Long-list

Kubera Cross-Border Fund, liquidation at a more than 50% discount

/ Maarten Pieters / 2 Comments

I posted about this liquidation on August 20 2017. At that time, the Kubera Cross-Border Fund was already in liquidation mode. It was about to close a sale of their largest asset, a stake in Planet Cast Media Services, valued at $23m. The deal finally closed on June 14 2019 (more than 2 years after the announcement of the sale!) at a value of $20m (a small discount to the initial agreement + FX effects). The company made a distribution on July 19 of 0.18 USD per share.

The remaining net asset value of the company is 0.116 USD per share while shares are available at ~0.050 USD per share. This represents a discount of more than 50%. The shares are very illiquid, but from time to time larger blocks are sold. With a bit of patience, you should be able to acquire a sizeable retail position.

 

 

Net asset value

The assets consists of a stake in Synergies Castings Limited (manufactures alloy and chrome plated wheels for OEMs), a tax fund to be received from the Indian tax authorities and positive net working capital.

The fund has annual costs of approximately 600k USD per year (administratitive and liquidation costs). Management of the fund explained me that they are currently assessing options to reduce these costs significantly, potentially including a delisting of shares. They expect to provide more details soon.

I expect a long liquidation process (Indian authorities have showed to move slowly) and therefore estimate cash burn and liquidation costs for a period of 2 years adjusted for some savings. If we further take the book value for granted, total distributions add up to 0.108 USD per share (116% upside).

If we discount the stake in Synergies Castings Limited and the tax refund by 50% and take 2 years of current annual expenses we still break-even. Downside seems well protected.

For the tax refund I believe that it is unlikely that it will be lowered as it is based on simple tax rules, however I have no experience with similar situations in India. The actual refund should amount to $4.85m, it is valued at $4m on the balance sheet to take into account the time value of money and uncertainty with regard to timing. So there could be further upside.

Synergies Castings Limited

https://www.synergies-castings.com/

The fund agreed to sell its complete stake in the company for $14-16m in four tranches ($2m discount if consumated within 18 months) in August 2017 to a buyer (I believe to be the founder of Syergies Castings Limited) who at the time still had to find buyers. A strange situation. I believe that the founder basically guaranteed to buy the stake at this price and believed that he could find buyers for a higher price.

Payments for the first two tranches were received soon after the agreement. However, the 18 months have passend and the 3rd and 4th tranche are still open. The fund also received an advance of $1m (liability on the balance sheet) which is a penalty which the fund can keep in the case the 3rd and 4th tranches don’t close. The fund values the remaining stake based on the lower range of $14m out of caution. The fund is in discussions with the buyer/founder and confident that they will eventually close the sale, although with further delays (based on conservation with the funds manager the Indian and US market conditions are not as favourable as a couple of years ago, however they see this as a temporary issue).

The company is still growing revenues and profits and makes investments for the long term (https://www.thehindubusinessline.com/companies/synergies-castings-to-set-up-a-650-cr-greenfield-plant-in-visakhapatnam/article23738268.ece).

This indicates that there are no real issues in my opinion. The business itself is not wonderful. EBITDA margins are in the 11-15% range historically, I have no view on capex but for a manufacturer with a high degree of automation this is likely substantial.

Below an overview of historic performance. The fund explains that revenues, EBITDA and net income increased in both FY18 and FY19.

Synergies castings

 

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Orbit International’s operating leverage

/ Maarten Pieters / 5 Comments

Orbit International (ORBT) is a really interesting stock due to the company’s operating leverage, which I believe is not recognized by the market.

Mainly due to the United States budget sequestration in 2013 the company had to implement significant cost savings in order to return to profitability. One of the largest projects was a consolidation of two manufacturing facilities into one.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_budget_sequestration_in_2013

Mitchell Binder, President and CEO of Orbit, commented, “We were driven to this decision by a number of factors, among them, a difficult business environment due to budgeting concerns in Washington, our broader focus on promoting operating efficiencies, and TDL’s expiring lease. This consolidation is expected to reduce excess capacity at our Hauppauge facility, provide the advantage of greater manufacturing capabilities offered by our ISO 9001:2008 operations, reduce labor and overhead costs, and boost margins, all while maintaining the world-class level of service that our customers have come to expect.”

Mr. Binder added, “After consolidation of these two facilities, our Hauppauge facility will have sufficient capacity to support future growth without any significant facility investment.”

Following the implemented cost savings, the company has returned to profitability. However, revenue is still low. Investor’s haven’t seen the effects of the new cost structure combined with higher revenues (yet). Incremental revenue, on top of 2016 revenue of 21m USD, is estimated to flow to the bottom line at 55-65%.

Although it is difficult to form a view on the likelihood of the company generating additional revenue over the next couple of years, I believe it is more likely than not. If the company can increase their revenue by 6-9m USD this will increase earnings by 0.90-1.35 USD / share. Shares currently trade at 4.30 USD. The downside seems well protected. The company has no long-term debt and I estimate new break-even revenue at ~17-18m USD, a level they have always exceeded over the last 10 years.

Year Revenue (m USD)
2007 26
2008 28
2009 27
2010 27
2011 31
2012 29
2013 25
2014 19
2015 20
2016 21
2017 More than 21

If the company manages to run at 100% utilization this will boost earnings per share by 1.35 USD

The company’s manufacturing facility ran at 70% utilization during 2016 (~21m USD in revenue). The company’s management believes that additional revenue can be served without additional overhead costs. They estimate that every additional dollar of revenue flows to the bottom line at 55-65%. If they manage to fill the available capacity, this will have a significant effect on earnings:

80% utilization: 21m USD/7 *1*60% = 8m USD –> 1.8m / 4m shares outstanding = 0.45 USD EPS growth

90% utilization: 21m USD/7 *2*60%= 6m USD –> 3.6m / 4m shares outstanding = 0.90 USD EPS growth

100% utilization: 21m USD/7 *3*60%= 4m USD –> 5.4m / 4m shares outstanding = 1.35 USD EPS growth

Revenue grow seems more likely than not

The company expects that there revenue in the 2nd half of this year will be better than the first half. They have good insight into quarterly revenues due to agreed delivery schedules with customers. So we may see some of the operating leverage effect in the next two quarterly reports. However, the real question is if they will be able to grow revenues significantly (3-9m USD).

It is very difficult to answer this question, but available information makes me believe it is more likely than not (at least a couple of million).

  • Tuck in acquisitions: the company is constantly looking for “tuck-in” acquisitions to make use of their available manufacturing capacity. So far without luck, which is probably price related. The company intends to pay 3.5-4 times EBITDA + earn-outs, which is low in the current M&A environment. In January the company was in talk with two potential targets, there has been no further news since then. I have no real expectations, but their persistence may pay off one time.
  • Oil price recovery: the power segment business heavily depends on the oil industry. Revenues have been lower due to the low oil price. If the oil price recovers and investments pick up in this sector, this may give a nice boost to revenue.
  • Historic revenue: Before the sequestration the company managed to do 25-30m USD annually in revenue.
  • Management optimism + share buybacks: Reading through all the press releases of the current management team, you can clearly see that their tone changed and that they are more optimistic that their revenue will increase. Both via organic growth and due to increased defense spending by the US government. That is also one of the reasons they continue to buy back shares. This year they have been very aggressive buying back shares reducing shares outstanding by 7.1% YTD (my estimate), which may increase to 9.8% if they can utilize the remaining funds in the buyback program.

ORBT1

ORBT2

Kubera Cross Border Fund’s liquidation offers more than 30% upside

/ Maarten Pieters / Leave a comment

This is a special situation investment where the Kubera Cross Border Fund is in the process of selling their latest assets and returning proceeds to shareholders. I estimate the net proceeds per share, if all goes well, at 39ct USD per share of which I expect ~20ct USD to be returned before year-end. The shares currently trade with a bid/ask of 25ct/31ct. The company trades on the AIM market of the London Stock Exchange. The shares are extremely illiquid.

I submitted a full write-up on http://www.microcapclub.com to apply for membership, hence I am not sharing further details here.

KUBC1

http://www.londonstockexchange.com/exchange/prices-and-markets/stocks/summary/company-summary/KYG522771032MUUSDAIM.html?lang=en

 

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

 

GLGI – Greystone Logistics seems cheap

/ Maarten Pieters / Leave a comment

GLGIfeaturedimageGreystone Logistics is a manufacturer of plastic pallets. The market for plastic pallets is expected to continue to grow due to the advantages of plastic pallets over wooden pallets.

The business is not great due to high CAPEX requirements to grow and limited barriers to entry. At the same time I think there is a first mover advantage. Once a company uses a certain plastic pallet type in their logistic ecosystem and it works fine, I don’t think they will switch easily to save costs (it is only a small part of their cost base in most cases).

After years of anticipated growth it is finally there. Combined with recent projects to improve operational efficiencies this has resulted in a huge improvement to the bottom line. The CEO, W. Kruger, owns ~33% of shares and continues to buy shares in the open market, indicating his believe in bright future prospects.

Right now you can buy the following:

  • ~10m market cap, ~32m enterprise value (high debt)
  • Fast growing company with some operating leverage
  • LTM net earnings of 1.3m, last Q net earnings of 0.8m, next Q expected to be better

A large part of the debt is secured by the owner/operator W. Kruger which reduces the chance of a bankruptcy in case of a temporary setback.

If the company manages to continue recent growth and further improves operations the company seems cheap at the current share price. Insider buying makes me believe this is a likely scenario. If things turn south, there is no downside protection.