Monthly Archives: February 2017

Warren Buffett’s bid for Unilever (ULVR)

February 21, 2017 By in economics, mergers and acquisitions, Uncategorized Tags: , , , , Leave a comment

(Note:  ULVR is an Anglo-Dutch conglomerate with what is for Americans a very unusual corporate structure.  I’m using the London ticker.)

Late last week word leaked of a takeover offer Kraft Heinz (KHZ)–controlled by Warren Buffett and private equity investor 3G Capital–made for Unilever.  Within a day, KHZ withdrew its offer, supposedly because of a frosty reception from the UK government.  Not much further information is available.  In fact, when I checked on Monday evening as I was writing this, there’s no mention of the offer or its retraction among the investor releases on the KHZ website.  Press reports don’t even seem to acknowledge that Unilever is one set of assets controlled by two publicly traded companies.

In any event, two aspects of this situation seem clear to me:

–Buffett’s initial foray with 3G was Heinz, where the Brazilian private equity group quickly established that something like one out of every four people on the Heinz payroll did absolutely no productive work.  Profits rose enormously as the workforce was trimmed to fit the actual needs of the company.

Buffett subsequently joined with 3G in the same rationalization process with Kraft.

For some time, achieving stock market outperformance through portfolio investing has proved difficult for Berkshire Hathaway.  Tech companies are basically excluded from the investment universe; everyone nowadays understands the value of intangibles, the area where Buffett made his reputation.

The bid for ULVR shows, I think, the Sage of Omaha’s new strategy–acquire and rationalize long-established, now-bloated firms in the food and consumer products industries.

Expect a lot more of this, with any needed extra financing likely coming from Berkshire Hathaway.

–the sitting pro-Brexit UK government is showing itself to be extremely sensitive to evidence that contradicts its (questionable) narrative that Brexit is good for the UK.  That seems to me to not be true in the case of UVLR.

Sterling has fallen by 15% or so since the Brexit vote, creating problems for firms, like UVLR, which have revenues in sterling + euros but costs in dollars.  Since the Brexit vote, and before the revelation of the bid, UVLR ADRs in the US had underperformed the S&P 500 since last June by about 20 percentage points.  Yes, UVLR has been a serial laggard, but most of the recent stock price decline can be attributed, I think, to the currency decline brought about by Brexit.

The idea that a venerable British firm would fall into American hands, with layoffs following close behind, appears to have been more than #10 Downing Street could tolerate.

That attitude is probably also going to remain, meaning that weak management teams in the UK need not fear being replaced–and that Buffett will likely have to look elsewhere for his next conquest.

 

 

Warren Buffett selling Wal-Mart (WMT)

February 17, 2017 By in Berkshire Hathaway, Investment firms, Uncategorized Tags: , , , Leave a comment

Investment companies are required to file lists of their holdings with the SEC at the end of each quarter.  The latest such 13-F form for Berkshire Hathaway shows a buildup in Apple and airlines   …and the sale of virtually all of Buffett’s long-term holding in WMT.

WMT as icon

A powerhouse in the 1970s and 1980s, WMT has been a bad stock for a long time.  It had a moment in the sun during the market meltdown from mid-2007 through early 2009, when it rose by about 1% while the S&P 500 was almost cut in half.  Since the bottom, however, WMT has gained 40% while the S&P is up by 219%.

Wal-Mart isn’t an obviously badly run company.  It isn’t, say, Sears, or the Ackman-run J C Penney.  But it does have a number of impediments to achieving significant growth in earnings.  One is its already gigantic size.  A second is its focus on less affluent rural customers who were disproportionately hard-hit by recession and who have in many instances yet to recover.  There’s increased competition from the dollar stores.   And there’s Amazon, whose competitive threat WMT itself admits it played down for far too long.

My reaction:

—old habits die hard.  Mr. Buffett built his career from the 1950s onward on the observation, novel at that time, that traditional Graham/Dodd portfolio investing techniques glossed over the considerable value of investment in intangible assets–brand names, distribution networks, superior business practices.  However, by the time I entered the business in the late 1970s, other people–me included–were beginning to adopt his methods.  So thinking about intangibles became part of the toolkit, rather than something special.  Then, of course, the internet began to erode the power of intangibles to stop newcomers from entering a business.  Mr. Buffett, like any successful incumbent (including WMT), has been slow to adapt.

—WMT as metaphor for today.  WMT could become more profitable quickly if its heartland lower-income customer base could earn more money.  One way to do that would be to bar imported goods from the country, with an eye to creating manufacturing jobs in the US.  Of course, that would also destroy the WMT value proposition in the process.  So rolling the clock back to 1950 isn’t the answer, either for the health of WMT or for its customers.

the death of research commissions?

February 15, 2017 By in Investment firms, soft dollars, Uncategorized Tags: , , , Leave a comment

Investors in actively managed funds pay a management fee, usually something between 0.5% – 1.0% of the assets under management yearly, to the investment management company.  This is disclosed in advance.  It is supposed to cover all costs, which are principally salaries and expenses for portfolio managers, securities analysts, traders and support staff.

What is not disclosed, however, is the fact that around the world in their buying and selling securities through brokerage houses, regulators have allowed managers to pay substantially higher commissions for a certain percentage of their transactions.  The “extra” amount in these commissions, termed soft dollars or research commissions, is used to pay for services the broker provides, either directly or by paying the bills to third parties.  Typical services can include written research from brokerage house analysts or arranging private meetings with officials of publicly traded companies.  But they can also include paying for third-party news devices like Bloomberg machines–or even daily financial newspapers.

Over the last twenty years, management companies have realized that instead of supplementing their in-house research with brokerage input, they could also “save” money by substituting brokerage analysts for their own.  So they began to fire in-house researchers and depend on the third-party analysis provided to them by brokers   …and funded by soft dollars rather than their management fee.

For large organizations, these extra commissions can reach into millions of dollars.  Yes, the investment management firm keeps track of these amounts.  But they are simply deducted from client returns without comment.

 

This practice is now being banned in Europe.  About time, in my view.  Strictly speaking, management companies may still use soft dollars, but they are being required to fully disclose these extra charges to clients.  Knowing that clients would be shocked and angered if they understood what has been going on, the result is that European investment managers are abandon soft dollars and starting to rebuild their in-house research departments.

What’s particularly interesting about this for Americans is that multinational investment managers with centralized management control computer systems–which means everyone except boutiques–are finding that the easiest way to proceed is to make this change for all their clients, not just European ones.

The bottom line: smaller profits for investment managers and their brokers; much greater scrutiny of soft dollar services (meaning negotiating lower prices or outright cancelling); and higher returns for investors.

the French election?

February 14, 2017 By in Brexit, economics, government economic policy, Strategy, Uncategorized Tags: , , , , Leave a comment

French elections

As I mentioned yesterday, there’s at least some chance that control of the French government will fall in the Spring to a party that vows to:

–leave the euro,

–engineer a depreciation of the newly-resurrected French franc and

–repudiate euro-denominated French national debt.

This is not just like Brexit, since Brexit didn’t involve government refusal to repay previously incurred financial obligations.  It’s way worse.  This is more like Argentina or Cuba.

Sounds crazy, but so did Brexit and so did Trump.

What to do?

…particularly since it’s hard for me to figure the chances of any of this happening, and I no longer know that much about French stocks.

Two lines of thought:

–avoiding being hurt, and

–trying to make money.

Both will be brief, since I don’t know enough to say any more.

avoiding being hurt

Currency depreciation would have effects much like what’s happened in Japan during the Abe administration.  National wealth and the standard of living of ordinary citizens could take a substantial beating.  Export-oriented industries would thrive.

It’s likely that French companies would have a more difficult time raising money in global capital markets, if France refuses to honor its existing euro-denominated debt.  Companys’ repayment of debt not denominated in francs would become more costly.

Knock-on effects:  my guess is that Italy wouldn’t be far behind France in leaving the euro.  The currency union would likely end up being Germany plus bells and whistles.

The way bond investors are now taking defensive measures is by selling their French government-issued euro bonds for German issues, giving up 0.4% in annual yield to avoid a potential currency loss.

We, as equity investors, can do something similar now, by avoiding non-French multinationals with large exposure to the French economy.  If we want to/need to have some French exposure, it should be in companies that will benefit from possible devaluation–that is, firms with costs in France but revenues elsewhere.  Here the performance of Japanese stocks should be a good guide, except that I’d avoid French companies with a lot of foreign debt.

trying to make money

I consider betting on future political developments to be a dubious enterprise.  If Marine Le Pen makes an unusually good showing in the first round (of two) in French voting in April, and if the French market sells off sharply on that result, I’d be tempted to look for beaten down French multinationals, on the thought that Le Pen would lose in the second round.  I’m not sure I’d actually do anything, but I’d be willing to think about it.  This would imply beginning to study potential purchase candidates, or a suitable ETF, now.