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- 24 February 2013
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Its not irrelevant. My point is Wesfarmers has had a confused capital management strategy for decades which is very shortsighted. They have no long-term vision of how to manage their balance sheet. They issue shares to make an acquisition, then a few years later they do a capital return, then they issue shares again and the cycle keeps repeating. They have done this multiple times over the years. Why not just adopt a capital management strategy that makes sense for the needs of your business? If they had managed their balance sheet in a similar fashion to Berkshire Hathaway there would be far fewer shares outstanding today and the share price would be a lot higher. The company is run by muppets, most intelligent people on this forum could run Wesfarmers better than its currently being run.nice flip to irrelevant VH
Again highlights the ineptness of the board. Issuing shares in 2001 to acquire Howard Smith then 2 years later doing a capital return. The board doesn't know if they are coming or going. A confused constant revolving door of capital. If as a company over time you know you are going to be a net acquirer of business (their acquisitions have exceeded their sales of businesses over time) then you should not do capital returns and should keep the dividend payout ratio low. That way you don't need to keep diluting shareholders with constant share issuances.
There are some exceptions to this rule such as when Henry Singleton was the CEO of Teledyne because he would issue shares when the stock was massively overvalued to buy undervalued companies and then he would buy back his own stock when it became undervalued, thus arbitraging the ups and downs of his company's share price. He was strategic about it. Most boards are too dumb to pull off that strategy and should stick to what I said above. And note Hnery Singleton was the largest shareholder in Teledyne again going back to my point about owner operators making better decisions.
Rinker shareholders won from that deal. They got bought out at a 10.4 times EV/EBITDA multiple when earnings were close to the peak (earnings tanked the next year due to the global financial crises).while i would agree with you , normally , i remember my relative that held Rinker ( a spin-off of CSR ) at the time
now Rinker looked like a careful well-run business that accumulated a large pile of cash , that it could not invest sensibly , so didn't
along came a Mexican rival ( cash-poor but a very large credit facility ) and essentially bought out Rinker with the cash it was going to inherit from the take-over and claimed the Rinker board were inept because they couldn't deploy the cash stock-pile , effectively ( one might wonder if the take-over looked so attractive if Rinker had of done some capital returns in the preceding years and frittered away that cash buffer )
I am not sure where this idea comes from that Rinker had cash. Yes it had cash reserves but overall it was in a net debt position. According to the article I linked (again here is the link below) Rinker was in a net debt position.who says Rinker couldn't have picked up some great assets during the GFC ( after all it had cash , and wasn't reliant on credit )
If it occurs it will be another dumb overpriced acquisition by wesfarmers (just as Coles was). To buy a bluechip company like Ramsay you would have to pay a considerable takeover premium. I doubt any takeover would be accepted for less than $65 per share. Ramsay is now a arguably mature low growth company and the price to earnings ratio and price to book ratio would both be astronomical at that price. If the takeover occurs it will only generate long term returns for Wesfarmers shareholders in the single digits (thereby diluting the existing return on equity). Not to mention given the size of Ramsay, Wesfarmers may need a capital raising (share placement) to fund the deal. The dilution would just be adding salt to the wound.according to the media,
Wesfarmers is considering bid for Ramsay Health Care
and nothing in the content to scare the punters , it would seem. Building on the Feb results, it has been solid ever since.Investor Day presentation out ... 95 pp.
not me , but am not rushing to buy extra at current prices eitherIs anyone else falling out of love with WES ?
gg
well, I think your 'onward and upward' target, aspirational perhaps, of $100 was optimistic, but it's a LT play for me.Is anyone else falling out of love with WES ?
gg
@Garpal Gumnut Certainly not me.Is anyone else falling out of love with WES ?
gg
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