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

To: Paul Senior who wrote (3812)	4/11/1998 11:14:00 PM
From: Paul Senior	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 78523

And now... here's a 40,000 employee, int'l co. you've never heard of: BOC Group PLC or BOX. Very interesting (to me anyway -g-) co. and a very innovative co. PE is high at about 17 but there's a 3.6% div. yield (all per Yahoo). Stock is at 30.3/4 in a yearly range of 28.1/4 to 39. As with many of these English or euro co.'s, financial information is hard to access from our American databases. (Which translates as: I sure couldn't find historical psr's, pe's, p/bv -g-.) From the company's website, they are in 3 businesses (4th bus. is being sold)-- industrial gases, vacuum products, and contract logistics (and this is essentially, trucking food/commodoties around England and the continent). Industrial gas business is a necessary and specialized bus. - there are about 4 players in the oligarchy. BOX is trying to differentiate itself by providing superior customer support (although, of course, its competitors are trying to do the same). I like BOX because it does seem to be innovative. This is only a personal preference, as I have no data or research which indicates that innovative companies produce revenue and profits greater/better than less innovative companies. (Some people would say maybe the LESS innovative, the better - Microsoft??). Two new product announcements that might be of interest to some thread readers are: (for our MD's) a Hepatitis B DNA vaccine delivered by BOX's just developed needle-less injection system; and (for our CALM egg farmers) an ozone system for reducing bacteria in the chiller baths of poultry processors (I know killing ("processing") chickens isn't the same biz. as egg farming, but them ole hens gotta go somewhere). BOX earnings aren't so great - they seem to be mightily affected by currency (strength of dollar, and strength of pound). And I'm not too happy about the PE. However, the management seems aggressive and committed to shareholder value (they're selling one underperforming business), and the dividend offers some protection to the patient. I expect the stock to be significantly higher in 3 years. I've bought some at a little higher price, and I expect I will average down if the price goes lower from current. JMO and I've been wrong many, many times before. Paul