Foreign Tuffett Posted December 28, 2017 Share Posted December 28, 2017 BEBE is a special situation that stems from the closure of all company-owned bebe retail stores. The Seeking Alpha article by Vince Martin linked to below presents the basics of the situation extremely well. Hopefully Vince and Seeking Alpha won't mind me driving a little more traffic their way. https://seekingalpha.com/article/4111814-bebe-stores-intriguing-story-terribly-attractive-price The stock has sold off (from ~$5.50 to ~$3.75) in the wake of the company's 12/8 announcement that it would be voluntarily delisting from the NASDAQ to save costs. See link immediately below, as well as the attached screenshot. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1059272/000119312517364989/d504825dex991.htm My thesis here is that the regardless of the exchange the company trades on, it's currently undervalued based on a simple sum-of-the-parts (SOTP) type model. Note that the #s below are in millions and are my own calculations/estimates. Assets Current assets: $20.78 Estimated sale value of Los Angeles Design Center: $30 10X multiple on TTM earnings from equity method investment: $44 (4.4 x 10) Liabilities Total Liabilities: $39.21 Estimated cash burn as they finish shrinking down: $5 10X multiple on annual corporate costs: $12 ($1.2 x 10) SOTP: 38.57 Basic shares outstanding: 8,115,754 SOTP per share: ~$4.76 Premium / (Discount) to SOTP: ~21% Obviously this is a very bare-bones sort of write up. It's meant to be a jumping off point for further research, nothing more. Please do your own due diligence, etc. Disclosure: I am long BEBE. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest roark33 Posted December 30, 2017 Share Posted December 30, 2017 I am not sure where you are getting the TTM earnings from the equity method investment. I think the online store of BEBE will earn next to nothing in the future. I was short this for a bit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Foreign Tuffett Posted December 30, 2017 Author Share Posted December 30, 2017 I am not sure where you are getting the TTM earnings from the equity method investment. I think the online store of BEBE will earn next to nothing in the future. I was short this for a bit. Pull up the most recent 10-Q and find the "earnings in equity method investment" line on the income statement. I don't think the equity method earnings are primarily from the online store. If you go to the bebe store locator page there's a long list of international stores. I suspect the primary value lies with them, but I don't think the disclosure is sufficient to be sure. Based on the 8K that came out after hours today, they're well on their way to right-sizing (aka downsizing) the corporate structure. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DTEJD1997 Posted December 30, 2017 Share Posted December 30, 2017 I used to own BEBE years ago...made just a little bit. In retrospect, I was lucky to make even that. BEBE might do OK with this new plan....but I don't think the margin of safety is wide enough to make it an appealing investment. Too many things could go wrong. Expenses could be higher than anticipated (almost always)...it could take too long...and on and on. Worth watching, but I would need a wider margin. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest roark33 Posted December 30, 2017 Share Posted December 30, 2017 From the 10-k: Investments. We use the equity method to account for our investment in the Joint Venture because we have the ability to exercise significant influence but not control. We record our share of earnings as reported by the Joint Venture as earnings in equity-method investment on the consolidated statement of operations and comprehensive loss. The total of our investments in the Joint Venture are recorded in Other Assets on the consolidated balance sheets. The equity method investment earnings is the JV. Let's say they make 4m in revenue from the JV. They had 2.2m in SGA expenses in the last quarter. Sure that may decline some, but maybe they get it down to 3m a year, do you think the online store/international of BEBE is going to increase or decrease? The entire business of BEBE is in the JV now, the public company is just a shell for the JV equity investment. Best route is the Founder/CEO buys out the other 45% or so he doesn't own, so he can take it private. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Foreign Tuffett Posted December 30, 2017 Author Share Posted December 30, 2017 From the 10-k: Investments. We use the equity method to account for our investment in the Joint Venture because we have the ability to exercise significant influence but not control. We record our share of earnings as reported by the Joint Venture as earnings in equity-method investment on the consolidated statement of operations and comprehensive loss. The total of our investments in the Joint Venture are recorded in Other Assets on the consolidated balance sheets. The equity method investment earnings is the JV. Let's say they make 4m in revenue from the JV. They had 2.2m in SGA expenses in the last quarter. Sure that may decline some, but maybe they get it down to 3m a year, do you think the online store/international of BEBE is going to increase or decrease? The entire business of BEBE is in the JV now, the public company is just a shell for the JV equity investment. Best route is the Founder/CEO buys out the other 45% or so he doesn't own, so he can take it private. Yes, the public company is almost at the point where it will be merely a "shell" for its interest in the JV. Once they sell the LA design center building and complete the G&A rightsizing they'll be there. It should only be a matter of months. I think G&A is going to end up being much lower than a $3M annual run rate. Again, this is a company that will have no operations whatsoever. Have you seen the two most recent 8Ks? I think they provide some evidence to support what I'm trying to say. On 12/8 they gave notice of their intention to voluntarily de-list from the NASDAQ to save on costs. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1059272/000119312517364989/d504825dex991.htm Yesterday they announced that Joe Scirocco, an independent consultant, will be paid $12.5K a month + expenses to be their new principal accounting officer. Scirocco's professional history is impressive. In fact it's impressive enough that a $150K run rate annual salary seems laughably low. The best explanation I can think of is that the low pay is due to the position being the equivalent of a part time job. Even more significantly, the CEO will no longer be paid a salary or housing allowance. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1059272/000119312517383478/d489013d8k.htm I doubt the 79 year old founder/CEO is going to buyout the portion of the company he doesn't already own. I actually think the opposite is much more likely, as he seems to be stepping away from what's left of the company (no salary, etc). Also, he filed in 2015 to sell off his entire stake in the company, so he's clearly not a "never sell, no matter what" founder type. I think if you read between the lines here it's relatively clear that once the situation has stabilized and the company has completed it's transition to a holding company for the JV interest, it will be sold. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Foreign Tuffett Posted January 16, 2018 Author Share Posted January 16, 2018 BEBE is up over 30% today on the below news. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1059272/000119312518010698/d464904d8k.htm This idea worked both better and more quickly than had I anticipated. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
valuedontlie Posted January 16, 2018 Share Posted January 16, 2018 It is potentially a better bet with B Riley in charge of utilizing the tax assets... As of 9/30/17, they have ~$11m in cash (though potentially lower today), $8.6m BV in real estate, $8.1m receivables, $22.6m liabilities. Works out to slightly positive BV. The tax assets were last marked at $144m (fully reserved) though may be worth slightly less under new tax code. Their share of JV earnings looks like ~$1m per quarter right now and management indicated that operating costs headed toward zero: "During fiscal 2017 as a result of continued operating losses, we shut down our retail operations. We have entered into an agreement to provide transition services to a third party that has taken over bebe's online and international licensee businesses. The agreement is scheduled to end October 31, 2017 and we are being paid a fee which we expect to cover substantially all of the costs of providing these services. Once this agreement ends, we will transition to a holding company for our investment in the Joint Venture and we expect to receive a quarterly cash dividend from this investment. In addition, we expect our operating costs to reduce to an insignificant amount once we have completed the transition which we expect to occur by the end of the second quarter of fiscal 2018." They are not loaded with cash, even after the sale of the LA design studio, so it will be interesting to see what B Riley does from here... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JayGatsby Posted January 16, 2018 Share Posted January 16, 2018 I don't think $22.6M of liabilities is correct. Does that include the RILY bridge loan? Excluding the RILY bridge loan and the real estate, current assets and current liabilities seem to be fairly equal (liabilities are slightly higher). So 8.1M shares + 2.8M (converted debt) + .25M = 11.15 x $6.1 = $68M. So that gets you a building worth $30M and 50% of a cash flow stream of $3M of revenue per quarter (annualized). So $38M for $6M of cash flow. Pretty good, but not incredible. I don't know a lot about the joint venture. Maybe more is possible. RILY is one of my bigger holdings, so curious to see what they do with this. Probably will just ride along with it that way based on the above. They're doing a lot of interesting deals, but there's so much sausage in the grinder it's hard to see exactly what comes out the other end. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
valuedontlie Posted April 26, 2018 Share Posted April 26, 2018 Making moves... http://investorrelations.bebe.com/press-release/other/b-riley-financial-and-bebe-stores-issue-joint-update-shareholders Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
valuedontlie Posted February 1, 2019 Share Posted February 1, 2019 Shares have been selling off lately, maybe time to revive... 11.4m shares out x $6.45 = $73.5m market cap... net cash could be ~$0-10m depending on how you treat some A/P from disc ops... for $73.5m you get: 1) $7.8m net income from bebe JV (has been growing) and 2) whatever net income is generated from recent ~$21m investment in 2 bankrupt brands -- Brookstone and Charles Vogele this is the first NOL shell i've seen done right in quite a while (the boys at RILY are being smart about it)... goal is to get high yielding licensing income coming in which requires no/minimal overhead expense... looks like they've now spread these out over 3 brands and intend to dividend all/most of the cash flow back to shareholders... given the licensing revenue and dividend goals this will never be a BV play... i could see them periodically doing a rights offer to take advantage of other bankrupt brands down the road... certainly depends on the returns generated from recent JV investments but could absolutely see dividends of $1/sh each year... certainly more interesting in the $5 neighborhood :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
valuedontlie Posted February 11, 2019 Share Posted February 11, 2019 Plenty o' shares out there at $5.50 to $5.70 realm... hope I'm not missing something here? About 9x earnings before the recent investments in Brookstone and Charles Vogele... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Schwab711 Posted February 14, 2019 Share Posted February 14, 2019 Thanks for highlighting this. I think it's a good idea. It will be interesting to see what is said about the two acquisitions in the next 10-q. Charles Vogele's CEE segment's 1H 2016 looks like (values in CHF): rev: 81.1m EBITDA: -0.8 EBIT: -2.9 FY 2015: rev: 164.3 EBITDA: 1.8 EBIT: -2.5 Gross margin was 65%-70% (I forgot to write it down, I can look up the exact number later), so there's some potential. I didn't look in to Brookstone yet. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
valuedontlie Posted February 14, 2019 Share Posted February 14, 2019 i'm planning to attend annual meeting in LA on 2/26 if anyone wants to attend or will be around... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JayGatsby Posted February 15, 2019 Share Posted February 15, 2019 Where are you pulling the Qs? Did you buy a share and ask for them? I'm a big fan of RILY, so seems like a good spot to fish. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Schwab711 Posted February 15, 2019 Share Posted February 15, 2019 Where are you pulling the Qs? Did you buy a share and ask for them? I'm a big fan of RILY, so seems like a good spot to fish. https://www.otcmarkets.com/stock/bebe/disclosure Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Schwab711 Posted September 30, 2019 Share Posted September 30, 2019 I don't like that they didn't breakout BKST and GAEBB in the annual report. and the summary of them seems off. During the twelve-month period ended June,30 2019, total revenues for these entities were $46.5 million and total loss in these entities were ($7.0). The total assets of these entities were $76.6 million and total liabilities were $1.3 million as of June 30, 2019. Seems like the first sentence is just about GAEBB and the second sentence is just about BKST. Otherwise, GAEBB had a really bad 4Q. In good news: Bebe revenues up ~1% to $17.2m (ex-$12m payment) and distributable income is ~$15.55m. BKST distributed $342k in the most recent quarter ($1.1m in FY19, $1.4m run-rate). Between Bebe and BKST, distributable cash is ~$9.2m. That's an earnings yield of 13.4% at a share price of $6 and it looks like there's still room for improvement at BKST and GAEBB. Thanks for sharing this idea, FT! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Foreign Tuffett Posted October 1, 2019 Author Share Posted October 1, 2019 I don't like that they didn't breakout BKST and GAEBB in the annual report. and the summary of them seems off. During the twelve-month period ended June,30 2019, total revenues for these entities were $46.5 million and total loss in these entities were ($7.0). The total assets of these entities were $76.6 million and total liabilities were $1.3 million as of June 30, 2019. Seems like the first sentence is just about GAEBB and the second sentence is just about BKST. Otherwise, GAEBB had a really bad 4Q. In good news: Bebe revenues up ~1% to $17.2m (ex-$12m payment) and distributable income is ~$15.55m. BKST distributed $342k in the most recent quarter ($1.1m in FY19, $1.4m run-rate). Between Bebe and BKST, distributable cash is ~$9.2m. That's an earnings yield of 13.4% at a share price of $6 and it looks like there's still room for improvement at BKST and GAEBB. Thanks for sharing this idea, FT! You are very welcome. I sold my position some time ago and haven't kept up with recent developments. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
valuedontlie Posted October 6, 2019 Share Posted October 6, 2019 just my opinion, but it's a better bet now than when FT originally posted it :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
valuedontlie Posted October 7, 2019 Share Posted October 7, 2019 just as a(nother) reminder of what we have with BEBE... 11.4m shares x $6 = $68m market cap... no debt + $8.7m in cash = $60m EV... 3 brands under ownership today: bebe -- $7.8m equity earnings (excludes the $6m one-time income piece) brookstone -- $1.1m in distributions over 2 quarters charles vogele -- totally written off, will be interesting to see if they try to do some licensing or something Call it $10m equity earnings and SG&A running below $200k per quarter so maybe $1m per year = $9m free cash flow or $0.79/share... paying out $0.68/share in dividends currently (11.3% yield)... still seems like brookstone should ramp from here (especially based on how bebe played out)... Seems like they should be able to hit $1/share in annual dividend within next 1-2 quarters while still having some cash on hand to find another brand/business to acquire/partner on... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
valuedontlie Posted February 15, 2020 Share Posted February 15, 2020 2Q20 results -- https://backend.otcmarkets.com/otcapi/company/financial-report/239940/content Looking at my last post here almost nothing has changed... Still a $6 stock, still $8m+ in net cash on the B/S... bebe and Brookstone brands look to be contributing ~$10m per year in distributions... overhead running at maybe $1.2-1.5m per year... call it $0.75/share in annual earnings? Paying out $0.68/sh in dividends, still 11.3% yield... The Charles Vogele brand completely written off but starting to get some cash back ($1m in Q2).. as a reminder they invested some $3m into this... Still guessing (hoping?) that Brookstone has room to expand and/or another investment gets made... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Schwab711 Posted February 16, 2020 Share Posted February 16, 2020 In October 2019, GAEBB completed the closure of all of their retail stores. The business activity of GAEBB currently consists of the winding up of its business activities and final liquidation of property to the Company. GAEBB probably won't have worked out once liquidation is complete. Luckily, it was a small investment and the total damage was minimal. Let's see what the final distributions look like. I think BKST is encouraging and is getting close to a 10% ROI for BEBE. Hopefully they provide simple financial data on this position, like with BB Brands, in the future. The bebe brand is seemingly stabilized and even growing some Y/Y. I don't want to be too hopeful, but the build-up in BV in BB Brand Holdings, despite the distributions, is encouraging. The 14.7% earnings yield (~$10m distributable cash / $68m MC) is sweet, before considering the net cash. I suspect BEBE will see some multiple expansion once folks realize the bebe brand has been growing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
valuedontlie Posted February 16, 2020 Share Posted February 16, 2020 It took about 5-6 quarters for the bebe brand to fully ramp up to the equity earnings now generated... I still think Brookstone has room to run toward the 20% IRR that BEBE is shooting for... not saying it will definitely happen but the past few quarters have been trending that direction... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
capitalg Posted February 16, 2020 Share Posted February 16, 2020 It at least looks like Brookstone's website has improved a bit recently. I poked around for Brookstone items during the holiday season (after receiving a Sharper Image catalog in the mail) and could not find much. The Brookstone website itself was pretty skeleton at the time, and I was surprised given it was the holiday shopping season and considering how long the brand had been owned (plenty of time to plan ahead). All I really found were a couple of Brookstone branded things on JC Penney's website. The Sharper Image website is miles ahead of Brookstone's and has significantly more products. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
valuedontlie Posted February 16, 2020 Share Posted February 16, 2020 Bluestar Alliance (operator of Brookstone) was part of the acquisition/turnaround of Sharper Image as well... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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