Daytripper Posted May 22, 2014 Share Posted May 22, 2014 Nice to see Urbana owns a big slug of BAC - 1.2M shares @ $11.99. Some of the other holdings might be a little more difficult to value. Interesting read. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gg Posted May 22, 2014 Share Posted May 22, 2014 I spoke with Mr. Caldwell, and he slowed/stopped the buyback because he cares more about maximizing the asset base versus NAV per share. Pretty unfortunate, because I was planning on making it a big position until I found that out... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rayfinkle Posted May 22, 2014 Share Posted May 22, 2014 I spoke with Mr. Caldwell, and he slowed/stopped the buyback because he cares more about maximizing the asset base versus NAV per share. Pretty unfortunate, because I was planning on making it a big position until I found that out... Did he say anything else noteworthy? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gg Posted May 22, 2014 Share Posted May 22, 2014 Shed a little bit of light on the private indian exchange holding. Apparently there are political issues that are holding back an IPO and increased foreign ownership. He didn't seem to think that position would become liquid too soon. But frankly, once he explained that he cares less about the NAV/share versus the total assets he manages (stated goal of growing to a billion), I quickly lost interest. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hielko Posted May 22, 2014 Share Posted May 22, 2014 Wouldn't be the first time that he said something along those lines... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gg Posted May 22, 2014 Share Posted May 22, 2014 I spoke with Mr. Caldwell, and he slowed/stopped the buyback because he cares more about maximizing the asset base versus NAV per share. Pretty unfortunate, because I was planning on making it a big position until I found that out... Hey GG, I spoke to Tom as well and that's not what he told me. He has 1,000,000 shares left on his NCIB and he's waiting for someone to sell him a large block of shares. NCIB doesn't expire until August 31st, so there is still time. Further, they switched focus for a time to paying a div of 5 cents per share for a 2.5 pc div yield. If they run capital down below $165mil ("stated capital), they are forbidden to pay a dividend by Ont Bus Corp Act and they do not want to jeopardize dividend. I dont know where you got your info from but it's incorrect. 50Cent -- Per my comment, the info is from a call between myself and Tom Caldwell. The information is not "incorrect" like you suggest--it is always possible that Caldwell has changed his stance since the call, but I am simply relaying what he told me. Did you speak with him recently? When I spoke with him (beginning of 2014), he specifically mentioned something along the lines of thinking that '50,000,000 shares is a good number'. He then also spoke at length of a personal goal of growing the firm to a billion in assets (and implied that continued buybacks decrease the firm's asset base even though it's good for NAV/share). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bizaro86 Posted May 22, 2014 Share Posted May 22, 2014 I spoke with Mr. Caldwell, and he slowed/stopped the buyback because he cares more about maximizing the asset base versus NAV per share. Pretty unfortunate, because I was planning on making it a big position until I found that out... Hey GG, I spoke to Tom as well and that's not what he told me. He has 1,000,000 shares left on his NCIB and he's waiting for someone to sell him a large block of shares. NCIB doesn't expire until August 31st, so there is still time. Further, they switched focus for a time to paying a div of 5 cents per share for a 2.5 pc div yield. If they run capital down below $165mil ("stated capital), they are forbidden to pay a dividend by Ont Bus Corp Act and they do not want to jeopardize dividend. I dont know where you got your info from but it's incorrect. I'm not a tax lawyer or anything, but if they are restricted from paying dividends for that reason couldn't they do a return of capital/capital reduction, where they use the payout to reduce their stated capital? I'd be pretty strongly in favour of a tax free partial liquidiation of URB every year... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hardcorevalue Posted May 22, 2014 Share Posted May 22, 2014 Followed this company for a long time. Owned it in the past. The obvious answer would be to liquidate the portfolio, there is 0 evidence that over the longterm his investments will beat the market, especially with his overhead. This is not the likely course of action given the asset fees and personal relationships with employees. I ultimately sold out after the related party transaction, it was the last straw. (stock is up a lot since then though) http://hcvinvesting.blogspot.ca/2012/07/urbana-really.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bizaro86 Posted May 22, 2014 Share Posted May 22, 2014 Followed this company for a long time. Owned it in the past. The obvious answer would be to liquidate the portfolio, there is 0 evidence that over the longterm his investments will beat the market, especially with his overhead. This is not the likely course of action given the asset fees and personal relationships with employees. I ultimately sold out after the related party transaction, it was the last straw. (stock is up a lot since then though) http://hcvinvesting.blogspot.ca/2012/07/urbana-really.html The stock is cheap enough that I can forgive a bit of related party nonsense, and I get that they won't liquidate. However, if they buy back 10% of the company at a 35% NAV discount that's accretive to NAV by 3.5% per year, or approximately 5% of share price. Essentially, you're getting a tailwind that improves returns whether or not the valuation gap ever closes. If they stop buying back though, there's no reason it couldn't be a perpetual discount fund like the ones the ELF guys run, and in that case management isn't high quality enough for me to keep holding. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hielko Posted May 22, 2014 Share Posted May 22, 2014 They only buy back the A-shares, so even if they continue the buybacks indefinitely (A pretty big IF) it will be increasingly smaller. 10% of the A-shares is now 8.33% of the outstanding shares. That means that the share buybacks are increasing value by 2.9% at a 35% discount. But on the other side you have a 2.68% expense ratio and 0.48% trading costs. Added to this are the related party shenanigans and some other minor issues, while as a reasonable big positive you have now $0.05/share dividend (although that might come at the expense of share buybacks in the future?). I think the current discount is pretty reasonable and don't think this is undervalued. They add some value, but roughly subtract the same amount at the current discount as well. PS. Just looking at the latest holdings. Caldwell Growth Opportunities Trust? Radar Capital Fund 1 LP? Real Matters Inc?Edcrest Capital Holdings? Highview Investments LP? Sounds like another layer of fees... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bizaro86 Posted May 23, 2014 Share Posted May 23, 2014 They only buy back the A-shares, so even if they continue the buybacks indefinitely (A pretty big IF) it will be increasingly smaller. 10% of the A-shares is now 8.33% of the outstanding shares. That means that the share buybacks are increasing value by 2.9% at a 35% discount. But on the other side you have a 2.68% expense ratio and 0.48% trading costs. Added to this are the related party shenanigans and some other minor issues, while as a reasonable big positive you have now $0.05/share dividend (although that might come at the expense of share buybacks in the future?). I think the current discount is pretty reasonable and don't think this is undervalued. They add some value, but roughly subtract the same amount at the current discount as well. PS. Just looking at the latest holdings. Caldwell Growth Opportunities Trust? Radar Capital Fund 1 LP? Real Matters Inc?Edcrest Capital Holdings? Highview Investments LP? Sounds like another layer of fees... Hard to disagree with this post. I have sort of looked at it as the buyback/dividend roughly offsets the value seepage to fees/trading costs, leaving you buying their assets at $0.65 per dollar. If that assumption is valid then I think an investment here works. Some of the assets I don't like (all the LPs you mentioned) some of them I do (Minneapolis Grain Exchange, BAC, ABX, Canadian Securities Exchange). Since the stock is trading at a discount to the stuff I like, the stuff I don't like is free. I'm long here, but it's not a high conviction position, and I've been trading out of it whenever the discount narrows and opening up a bigger position when it widens. If he ever starts doing bigger buybacks (ie greater than normal course) or dividends my conviction would increase. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jm25 Posted May 27, 2014 Share Posted May 27, 2014 The CEO is pretty good at responding to e-mails from investors. Some feedback from him: Private equity is how Urbana really got started and will continue to be part of the investment portfolio (~30-50%). A major purpose of URB is to hold non liquid investments. They have been reducing bank loans to zero and also reducing the cboe concentration. Still feel US financials and the US dollar have some further upside. He said he has no plans to undertake an SIB to show commitment to narrow the discount between P/NAV. He said objective is to build the company (and asset base). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BG2008 Posted June 27, 2014 Share Posted June 27, 2014 Can someone share contact information of the CEO? I'd like to reach out to him. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jm25 Posted July 2, 2014 Share Posted July 2, 2014 Can someone share contact information of the CEO? I'd like to reach out to him. http://www.caldwellsecurities.com/contact.php Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bizaro86 Posted August 6, 2014 Share Posted August 6, 2014 TORONTO, ONTARIO--(Marketwired - Aug. 6, 2014) - NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION TO U.S. WIRE SERVICES OR FOR DISSEMINATION IN THE U.S. Urbana Corporation ("Urbana") (TSX:URB.A)(CSE:URB.A) has now completed the company's Normal Course Issuer Bid ("NCIB"), authorized for 2013-2014, with the purchase of 5,386,000 of the company's Class "A" shares. These shares were bought for cancellation at an average price of $1.7789 per share. The dollar amount of the repurchased shares totals $9,581,155.40. Urbana's current buyback and cancellation of URB.A shares, combined with previous amounts purchased, now totals 29,862,902 shares, leaving 49,000,000 URB.A shares currently outstanding. Urbana Corporation will re-apply for further NCIB purchases after August 28, 2014. Urbana's investment portfolio combines publicly traded and private holdings, with a current focus on financial services. On behalf of the Board of Directors Thomas S. Caldwell, C.M. That's good news! I was starting to become seriously concerned about the lack of buyback for that many months. They are now disclosing a bunch of covered calls on a lot of their positions, (August/September expiries) so they could be looking to raise cash for the new authorization at the end of the month. Buying back stock at this big a discount to NAV is so accretive, so as long as they do the max every year the discount remains I'll be relatively satisfied. I'd be more satisfied if they liquidated or stopped making private investments, but I don't think that's likely. (And I actually really like the Minneapolis Grain Exchange position and the CNSX position). The board is in favour of Murray Stahl/FRMO buying grain exchange seats and the Bermuda stock exchange, so the negativity towards Caldwell feels at least partially like unwarranted bias to me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest 50centdollars Posted August 27, 2014 Share Posted August 27, 2014 Urbana Corporation: Notice of Intention to Purchase Shares TORONTO, ONTARIO--(Marketwired - Aug. 27, 2014) - NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION TO U.S. WIRE SERVICES OR FOR DISSEMINATION IN THE U.S. Urbana Corporation ("Urbana") (TSX:URB.A)(CSE:URB.A) announced today that the Toronto Stock Exchange ("TSX") has accepted its notice of intention to conduct a normal course issuer bid to enable it to purchase up to 4,855,693 of its non-voting Class A shares (the "Class A Shares"), representing 10% of the public float, pursuant to TSX rules. Purchases under the bid may commence on August 29, 2014, and will terminate on the earlier of August 28, 2015, the date Urbana completes its purchases pursuant to the notice of intention to make a normal course issuer bid filed with the TSX or the date of notice by Urbana of termination of the bid. Purchases will be made on the open market by Urbana through the facilities of the TSX or the Canadian Securities Exchange ("CSE") in accordance with the rules and policies of the TSX. Caldwell Securities Ltd. will make all purchases pursuant to the bid on behalf of Urbana. The price that Urbana will pay for any such shares will be the market price of such shares on the TSX at the time of acquisition. Class A Shares purchased under the bid will be cancelled. Urbana will not purchase in any given 30 day period, in the aggregate, more than 980,000 Class A Shares, being 2% of the 49,000,000 issued and outstanding Class A Shares as at August 26, 2014. Pursuant to a previous notice of intention to conduct a normal course issuer bid accepted by the TSX on August 27, 2013 for the period of August 29, 2013 to August 28, 2014, Urbana has purchased, as of August 26, 2014, 5,386,000 Class A Shares on the open market at an average purchase price of $1.78 per share. To the knowledge of Urbana, no director, senior officer or other insider of Urbana currently intends to sell any Class A shares under the bid. However, sales by such persons through the facilities of the TSX or the CSE may occur if the personal circumstances of any such person change or if any such person makes a decision unrelated to the bid. The benefits to any such person whose shares are purchased would be the same as the benefits available to all other holders whose shares are purchased. Urbana believes that the market price of its Class A Shares at certain times may be attractive and that the purchase of Class A Shares from time to time would be an appropriate use of corporate funds in light of potential benefits to remaining shareholders. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Haasje Posted October 6, 2014 Share Posted October 6, 2014 Most people in this thread are probably very well informed on Urbana so posting here might be more to my benefit than yours, I did a write-up on SA titled Why Mr. Market Is Assigning An Unjustifiable Large Discount To NAV Here: http://seekingalpha.com/article/2543525-urbana-why-mr-market-is-assigning-an-unjustifiable-large-discount-to-nav-here It can quickly get you up to speed but I'm also open, as much as it hurts, to comments/critique of what I might have missed/got wrong etc. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
matts Posted October 8, 2014 Share Posted October 8, 2014 Most people in this thread are probably very well informed on Urbana so posting here might be more to my benefit than yours, I did a write-up on SA titled Why Mr. Market Is Assigning An Unjustifiable Large Discount To NAV Here: http://seekingalpha.com/article/2543525-urbana-why-mr-market-is-assigning-an-unjustifiable-large-discount-to-nav-here It can quickly get you up to speed but I'm also open, as much as it hurts, to comments/critique of what I might have missed/got wrong etc. Good overview. Do you know when Horizon Kinetics bought in? where could I find their transaction history in the name? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pks99 Posted October 8, 2014 Share Posted October 8, 2014 Interesting to hear about the FRMO stake in Urbana - did not know that. It makes sense give Stahl's comments about the value he sees in buyside control of exchanges. Urbana has position in Minneapolis Grain exchange, which Stahl commented on in the latest shareholder meeting transcript. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Haasje Posted October 8, 2014 Share Posted October 8, 2014 I'm haven't found out when Horizon Kinetics LLC made its investment. The horizon kinetics small cap opportunity no load fund wich has the biggest allocation to Urbana between its 3 funds that are invested bought for the 1st time in: 09/30/2007 according to morningstar data. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sculpin Posted July 10, 2016 Share Posted July 10, 2016 Anyone still follow this? Recent report from eresearch.... http://www.eresearch.ca/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/URB_070716-SP.pdf Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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