I'll start an exploratory position in non-standard auto insurance writer, Bristol West Holdings (BRW).
It's my experience that this is generally a good business, and at a p/e of 8-10, that's attractive to me.
There are at least two troublesome aspects for me:
1. It's not been a public company that long.
2. The company is headquartered in Florida. Just my idiosyncrasy here. Any dink company with headquarters in Florida is a dangerous company to invest in. These companies routinely blow up, it does appear to me. Recent media brouhaha over GORX provides a recent example - although that might just be hindsight bias on my part (see Carlson article few dozen posts ago)
Also, fwiw, it's my opinion it's especially dangerous if the headquarters is in any Florida city that starts with the word "Fort". And/or if it's high tech business or in a mundane business with very attractive metrics (like BRW seems to me).
Offsetting this somewhat is that there's some insider buying around 15-16 (although the stock's now near 20), and according to Yahoo profile, there are over 1200 employees, so maybe the company if not dinky, at least doesn't appear fly-by-night.
---
Also, fwiw, still holding and am suspicious about, Florida auto and prop. insurer TCHC.
finance.yahoo.com |
