Professor Glen Arnold

The last two Newsletters showed that BHP (LSE:BLT) has a low cyclically adjusted price earnings ratio and reasonable prospects for generating good profits and cash flow on the sale of its commodities, even if world prices fall from this point. However, companies on low CAPEs often show financial instability and vulnerability to distress. A way of […]

Yesterday’s Newsletter considered the optimistic scenario of a return to 2014 commodity price levels; but what about the downside of continued poor prices, or even a Chinese recession bringing on very poor prices, particularly for iron ore and copper? The answer depends, in the short run, on the cost of delivering product to customers relative […]

I bought BHP (LSE:BLT) shares at £10.43 in September 2015 for my Modified price earnings ratio portfolio, at only 7.5 times average earnings per share for the previous ten years. It had fallen from £26 over five years due to worries over the world market price for iron ore and other commodities sold by BHP. […]

Dewhurst’s (LSE:DWHA) conventionally calculated earnings numbers have been fairly flat for a few years, as have their owner earnings numbers – see yesterday’s Newsletter. Today I want to look at some reasons for hope that both might be lifted in the future. Return on net tangible assets Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger are very keen […]

The collection of Dewhurst (LSE:DWHA) businesses grew slowly over decades. Sometimes the pace of progress seems disturbingly slow, but you have to be impressed with this statistic: in 33 out of the last 34 years the dividend has grown by 5% or more. And the latest interim dividend has been raised 17% from 3p to 3.5p, […]

I bought Dewhurst non-voting “A” shares in April 2014 for £3.18 as a Warren Buffett style investment. My motivation was that it had a strong economic franchise, excellent managers, stability and a low price relative to intrinsic value. After 33p of dividends and a share price rise to £4.70 they up 58% in three years. They […]

Despite yesterday’s Newsletter dismissing the idea of buying more shares in Arden (LSE:ARDN), it remains a possibility that I’ll buy more in future, so I’ll put it in my watch list at a price of 33.4p. With that in mind, I’ll quickly run through recent events. Luke Johnson, the famous entrepreneur, business commentator and champion […]

I bought Arden (LSE:ARDN) for my net current asset value portfolio in September 2015 at 42.2p. There’s been a lot of activity at the company since Luke Johnson took over as Chairman, including the hiring of a new CEO and many senior executives.  Now is the time to consider whether the share merits going into my 2017 net […]

In the last two Newsletters I established that MS International’s (LSE:MSI) shares are trading on only 10.8 times average reported earnings per share over the past 12 years, has a very strong balance sheet with high net cash and strong annual cash flow, very little likelihood of facing financial distress, and four divisions with a […]

While MS International (LSE:MSI) has a low share price relative to its average earnings over the last 12 months, i.e. a CAPE of 10.8 (see yesterday’s Newsletter), we have to acknowledge that profits have been on a downward trend for five years now. This leads us to search for compelling reasons to think that earnings […]