New stock for this thread: Liqui-Box. This is an illiquid, boring company. Somehow it earns high return on assets and high return on equity in the business of liquid delivery. High insider ownership, and the thing generates cash. Is there a moat here? Buffett has said that if he were smaller, he'd find lots of stuff to buy right now, and last year he said he could do 50%/year if he were managing less than $10 million. Is this the type of company he might be talking about? Due to apparently limited growth prospects, and lack of a "consumer" link, possibly not. But it nevertheless in the past seems to have been growing, albeit slowly, and buying back shares. It revealed itself to me during my April "Target Management" screen on my web site. A day later I saw Wayne started posting on the LIQB Yahoo message board. If that was due to my screen, I'm very flattered. But regardless we have two of us interested. Wayne has said he has a small position, and I am contemplating it.
Also, my most recent screen revealed a whole host of tiny banks and insurance companies. The insurers were mostly specialty insurers or very geographically limited. Still, they are all trading below book value, and some with good stories. It was an interesting screen. I do want to invite anyone with an interest to review it at valuestocks.net (go to Screening Lab). If there is someone here with a special talent in insurance/banks and can lend some more detailed analysis of one or more of these, I'd appreciate it. I'll follow up with my thoughts if someone posts theirs first.
Good investing,
Mike |
