Month: June 2017

Please… sell me some more shares

/ Maarten Pieters / Leave a comment

When I invest in a company I want to make sure that I understand the company’s filings properly and that I have a good view on the sources I can use to obtain company information.

My mother tongue is Dutch, however the number of (interesting) companies trading on the Dutch stock exchanges is very limited. As a result I mostly invest in US securities. Which also have the advantage of clear reports which are easily accessible.

The disadvantage here is that my fellow investors, #competitor’s, also know their ways to find all relevant data and are part of probably the largest investment group in the world (investors who understand English). My investing edge has to come from better interpretation of available information rather than investigative work to find more information than the competition.

For US illiquid nano/micro-cap securities the disadvantages are limited from my experience. Hence, this is where I invest a large part my portfolio.

From time to time, when I can’t find anything interesting in the US, I start looking at securities on other exchanges. About two years ago I stumbled upon a very interesting liquidation play where my estimate of proceedings to investors was ~200% higher than the stock price with limited risks. It took me about a month to buy some shares. I think that the shares only trade 1 or 2 days per month. Bid/Ask spreads are often ~100% (Ask two times the Bid).

During the last two years unexpected uncertainties arose. About 50% of the company’s value became at risk. At this point I even tried to sell some shares at 50% of net asset value (NAV). Luckily for me it was impossible to do so. The Bid/Ask spread was 200% and all my sell orders were cancelled because they deviated too much from the Bid price. My broker couldn’t help it. Once you get into this stock, it is impossible to get out.

Recently the story de-risked tremendously. About 50% of the company’s net assets consists of cash at this time, which will be distributed to shareholders. The current bid is approximately 30% of the company’s NAV per share and the current ask is approximately 75% of the company’s NAV per share.

At this time my buy orders are also being cancelled as they deviate too much from the current Ask. Hopefully I will be able to buy more shares soon and share the idea on this blog.

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Telkonet ($TKOI), high growth, cash rich and nearing profitability in the IoT market

/ Maarten Pieters / 1 Comment

TKOI

Until recently Telkonet consisted of two business units:

  1. A high speed internet networking asset business unit
  2. Ecosmart – a business unit operating in the internet of things (IoT) market by providing both IoT devices and software to manage and save energy usage in all types of buildings

The high speed internet business was a business in slow decline generating nice amounts of cashflows. The company used these cashflows to invest in their Ecosmart business in order to stay relevant as a company in the long term.

The initial strategy of the company was to sell the first business unit once Ecosmart would reach profitability. However, recently they could divest the first business unit for a good price. Hence, the company decided to complete the divestiture earlier than planned and while Ecosmart is still unprofitable.

The company expects Ecosmart to be profitable by the end of the year. They expect to accelerate growth now they can fully focus on the Ecosmart business. The growth over the last couple of years has been lumpy but strong.

Recent significant insider buying in the stock by one of the directors sparked my interest. About half of the current market cap consists of cash. With only a couple of quarters of negative cashflow ahead of us (according to management) and good operating leverage, this seems like an interesting opportunity to buy a high growth company in a hot market at a cheap price.

TKOI - insider buying