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Strategies & Market Trends : Value Investing -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Dale Baker who wrote (17460)	7/27/2003 3:28:57 AM
From: Paul Senior	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 78476

Dale Baker, re. BLX: Still have it on my watch list. I have previously made two forays into this stock and lost both times. Since BLX lend very short term to companies that export, and they are the dominant lender for this type of financing in several Latin American countries, I was surprised they came so close to going bankrupt (according to pundits). One risk I hadn't considered was that there were several Latin American banks that held stock in BLX (and even more stock now that there's been a secondary), and if those banks themselves got into trouble they could dump their shares on the market. This was a real possibility apparently when Argentina was having its recent upheavals. I didn't believe currency issues were a problem because I believed the loans were short term and much of the trade denominated in US$. But Argentina and Brazil currency problems DID affect BLX because (hedging or not), people sold out of the stock on the bad news that related to currency devaluation woes. The recent secondary shores up the balance sheet. (My thesis was that the way BLX business was structured, it wouldn't need help. I was wrong. There were plenty of long term loans in Argentina; I missed seeing that.) The successful secondary shows the the banks that bought the stock support BLX's business model. These are the banks that will help their customers export using BLX services. OTOH, those banks that bought the secondary at $6.88 have a quick, good profit with the stock now at $10.45. That'd involve more than half of the capital stock, so perhaps there's a lot of shares around to sell and take profits on. In good times BLX has been very profitable. I wouldn't be surprised to see $2/sh. in '04. Which would give a forward p/e of about 5, making the stock undervalued by about 50% perhaps/maybe/possibly. I've been wrong on how I looked at this company before and as a consequence, I can easily assume I've got it wrong again. So I'm not so sure I want to move from watching to buying. jmo.

To: Dale Baker who wrote (17460)	8/1/2003 4:30:55 PM
From: Bob Rudd	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 78476

Started PTSX today @ 2.72. Tripped across it while looking at comparables to LPAC, which I still hold, to see if EK bid had much chance of being trumped. PTSX EV/FCF=4. With EK 'shopping' in this category, they may be interested in similars. Strategically PTSX, which does infomercials, ads and such, might benefit from marketing $'s shifting from telemarketing to approaches designed to get the customer call. quote.yahoo.com