Investment ideas and thoughts
Altran Technologies has decided to be bold, both in strategic and financial terms. The engineering services company has agreed to pay $2 bn for Aricent (a US-based rival owned by private equity firms KKR, Sequoia Capital and a former unit of Flextronics), valuing the company twice as much in terms on EV/Sales ratio based on LTM numbers. Continuer la lecture de « Altran: American Dream »
Check him out on his website and read his book The Innovator’s Dilemma, if you’re interested in corporate strategy and anything that deals with disruption…
For those unfamiliar with Seth Klarman, he is the founder of the Baupost Group, and one of the most respected and admired value investors. I think it’s both because of his track record, his core values as an investor (patience and discipline among others) but also his humanitarian values that put him on par with Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger.
His words/remarks/interviews are very rare, so any opportunity to hear/read him is a fantastic one for investors willing to improve their process/thinking about investing/life in general.
(Most of the data points/comments are extracted from a Primer published in Oct 2016 by Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Comments and financial data at the end are my own).
After a number of underperforming years, European oil & gas companies have been staging their comeback: they have cut into capex and opex to generate more cash flow or reduce debt and be able to maintain their payout/dividend payment.
The market has bearly started to notice, but oil & gas companies are leaner and in better shape to leave in a world where oil price would stand around 40-60$/barrel. Continuer la lecture de « Oil & Gas: A Primer (Sort of) »
In its « Risk Reversal » Europe 2018 outlook report, Exane BNP Paribas recommends to keep a value bias and prefer Oil & Gas, Travel & Leisure, Healthcare, Telecoms, Banks and Insurance sectors. Continuer la lecture de « In 2018, Stay Away from Cyclicals – Exane »
Societe Generale‘s CEO Frederic Oudea did not impress the markets with his 2020 strategic plan. Shares only gained 0.3% on Nov 28. Continuer la lecture de « Societe Generale: Market Not Impressed By Strategic Plan »