Yes, I do Finnish co.'s too, I don't have too many though. For some reason I shy away from Finnish stocks. In part because I don't like euro. I tend to prefer Norway and Denmark (although DKK is tied to euro, so effectively same currency I guess). Probably because the language (and culture?) is more similar. I've never been there either, which makes the cuntry feel foreign to me. I have always had great affection for Swedish Finns though (who make up ~6 % of Finland's population). They speak the most beautiful dialect of Swedish that I know.
I own the following Finnish co.'s:
Nokian Renkaat (tire manufacturer), Saga Furs, Marimekko (quality clothing brand with beautiful pattern designs), Metsä Board (lumber & pulp I think), and Sampo (who owns If, Scandinavias biggest insurance co., with monster net profit margins of 20+%).
Husqvarna is interesting, they are strong in the robotic grass lawn-mover business. (All the rich people has one of these outside the house these days in Sweden, it seems; from what I gather, it is not as common in the US yet – hopefully Husqvarna can capture a good position in that important market while it is still its infancy.) They also do all types of other machines in the gardening niche, as well as some other stuff.
Husqvarna's stock price has fallen a lot and is pretty cheap at p/e and ev/ebit of 11.
Co. has made a profit every year since at least 2007.
However, should be a quite cyclical business – I don't know how much profits fell in 2008-09. |
