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

To: Paul Senior who wrote (2931)	1/4/1998 10:44:00 AM
From: Wallace Rivers	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 78656

I agree w/you that the lack of profit is not what one looks for, however, the accounting for this company is more complex than that, as they buy a distributor with very few assets other than customer list, which are amortized on the books, thus causing a significant amount of the loss. If you look at last Qs results, you will see that it appears the turnaround strategy is in place, and customer attrition has diminished - definite positives for this company. Mgmt. is trying to make this seemingly "simple" business much more high tech; a state of the art distribution facility serving the NY metro area provides excellent service and more profits for the company at the margins. To my knowledge, this is the first mgmt. group in this industry to aggressively brand the heating oil product - with the "Petro" name and logo. Mgmt. has large incentive in that options vest at MUCH higher prices (of course it can be said that this has been the case for several years). I readily admit there is risk in the weather (it is currently warmer than the norm in the NE), and the fear of El Nino is certainly a factor. The elements have not been kind to the company in the recent past, and this will always remain the great question mark. And, at the risk of sounding defensive, I mentioned PMOR to this thread back in the late spring below $5 (it is now 9 7/16 bid), and that idea was summarily dismissed as the thread generally felt the company had too much debt on the books. BTW, and off topic, I have seen you posting on the ESST thread. I'm interested in ESST, as it has strong financials, but I'm wondering if someone has better, more advanced product out there. The stock certainly has been beat up.

To: Paul Senior who wrote (2931)	1/4/1998 1:31:00 PM
From: Jyoti sharma	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 78656

Paul, I will appreciate your views on another stock which I just purchased around 8 1/4. MERCS is is a pulp and paper manufacturer with operations in Germany and main offices in Switzerland. The company has a BV of $12 ( $4 in cash equivalents), no LT debt and Sales per share of also of $12. This is a turnaround situation and apparently both earnings and sales are moving higher. I have watched this company for almost a year and finally added to my value portfolio. Here is a link to last quarters earnings: biz.yahoo.com Thanks in advance. Jyoti