Updates on Previous Posts

This post is going to be a bit of a grab bag of updates, as a couple of the stocks I profiled have had material news.

Petrobank (TSX:PBG) has announced a merger. I profiled the company here earlier in the year, as a net-net. While the company will no longer be trading below its NCAV after the merger, that is because it has parlayed its cash into a stake in valuable producing assets, and the market has bid up the stock accordingly. The combined entity will have the resources to more fully develop the assets in Trinidad, and will be less focused on THAI development in Canada, which hasn't worked. All-in-all this is a positive development.

Chaparral Gold (TSX:CHL) demonstrates one way that good things can happen when you buy companies for less than their net current asset value. When I profiled the company here they were trading at $0.32, and was available at a discount to their net current asset value at that time of approximately $0.48. This was also a spin-off situation, and those are often prospective for value investors. The mechanics of the spin was analyzed here.

Recently, a private equity firm has made an offer to purchase the entire company at a price not much above its NCAV. This seems like an opportunistic course of action, as the company's mining properties are likely to have some value. The bid was recently extended, and was for $0.50 per share. As the shares are trading at $0.68, or nearly 40% in excess of the bid price, I've closed my position. It's a double from where I recommended/purchased, and the incremental value of a higher bid is outweighed for me by the possibility of the deal going through at $0.50. I could be leaving money on the table here, but I don't see a margin of safety in the shares any more.

Whatever happens, I'll use the current $0.68 price when compiling my results at the end of the year, even if that turns out to have been a mistake.

Of course, not all of my net-nets have had something exciting happen to them, but that's not always necessary. Eyelogic Systems (CVE:EYE.A) is at $0.14, or nearly a double from $0.08 when I profiled the company as a net-net. It's still trading well below NCAV, and I still hold the shares. Maybe nothing exciting will ever happen, but the company is still trading around two-thirds of net cash, so there is a definite margin of safety.

Disclosure: Long PBG, EYE.A, may change at any time

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