Sergio - i don;t have a lot of money, therefore i hold only one position:) and when i invest, i do a lot of homework. For example - I have been invested in SLE since April 2011 and i did not budge no matter what anyone said unless my own thesis kinda started to wayne down- something that did not happen.
Today, the performance on my SLE has been pretty good on that stock although it was casted away by lot of people. if i ran a $10M portfolio, then something like SLE will constitute 5% -6% of my total portfolio.
As for ABT - you are asking me a very critical question. I cannot give an opinion without really looking at numbers. But taking a quick glance - ABT holds Generic, nutritional and diagnostic business and the pharma was spun off. All three segments are promising in a sense that generics are going to make money, diagnostics are also growing with the whole preventive care theme taking hold among people. Nutritional business has seen recent M&A activity with Nestle buying PFE's nutrition division. The firm has abt 20% ROE and operating margins in a 25%+ range, a PEx below 20. so those are good things. Decent Div. yield and trading at about 8x-10x cash flow. I don;t know if they have said anything in terms of debt on the balance sheet or if they will restructure the balance sheet? Also drugs such as Humira that were cause of concern are getitng spun-off. So whats left might make a good growth story - which is what you hold, i assume?
MRK, i haven;t taken a look so i better not give any advice.
ON LAZ and BX - I have to look at their books. Also Lazard has an interesting history. I read the book on the bank written by Cohan named "The Last Tycoons". Its def. a play on M&A cycle, however, they are advisory. I doubt they finance the deals which is where lot of money can be made in addition to advisory - but i can be wrong. But there is no one to replace wassterstein or Felix Rohatyn to this date and the company has been very cyclical, so i am a little cautious. Either way, i have to look at the business model and books before rendering any opinion.
Thanks for the link to Brooklyn investor blog. |
