ExpectingValue

Last week I looked at the mainly non-fiction and illustrated publisher, Quarto (see also here). This week, Quercus Publishing (OFEX:QUPP) caught my eye in a screener mostly based around looking for companies which exhibit both high medium-run returns on capital with a low price to tangible book value. Both of those screening metrics are blunt instruments for a delicate craft, but the list often throws…

Leading on from last time, when I caught up with Quarto Inc (LON:QRT) , the small-cap illustrated and non-fiction publishers, today I'm looking more at the figures. My previous efforts were somewhat diverted by a rather interesting set of boardroom antics and the voting out of the long-standing CEO and founder, Laurence Orbach. So while much of the top structure of the company has changed…

Tricorn, a member of the portfolio for a few weeks now - and rather happily up ~15% in that time, though that statistic isn't worth much given the absurd volatility of shares this small - released their preliminary results for 2013 yesterday. It's probably fair to say the results were slightly better than expected, beating forecasts by a decent amount; make of that what you…

In this, the last part of the series, I'll try and wrap up the different parts of my analysis over the last three posts into one coherent outcome - what would I invest in, and why? For those who haven't read the other three parts, I'll link them with a brief description here. Part 1: Introduction to the sector and an outline of the broadest…

See part 1 and part 2 of this series on car dealerships - this post leads on from the discussion in those two. It might seem slightly odd to focus a post in a series of comparisons on one particular company, but Vertu Motors (LON:VTU) is enough of an outlier to make them both the most interesting company to investigate and the company which can…

I remember being moderately bullish on this in 2012, though not bullish enough to buy or put in my portfolio. That's fortunate - it's down about 35% in that time! One thing I wonder - Chemring grew very quickly, if I recall correctly, through a bunch of acquisitions. It's a bit of a cliche to say acquisitive growth is 'lower quality', and I wonder to…

Thanks altergo. It's been a fun and quite thought-provoking sector to look at - ostensibly these businesses don't really have much (if any) room for differentiation - barriers to entry are low, it's not like there's patentable technology involved and customers are, particularly with the rise of the internet, relentlessly price driven. That makes the differences between them worthy of particular attention from an investment…

John, Thanks for keeping us updated. Re: the first bit, I didn't realise it was ISA-able. Makes a nice change, it is a little annoying trying to find small caps that'll actually give you the tax benefit too! It's a quirky little company. I was surprised at how central a role they seem to play in so many different markets; it's rare that you find…

Thanks for the comments all. Re: 2/4: " My understanding of the industry is that profit on new car sales is quite slim and the key is to keep the customer for aftersales." Don't want to jump the gun on my next post but I suspect and have a little evidence so far to support this being the case. A more in depth question is…

Lavinit, Thanks for the comment. I haven't taken a great deal of time to look at ABM recently, so I haven't gone far beyond what I saw the first time I compared them with HAT - they're very similar. It wouldn't surprise me at all if I were to think they offer much better value now, since the share price has pretty much halved. I…