Spekulatius

Thank you so much for your help and the fact that they may resume trading to scoop up stranded shares (like mine) is new to me and indeed great news. It also seems like an obvious solution. I interpreted the docs I saw on Euronext that the shares may never trade again (and so far, the trading halt is in place 3+ weeks already). As far as reward for your due diligence on my behalf is concerned, I would be happy to buy you a couple of beers, but it would certainly not be Cameroon brewed beer from BCAM as their flagship brand (if we want to call it that) Export 33 apparently is of despicable quality. I would rather invite you to a local brew, which are very easy to find in myNeck of woods (Greater Boston area). I am not sure where you reside in Canada, but of its the eastern part, it may be within reach when driving. do far, I have ventured only once into the land of Poutine and my do so again. If you ever happen to venture near Boston, hit me up and the beers will be on me. The rest is probably better handled with a PM.

ALPIB Dave Waters posted about it yesterday and I immediately knew I wanted to own this one: https://otcadventures.com/?p=2135 Question for the thread: if you are not liquidity constrain, is there any reason why one wanted to own WFC vs ALPIB, beside perhaps dividend yield?

I agree. Kudos to all those who chimed in. This thread shows what’s so great about this forum!

As expected, IBKR is pretty much no dice. They simply can‘t do it. Also it seems correct thstvthe issue is with the custodian Euroclear: I called up Fidelity today and after explaining my problem, they connected me with the international trading desk. They briefly reviewed the tender offer with me and they seem confident that they can tender the shares for me, but someone from another department needs to review this in more detail. I should hear back from them by next week. They recommended to just open a new Roth account with Fidelity( I have already multiple other accounts with them) and transfer the BCAM position from IBKR to the Roth account opened for this purpose. Sounds like a good start to me, and I guess I will find out more next week. I feel like that squirrel in the ‘Ice Age’ movie intro that finds a hazelnut , but soon finds out that it needs to work really hard to keep it. This also makes me consider some life choices regarding obscure stocks and so I sold another bugger waiting for a buyout today for a 40 Euro gain. ( In case this thread doesn’t deter people, the ticker is ARTO.PA from the Bollore solar system ). I really don’t want to deal with this sort of crap ever again.

Thanks for your suggestions. So far, I have contacted SABC and actually received a response overnight (redacted threatens for privacy): I have also reopened the ticket with IB and might escalate. I had some luck before elevating matters before (in one case right to a CEO who delegated it down, butt still got the job done). I have been with IB for years (15?) and don’t want to leave. They suit me well generally, but when they suck they suck bollocks, I also appreciate the suggestion to go to Fidelity. I have already considerable accounts with them (recently moved a Wells Fargo account there too) and they have an office close to where I live. My French is pretty rusty and sucks, but I would probably get by with written communication and google translate.

What do you mean by "60 day rollover rule"? You can remove funds from your Roth IRA without penalty, if you put them back in after 60 day or less; at least that’s my understanding.

John, thank you for offering your help, but I don’t think there is much you can do, as my situation is unique (as an US investor holding now stranded shares). This wouldn’t be an issue as a French investor for sure, as the whole process was designed to get rid of minority investors to begin with. I will have to come up with the right way to address the issue, before finding out who to pester on the phone. As far as trading is concerned, well the shares stopped trading on 1/16 when notice was issued on Euronext all of a sudden, then the tender was announced on 1/21. Since the trading stop, the shares have never traded and my understanding is that they will never trade again. Again, that is pretty unique as in most cases I have been involved in, shares still kept on trading for a while, which allowed participants to sell their shares and avoid going through the corporate action procedure. In this case, there was no way to do just that. My own sense is that the mother company SABC wants to get rid of minority investors and will give me a path to do just that. perhaps transfer shares to their company register and then liquidate or something like that. I think there is a way to transfer shares out from my IB account although I have never done that either. It not a large position (70 shares ~ 9000€) and I actually thought that this strange stock would be bought out eventually, just didn’t think it would end up where I can’t exercise my right to cash in easily. I will keep posting how this saga develops.

The bold sentence is basically the very simplified bull thesis.

So far I have asked IB to reconsider (which I don’t think they are going to do, based on prior experience ) and contacted the company SABC (since the shares would go into company register by default) about what I might do (explaining my situation). I don’t want to get involved with Cameroon brokers and at this point the shares are still Euronext/french shares anyways. I might do Greg’s DIY route - I think it might be possible to transfer the shares into SABC (mother companies) registrar and get them liquidated for cash there. Then I still have to deal with the nightmare that this is a distribution from a Roth IRA. Maybe I argue that the shares are worthless ;)? If anyone knows a broker that may deal with these foreign share corporate actions let me know.

I have similar account for my son, and my holdings are BRK.B, GOOG, CMCSA and JNJ. I have explained to him what every company is doing and he actually encouraged me to buy more GOOG. His portfolio actually has outperformed mine overall (mostly due to being overweight GOOG). I initially had some FRFHF in it, but decided its not a buy and forget investment, so I sold it.

I am currently encountering a situation that I have never ran in before. I own some shares in obscure french company BCAM.PA which trades on Euronext in France. This is an brewery domiciled in Cameroon, but the shares traded in Paris (or at least used to. These shares are held in an Interactive Brokers account (Roth IRA). In January, trading in this stock was halted for good and a buyout offer was announced for 128.5Euro (see below) https://live.euronext.com/en/product/equities/CM0000035113-XPAR#standardRightCompanyPressRelease I contacted IB on this matter and they told me that they were aware of the tender off and would get back to me, but they never did. After contacting them again, they told me that they do not support this corporate action because of MFIR and MDIR II (I looked it up, it concerns trading in OTC markets) and I would need to transfer my shares to a different broker to get the shares tendered. The document above details that I can tender my shares for 128.5 Euro in cash until June 3rd. Unfortunately it appears to me that there is no automatic squeeze out and if I do not tender my shares, I keep them either in register kept by the mother company SABC or in a Cameroon brokerage account :o. Now the technicalities of having these in a Roth IRA probably wont help and I don't really want to have a brokerage account in Cameroon either. Now the question is what to do? I will contact IB agains, but knowing how they work, I am pretty sure they tell me just to shove it. Now, is there probably a way to transfer these shares or the entire account somewhere else who can deal with this? Not too many brokerages deal with shares trading in foreign exchanges. Is what IB is doing actually legal -letting your trade in a secondary market and then not support fundamental corporate actions there? I never ran into this problem before in more than 30 years of investing. text from the buyout offer:

There's confusion between the cells and the packs and how the packs are managed. All these are different levels, and companies like Panasonic make the cells, not the packs or the software that manages the packs. Tesla likely has the scale and know-how at this point that if they wanted to make their own cells, they could. I don't know if they will, but I wouldn't be surprised, considering how vertically integrated they've been in other ways. Or maybe they'll do something on that front with their Maxwell Technologies acquisition.. I do not think that Tesla has any expertise or IP to build cells at this point as this is an entirely different process and technology than building packs. Perhaps they could create the technology ( or a better one ) but that would take time and billions of $ most likely, at least going to scale. I don’t think any car manufacturer will go down this route, but of course I could be wrong.

Bought a starter in kab60’s AMA.AX. I also started small positions VIAC and STAY.

I love ‘Vikings’. Great production and acting. Very rustic. One of my favorite shoes.

My thinking regarding Redstone is that she tries to preserve the value of the company that she felt was squandered away. I have to agree with her view. I don’t know if she is bent on keeping control of the company. I would think that she committed to the new management to let them do their thing and try to turn it around. I do think she would be willing to give up control if that the best way to preserve value, if Bakish isn’t successful. FWIW, I reviewed this and think there is many ways to win owning VIAC at this point and valuation, so I bought a small starter position. I need to do more work to commit more funds and in particular I want to get a better feel how the new management operates and how they want to overhaul the business.

I didn’t like it first for the first two episodes, but then started to like it. I think it will grow into a real franchise. I have completed the first season and look forward to the 2nd.

The problem with acquisition angle is that the high potential acquirers so far have decided to build not to buy. Amazon might buy something (like they did with Whole Foods). Apple and Netflix are unlikely acquirers of big media although I think Netflix should have acquired content. But perhaps they want only the content library and don't want all the other baggage that comes with it. And perhaps they think that the baggage makes the acquisition too expensive. IMO there is too much content chasing too few eyeballs. I don't really see a way out of this, since companies have too much money and will be chasing content since it's sexy. Hey Chinese are bankrolling movies like Japanese (Sony) did in the past. I'm just not very positive about content companies because of that. And because of scars from Starz/LGF/DISCA. Disclosure: positions in Amazon, Apple, Netflix, Comcast, MSFT, DIS, FB, Google Also, the re-combination of CBS and Viacom makes an outright purchase much more difficult to handle. CBS (which is the mot profitable part) is probably the biggest problem because there is a lot of baggage that comes with running a major TV network, which most likely will keep tech companies away. Viacom’s studio and cable assets are a mixed bag. Yes there are content gems like Star Trek, but Nickelodeon plays a weak hand, imo. Spongebob alone may not be worth the hassle. Then from a financial angle, VIAC looks very cheap from a PE metric, but not that cheap (although cheapish) from a FCF metric - their FCF is < earnings due to content capitalization. Also on another but related note, Malone talks his own book when he boast about DISCA. Their problem is that unscripted content can easily be pulled from YouTube nowadays. That’s where people go first now when they want to watch the equivalent of a documentary (in short form format). DISCA most important shows are now scripted format (pseudo documentary’s ) like “Deadliest catch” etc.

Yes all the above are I portent, but if I ad to pick a few it would be 1) favorable macro / local economy 2) favorite market structure , ideally and oligopoly with a few banks holding large market share. (U.K. and Ireland are examples of this) 3) competent management based on ROA achieved, NPL. Examples are Lloyd’s (UK) and possible the AIB Group in Ireland mentioned in these bards occasionally. Ireland is interesting because it is an oligopoly ( 2 banks control the banking business ) and I think the macro looks better than the rest of the EU. The UK has an independent interest rate policy as they kept their currency so they may avert the negative EU interest rates, which could become a “meat grinder” for financials (banks and insurance companies). Then on the other hand the macro in the UK has higher risk due to pot. Brexit disruption.

You have officially been added to the hall of the gods of analysis on the mountain of Pith. ;D I agree.

As I stated before, I am not positive on European banks. As an investor (and A scientist ) however, it is important to look for non conforming evidence first, especially knowing that the bias for Our brain is to do just the opposite (according to Kahnemann and others). As so someone who lived in Germany most of my life and has family and friends there, I think I have a pretty good handle on how people perceive the economic situation there. One thing I can tell is that fear of a recession is not a big concern generally. Sure, growth has stalled, but there is full employment (unemployment rate is 3.1%, which is lower than the US) so the average Joe is not concerned about jobs, at least not at this point. There is wide dissatisfaction on how immigration has been handled, but that’s another topic. Switching to another country (about which I know much less about ), at least from a 10,000 foot perspective, France and President Macron actually is doing much better than it is given them credit for. Unemployment is still high, but continues to come down. Growth is 1.5%, which considering the demographics is roughly equivalent to the 2% we have in the US. I also like that demographics in France LT is much better than the rest of Northern Europe (higher birth rate, also more immigration ). There are some pretty interesting opportunities in French stocks, Bollore/ ODET.PA are some mentioned here already, Burelle is another one I am looking at . I think it is an interesting hunting ground for value investors. Another country worth investigating is Spain. Also problems there, but they overcame their banking crisis and the economy and unemployment rate are much better than just a few years ago. They benefited from the EU central bank intervention during the European crisis from 2010-13 and recovered much better than Italy.

How in the world can somebody become a doctor or nurse by exclusively taking courses on the interwebs? How do they get practical experience? How do they know how to work a blood pressure machine if they have never touched one? How do they know how to draw blood, make a shot, clean a wound, and on and if they've not had any physical experience? Stuff like this should be shut down pronto. It does make sense, if they offer RN coursework For a BS Nursing degree. An RN already has the practical knowledge to do these things so a BS degree is mostly around theoretical knowledge. I do agree with you that doing an online degree for an RN would be scary.

AMA Group looks interesting. Auto repair rollup in Australia with maybe a long growth runway? https://amagroupltd.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/FY19-Results-Presentation.pdf I always enjoy learning about your ideas. Linamars results are very weak in their acquired industrial business, but their balance sheet is improving. It is interesting to learn about their efforts on electric vehicles in their latest investor presentations. *corrected for spelling

I know it’s against the narrative here, but Unicredits results look pretty good to me: https://www.unicreditgroup.eu/content/dam/unicreditgroup-eu/documents/en/investors/group-results/2019/4Q19/UniCredit_PR_4Q19_ENG.pdf Pretty much any metric (profits, capital buffer, Non performing assets ) turned in the right direction. Also, the Italian election turned into a whimper and pretty much kept the status quo. It doesn’t look like Italy will be leaving the EU anytime soon.

Google maps is the killer app for so many things - including looking for Hotels. I use it for almost everything where locations matters.

Sounds like SPN is trading at about 5 x EBITDA ;D. Thanks for the idea!