RSAH self-describes as increasingly angry. Judging from the wide-ranging rant I'm responding to, RSAH is apparently also confused about a number of things. Whether being angry causes the confusion . . . or whether being confused causes the anger . . . I suppose that the combination of confused and angry isn't conducive to positive investing results.
Reasonable people can disagree about whether a stock should be a buy or a sell at most prices/points-in-time. And those same reasonable people can often be wrong-footed by the market for any number of reasons. Either way, when someone is so upset about a stock that they angrily regret buying it, best to sell and move on.
I don't know when - or at what price - others first purchased Bathurst shares. My own story is a first purchase in 2014 at around 5 cents per share. Dismayed by the subsequent slide to 1.2 cents, I had doubled-down - buying more below 3 cents and 2 cents. Most recently, I bought at 12.5 cents. So I pretty obviously haven't timed the market-prices optimally. I could have - several times - gotten a better buy-price by being patient.
That said, at today's 11 cent price, the value of my BRL stake is solidly in-the-money. Though I don't plan on selling below 30 cents, as I see that to be a credible near-term - next one/two years - target-price. To date, I have not sold a single share of Bathurst.
Will I hold BRL for 5 more years ? Probably "some" of my current stake and possibly "most" of my current stake. Provided that Richard Tacon's management team continues to create demonstrable value via positive income-statement and balance-sheet changes. Do I believe buying more at current prices is a good idea ? Definitely yes!
Commenting on excerpts from RSAH's post that strike me as somewhat confused:
1 - BRL's 28 August 2018 announcement of a share buy-back initiative gives Management the right - NOT the obligation - to purchase a maximum of 75 million shares within 12 months. Timing and purchase volumes are entirely subject to management's discretion, consistent with ASX rules. Becoming increasingly angry and cynical (RSAH's self-description) over delayed execution of something positive that will likely be good for all shareholders - including Management - seems a confused and unproductive reaction.
2 - I admire day-traders . . . my son is an active one and trades quite profitably. But I have said more than once on this discussion board, that I am personally NOT a day-trader, as I lack all of the time, the patience and the mindset to day-trade successfully. My last post on this thread noted pointedly that there is no liquidity in BRL shares (for now at least) and that BRL may not be a good target stock for day-traders. Liquidity generally depends on volumes - important to not be confused about that.
3 - Most of the owners of BRL's shares prior to 2015 probably purchased their stakes above 20 cents per share - possibly when BRL listed on the ASX in 2008 or in NZ during 2010. BRL's share-price peaked above $1.70 in 2011 and then crashed to 20 cents by January 2014. By end-March 2014, BRL was trading at 8 cents and declined steadily from there to 1.2 cents in July 2016. Few of those remaining investors who bought shares before March 2014 are likely to have "forgot" they own their BRL holdings. More probably, those investors share my opinion that they would be leaving considerable money on the table by selling below 20 cents or higher, given both understandable aversion to locking-in losses and encouraging income-statement and balance-sheet trends.
4 - Republic (RIM) was already a significant investor in BRL (above 5 % stake) by 2014. They are some of the good guys who have contributed capital and ideas to effect the turnaround from a near bankrupt 1.2 cents-per-share crippled-company, until now. Possibly some misunderstand that as a money-manager looking after clients-funds as well as (probably) investing retained-earnings, investors such as RIM will sometimes be both a seller AND a buyer, within any given month. The money-management business requires re-balancing of client portfolios and execution of instructions for individual clients who wish to take profits - whether for redemption or reinvestment. The main thing to note is that RIM has INCREASED their BRL stake from 2016 to present, notwithstanding interim sales of shares, for whatever reasons/prices.
5 - Warren Buffet has profited enormously from coal over the past two decades. Berkshire Hathaway purchased MidAmerican Energy for $9-plus billion dollars in 1999 and purchased Burlington Northern for $35-plus billion in 2009. Burlington - a railroad - earns literally billions of dollars every year transporting coal within the USA. MidAmerican - a utility with many hundreds of coal-powered plants - earns billions of dollars every year burning coal. Conversely, the coal MINING business in the USA has been the proverbial dumpster-fire. Coal production has dropped precipitously, year-after-year due to increasing use of natural gas, solar and wind-power - all of which Berkshire's MidAmerican also profits from. So good on Warren Buffet for not investing in coal mines. Possibly because "Price is what you pay; Value is what you get."
6 - "Rolls Royce costs" are not a bad thing, as RSAH appears to misunderstand. The wide-bodied aircraft business is intensely competitive, yet Rolls Royce (RR) is the market-leader in (quite profitably) supplying that business with engines and services. Beyond civil aviation, RR has profitable business segments in defense aviation and power systems. Attributing "Rolls Royce costs" to badly-run state-owned companies seems a poorly chosen and confused description.
7 - My point about BRL's performance over the past several years being a version of a private equity turnaround was a commentary about BRL overall. Cut unnecessary costs; attract and deploy additional investment funding; pivot strategically to enhance shareholder value. That the assets BRL purchased through the auction of Solid Energy belonged to a state-owned firm previously is irrelevant. Take care to not confuse provenance with profits - which the SE assets are certainly throwing off now for BRL. It's churlish - or perhaps just confused - to not praise BRL management for skillfully targeting and acquiring the SE properties, given the highly competitive nature of the auction managed by Goldman Sachs.
I welcome any further - less confused and angry, please - commentary.
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