ItsAValueTrap

They bought back shares from Luxor... the people who own the preferred. 2- The current NAV discount on RESI is not good for AAMC. But a lot can happen in 3.5 years? They could theoretically do something brilliant outside of RESI... do asset management for other asset classes. 3- Well... an individual in the US can buy a house with 96.5% leverage. It used to be 100%+ leverage. That being said, they do have an incentive to run on the riskier side with leverage... because some people buy stocks based on dividend yield. Shrug, out of the money call option? - OTM call options usually go to 0 - Any number of crazy things can happen that would push the option into the money. And also it depends on your faith in the CEO. His resume is stacked. And there was some minor controversy over what he did in Las Vegas (apparently what happens in Vegas doesn't stay in Vegas). Good things he did: - Cleverly bought shares from Luxor at a minor discount to mkt value. Not successful so far: - RESI NAV discount - activists at RESI (offset by ASPS buying RESI shares... ASPS having a vested interest in being the servicer for all of RESI, though they did the waiver for the latest deal)

I think of AAMC as an out of the money call option on RESI. AAMC will be a good asset manager if RESI trades above NAV and is able to sell shares, growing AAMC's assets under management. AAMC going up while RESI going down slightly doesn't make that much sense to me. *It's possible that AAMC does something brilliant outside of RESI. It depends on how highly you think of the CEO. This increases AAMC's fee to the maximum That seemed inevitable? (To me at least)

With CACC and Westlake, it's more of a partnership where the car dealership will have skin in the game. There are also upfront costs... so the dealer does not make a lot of money unless they exceed certain volumes. If the dealership only does a few loans through CACC, then the dealership basically eats all of the risks and makes no profit. NICK on the other hand retains all of the credit risk. They don't split credit risk with the dealership. NICK is kind of a bottom feeder because it tries to intelligently pick off the best loans. Santander and some of the new entrants are some of the dumb money in this sector. Highly leveraged guys chasing higher volume are the ones I would personally stay away from. The smart guys are shrinking their volumes.

Guys... commodity prices have fallen, hence Altius is not worth as much.

I'm looking forward to seeing y'all on Tuesday!

http://kobex-capital.com/s/NewsReleases.asp?ReportID=744068 The company will do a huge self-tender at 0.655. Then: Option A: Liquidate the company. Option B: Hand over the reins to Kingsway Financial.

Deadline on Thursday. If they announce a strategic acquisition, I will be so salty. http://kobexminerals.com/s/NewsReleases.asp?ReportID=730686

I assume MVNO is a commodity business since it is not that difficult to enter that business? (*It will vary depending on the regulatory environment in a particular country.) But if the spectrum and network owners are renting out their infrastructure, than the MVNOs are mostly buying a commodity and reselling+repackaging it. Obviously they have to be good at marketing and providing customer service. For cable companies, the MVNO business can be attractive to them since they already own infrastructure- a Wifi network. They can try to get their customers to use their Wifi router, which greatly expands their Wifi network. They can also add Wifi hotspots to their existing data network.

This is a company that suspended its buyback even though its shares were trading at a big discount. :/ I am long.

Sometimes the erroneous trades is somebody (probably retail) getting screwed by shenanigans. (*This is why you don't use market orders.) I don't know if that still happens nowadays.

Anybody looking at RESI lately? The current share price strikes me as crazy. They own real estate in various forms. Lots of NPLs. The market for NPLs is good- people are paying high prices for them (which is why AAMC doesn't want RESI to buy NPLs at low yields). RESI can sell off its assets to buy back more shares and make some really easy money (though that might be somewhat bad for AAMC, although it helps AAMC hit its hurdles).

The company is on the overvalued side. The cash flow is bad once you factor in the capitalizing of stripping costs (which is really something that should be expensed; the accounting rules are stupid and Teck is bending them). The oil sands is not economic... it won't have positive cash flow, let alone return its upfront capex. They should put it on care and maintenance if they haven't already.

The directors are not supposed to do that. They can't blatantly give assets away. However, there are many situations where the value of a trade/swap is highly subjective. The tracking stock structure creates conflicts of interests between the trackers. I'm sure the lawyers enjoy all of the unnecessary legal fees that it generates. The conflicts of interests were a problem when AT&T did tracking stocks while Malone was there. It led to a lawsuit later on. (more lawyer fees...) IMO the tracking stock structure creates unnecessary value leakage so that Malone can trade against his own shareholders and other companies' shareholders (using overpriced stock to buy stuff, if the stock happens to be overpriced).

Some pipelines have lasted 60 years. And I think some have lasted even longer than that. The maintenance costs will likely rise a lot after 50-60 years. I'd expect defect rates to go up and require more constant surveys+repairs. The worst case scenario is that most of the pipeline would need to be replaced (e.g. people freak out over having dangerous pipelines in their area). The pipelines themselves don't need a lot of maintenance capex. The other businesses like the E&P segment, the Jones Act ships, and the gathering networks have cash flows that decline much faster. Companies keep separate books for tax and GAAP reporting purposes. In rare cases, they must use the same rules for things like LIFO/FIFO inventory. Kinder Morgan's (cash) taxes will likely go up in the future. If it keeps growing, it can keep deferring taxes.

:( Kobex Shareholders Reject Kingsway's Proposal to Remove Current Board http://finance.yahoo.com/news/kobex-shareholders-reject-kingsways-proposal-204053970.html;_ylt=AwrC1zFpnktWRn0AWEyTmYlQ;_ylu=X3oDMTE0dW5rb2I1BGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMyBHZ0aWQDVklEUUJDS18xBHNlYwNzYw--