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…