Monthly Round Up: August
Portfolio updates on Alico, Simon Property Group, Motorcar Parts of America, watchlist updates, and 13-Fs
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Portfolio Updates
Alico
Q2 Sales went up from $7.3M to $13.6M, net loss was $0.27 a share compared to $1.56 a share last year
The losses appear to be citrus operating expenses are higher than sales, compared to last year that was favorable due to land sales and insurance proceeds
It was announced there is a new 3 year contract with Tropicana at prices that are 33-50% higher than current prices
The company has treated nearly all of its trees with experimental treatment for citrus greening, and authorities have authorized reapplying the treatment to trees
ALCO 0.00%↑ sold 798 acres of citrus land for $9k an acre
It was another poor harvest season for Alico, but there does seem to be some optimism for the next growing season from improved contracts and positive results from the citrus greening treatment
Simon Property Group
Q2 net income was $493.5M compared to $486.3M last year, net operating income increased by 5.2%
Occupancy was 95.6% compared to 94.7%, base rent increased 3%
Dividend is now $2.05 for the quarter, and increase of 7.9% YoY
SPG 0.00%↑ keeps firing on all cylinders and the quarterly dividend is $0.05 away from pre-COVID levels
The stock seems fairly valued at current interest rates and I have a nice capital gain so its tempting to sell, but my high dividend yield on cost is keeping me a holder for now
Motorcar Parts of America
Sales increased 6.4%, gross profit increased 9.8%
Operating income impacted by foreign exchange loss from lease liabilities, severance expense, interest expense also increased
Net loss for the quarter was $18.1M compared to a loss of $1.4M a year ago
Revenue and gross margin growth is positive but I am annoyed with the non-cash currency exchange charge and their continued issues with interest costs
If rates come down, MPAA 0.00%↑ should get a nice tail wind, and seems like the recent moves in the stock price may be factoring that in
Watchlist Updates
I have been wanting to increase my emphasis on my watchlist that gets built up from stocks covered in my Idea List series or single stock write-ups. Going forward in these Monthly Round Up’s I’ll carve out a spot to provide updates on the watchlist. The watchlist consists of stocks that I have profiled, some at a high level while others I have written up deeper dives.
This month I’m adding uncertainty ratings because I have varying levels of confidence with these stocks. The uncertainty rating is a bit subjective, but it comes down to how much due diligence I’ve done on a stock, and how likely I feel business performance can deteriorate based on my current knowledge. I implemented this because a few stocks seem to be trading at deep discounts to my napkin math fair value estimations, but the businesses are facing severe headwinds that make me hesitant to buy. Examples are EMKR, PETS, and WBA, where maybe if I due more research I’ll increase my confidence or decide they are uninvestable and remove them from the list. Other examples like VTS and PBT have high uncertainty rating more due to my unfamiliarity with the oil industry, not because they are distressed companies. I also added the date of the last update so I can be more motivated to keep these valuations fresh.
New Additions: PM 0.00%↑ , PBT 0.00%↑ , NLOP 0.00%↑
Deletions: none
Fair Value Changes: none
Comments:
BGFV has been volatile lately, it was around $1.50 then shot up almost to $2 and now has settled down to $1.80
JCTCF dipped to a decent discount to NCAV but has bounced back a little
MPAA has been moving higher, getting close to $7 at times
WBA and PETS have continued to struggle since lasts months update
Super Investors
Each quarter I like to look at the 13-F filings of some of my favorite fund managers to see if they are making any interesting portfolio changes. Here are some of the bigger or more interesting buys and sells from last quarter.
Bill Nygren
completely sold out of American Express AXP 0.00%↑ , KKR KKR 0.00%↑ , EOG Resources EOG 0.00%↑
trimmed Charter Communications CHTR 0.00%↑ and Capital One Financial COF 0.00%↑ , which are/were in my portfolio
bought Centene CNC 0.00%↑ and Deere & Co. DE 0.00%↑
Bruce Berkowitz
nice to see him buying Bank OZK OZK 0.00%↑, one of my holdings
trimmed St. Joe Co. JOE 0.00%↑ a Florida real estate company
Seth Klarman
trimmed Alphabet GOOG 0.00%↑ and Fidelity National Information Services FIS 0.00%↑
bought Humana HUM 0.00%↑ , CRH CRH 0.00%↑ , Solventum SOLV 0.00%↑
Berkshire Hathaway
Reduced Apple AAPL 0.00%↑ holding by 50%, sold out of Snowflake SNOW 0.00%↑ , trimmed Chevron CVX 0.00%↑ and Capital One COF 0.00%↑
Bought more Occidental Petroleum OXY 0.00%↑ and Ulta Beauty ULTA 0.00%↑