything, this was…
What Is & Is Not Fraud?
OLD ARTICLE – Original posted on July 24, 2018 The American-styled short-selling model works on aggressive negative press releases, research and other PR stunts (now apparently including legions of anonymous Twitter accounts) to drive a share price down. Fair is fair, none of these actions are illegal if they disclose their beneficial interest. While this…
Sabvest: Unique Opportunity
OLD ARTICLE – Original posted on August 21, 2018 What makes for a good investment? Simple: (1) Quality underlying, (2) Growth / yield / return, & (3) Underpaying for all this. What makes a good investment fit into a diversified portfolio? Simple: (4) Being as little correlated to existing investments as possible. What makes all of…
When Does Valuation Matter & When Doesn’t it?
OLD ARTICLE – Original posted on October 5, 2018 Introduction: Fundamentals are what you get but valuation is how much you pay for it. The less you pay for a given set of fundamentals, the more you weight the odds in your favour that the investment will have a positive outcome. Hence, even if fundamentals are…
Tax-Free Savings Accounts: Buy Risk & Sell Time
OLD ARTICLE – Originally posted on June 4, 2019 A Tax-Free Savings Account (TFSA) offers a superb, tax-efficient mechanism to compound long-term investments for South African citizens. In the below example, I use an assumption of 15% CAGR per annum from a basic South African equity investment and assume that you are paying a marginal…
What Do Auditors Do & Not Do?
OLD ARTICLE – Originally posted on June 11, 2019 Following all the local corporate failures, the media and many (ill-informed) investors have savagely turned around and blamed the external auditors. While easy–and very human–to blame someone else like an external auditor for fraud, two things have become quite apparent: Many people do not actually understand what an “external financial…
Why Quality Matters for Small Cap Investors
The below is extracted from the December 2019 Alpha Prime Small & Mid Cap Fund investor letter where I briefly unpack our argument for quality in the small cap space: Quality: Above all else, we try to find good-quality, fast-growing, listed small cap businesses. Value: We invest in the cheapest of these options, constrained by our concentration &…
Santova: Global But With a Domestic Rating…
OLD ARTICLE – Originally posted on December 4, 2019 Santova Logistics (SNV) has been a core holding in the ASM Fund since its inception due to its unique, capital-lite business model with global reach and the potential for a compounding network effect across its operations. In brief, Santova offers a fourth-party logistics (“4PL”) solution for clients….
Lessons: Over-reliance on Management
OLD ARTICLE – Originally posted on January 7, 2020 The last couple of years have been very hard on those that invest in South African small cap stocks. Unfortunately, me, the Alpha Prime Small & Mid Cap Fund and my (incredibly resilient) investors have been no exception to this. Since the FTSE/JSE Small Cap Index’s…
Lessons: Two-edged Blade of an Anchor Shareholder
OLD ARTICLE – Originally posted on January 9, 2020 More than any other directive, human beings act in line with their individual incentives. In the natural world and bleeding into modern-day addictions to drugs, social media and pornography, human beings are predominantly incentivized by dopamines. In business, though, human beings are typically incentivized with money. The ability…
Lessons: Mining is (Dam) Complicated
OLD ARTICLE – Originally posted on February 10, 2020 I’ve been invested directly in a growing, junior coal miner for going half a decade, amongst several other mining-related investments. Likewise, I’ve followed a wide range of mining companies closely for even longer and previously was invested in a mining exploration company and poked around a…