Taxes in Germany

The tax system in Germany is in my opinion very bad. The reason why I do not like it is because you fill out your details as you should and then in the end of it you have no clue how much money you should either pay to them or receive back.

Analysis of NCC

Company: NCC

Business: A Swedish construction company that is the second largest in the Nordic countries. The company is divided into four business unites: Construction, Housing, Roads and Property development. Just for interest it was NCC that built the Turning Torso located in Malmö.
   
Active: Mainly the Nordic countries so Sweden, Norway, Finland and Denmark. Some activity in Germany and very little in the Baltic countries as well as in St. Petersburg (very specifically and besides form that no other presence in Russia). The growth focus is St. Petersburg and the Baltic countries.

P/E: 8.7

Analysis of Skanska

Company: Skanska

Business: A Swedish world leading project development and construction group that is active within Construction, Homes, Commercial property and Public Private Partnerships.
   
Active: Pretty much world wide with strongest focus in Europe, North and South America.

P/E: 16

Living on half salary: first month

As I previously have mentioned in an article I´ve been forced due to liquidity problems as well as insolvent clients to my company to step down to half salary. The first month is almost over and it will be interesting to see if I can transfer some cash to the stock deposit or not. As soon as I get my salary I directly transfer everything above 2k € to the stock deposit. I think it is important to make sure to put aside money for oneself as the first thing one does each month. Once that money is gone from the account I am forced to adapt my spending thereafter.

Analysis of Leoni

Company: Leoni

Business: A Germany based company that have two large division: Wire & Cable Solutions which develops, produces and assembles wires and strands, optical fibres as well as complete cable systems. The seconds division is the Wiring System which develops and produces cable harnesses as well as complete wiring for the automobile industry.

Active: They are currently active in 32 countries world wide and are pushing expansion in the BRIC countries.

P/E: 7.6

Analysis of Kloeckner

Company: Kloeckner & Co SE

Business: German producer of steel and metal products. The product lines they offer are: Long products (special profiles), Flat products (sheets for shipbuilding and machinery engineering), Tubes (precision steel and seamless heavy wall tubes), Stainless steel & quality steel (e.g. high-alloy round steel bars for machinery engineering), Aluminium (mechanical engineering) as well as Special products (plastics & ironware). The biggest one is the so called flat products which represents 46% of their business.

Active: The bigger European countries, the USA, Mexico and Brazil as well as China. In total they are present in 15 countries. As a small comment I was not happy with their homepage due to that it was not directly clear what they are producing and selling. Even though they live on B2B sales it should be 100% clear when one enters the homepage what they have to offer.

P/E: -4.4

Contrarian times are here!

The stocks are dropping like stones and by the look of it for every day the stocks are dropping new moments are opening up for getting good stocks on the cheap. The question is then which stocks should one buy and are they cheap enough. I decided to go through my own list of companies that I have a recommended buy on to see how they are now in stock price in comparison to when I made the analysis.

Allianz back then it was in 113€ and today it is in 106€. (-6.2%)
Asian Bamboo back then it was in 4.2€ and today it is in 2.5€. (-40%)
Barclays back then it was in 3.1£ and today it is in 2.8£. (-9.7%)
E.ON. back then it was in 14.2€ and today it is in 12.2€. (-14%)
ENEL back then it was in 2.7€ and today it is in 2.5€. (-7.4%)
Esperito back then it was in 5.6€ and today it is in 5.3€. (-5.4%)
Fortum back then it was in 14.6€ and today it is in 13.8€. (-5.5%)
Iberdrola back then it was in 4.3€ and today it is in 4.0€. (-7.0%)
Kernel back then it was in 14.7€ and today it is in 10.7€. (-27%)
Tesco back then it was in 3.7£ and today it is in 3.3£. (-10.8%)

So plenty of nice chances are opening up and there are some very good moments to buy great companies on the cheap! Slightly sad to see that the companies I already own have also dropped the most. It is never easy to time to the moment when to step into a cheap company that are having some difficulties.

Analysis of ThyssenKrupp

Company: ThyssenKrupp

Business: Steel industry mainly. Producing bearings for wind power plants, producing crushers for mining industry, plants for battery production, cement plants, pushing and focusing a lot on decreased CO2-emission. They are also surprisingly enough producing PLA polymer. All in all they have five groups : Components Technology, Elevator Technology, Industrial Solutions, Materials Services and Steel Europe. They claimed it to be six groups but I can only count it to being five so I wonder what the hidden group is doing but by the look of their financial statement one group must be burning money so I guess it is that one.

Active: German company so a large focus on Germany and Europe, presence all over the world and claim to be in 80 countries including China as well as North America and South America. Currently they are divesting steel plants in the USA as well as in Brazil which is costing money.

P/E: -1.6

Analysis of Beijer Alma

Company: Beijer Alma

Business: A Swedish small conglomerate with three daughter companies: Lesjöfors that are making springs and wires, Habia Cable that are making cables and cable systems and Beijer Tech that are working with Industrial rubber and industrial products.
  
Active: The three companies have different level of activity in different countries. All of them are active in Europe but as an example... Lesjöfors is now stepping in on the German market, Habia Cable in China and Beijer Tech is expanding in Norway. Overall the group seems to have a presence in over 50 markets world wide.

P/E: 16.7

Glad midsommar!

Today is the midsummer party in the Scandinavian countries! In Germany I of course do not have the day off because they do not celebrate such old Viking traditions of fertilizing the soil. However I will sneak away early to go to a party here in Berlin that is being supported by the Nordic Embassy. For this reason I was forced to do some cooking yesterday evening. Nothing serious but there are some things that must be present for the midsummer party. Newly harvested potatoes, herring, sour crème, vodka & strawberries. Anything besides from these five things are just extra things to make it more flashy and are definitely not needed. Since I will have a date... I will however make it a little bit more flashy.

Analysis of Enel

Company: Enel

Business: Italian power and gas company. They have hydroelectric, thermoelectric, nuclear, geothermal, wind, solar and other renewable power plants. They also have the network not only for electricity but also for gas pipelines.

Active: Strongest presence in Italy and generally Europe, another strong hub is in South America. In total they are present in 40 countries on 4 continents.

P/E: 29.7

R&D in Germany

In one of my energy posts I touched a little on a theme that is actually very strongly connected to me and my life here in Germany which concerns Governmental funding of Research and Development.
The start of this post has been hanging around in the draft folder for a long time but today the spark for writing it got re-ignited via an article that I read in Bloomberg.

Analysis of EDF

Company: EDF

Business: French energy company which means that their main, main focus is on nuclear energy but they also have solar, wind and hydro.

Active: Almost all over Europe, in the US, Brazil, Thailand and South Africa.

P/E: 10.3

German shareholders one day behind?

This is the second time I have now made the observation that something has happened in a company that normally would have decreased the stock value but on the day of the news nothing really happened here in Germany. However the day after the effect was directly there with the starting price of the stock.

Pershing Square: William Ackman Q1 2013

This hedge fund, Pershing Square Capital Management LP, is being run by William "Bill" Ackman and lately his name has been in the air due to the battle with Carl Icahn concerning Herbalife. Strangely enough I saw no filing of Herbalife which I find a bit odd...

I recently saw in investment video by him were he very shortly explained how to set up a lemonade stand, to run it and how to grow it. Nothing new there but I liked that he said... "the ideal thing is to buy a stock and hold it forever". Due to that sentence I then decided to check out his hedge fund to see if they were working according to that concept or not.

Analysis of Iberdrola

Company: Iberdrola

Business: The biggest energy company in Spain. Their main focus is on renewable energy and they are strongly pushing wind and solar power production. They also make sure to keep the power nets as a division of the group

Active: Strong presence in Spain, much weaker in United Kingdom, the United States, Brazil and Mexico.

P/E: 9.2

2013 similar to 2009?

I do not know how many of you know it but I have my own company here in Berlin and we are working in connection with two of the bigger German industries which are the automotive as well as the chemical. For this reason I have a small finger on the pulse of the German industry.

Analysis of Fortum

Company: Fortum

Business: A Finnish energy company that themselves claim to have four division: Power, Heat, Russia & finally Electricity Solutions & Distribution.
  
Active: Very strong Nordic presence, then of course Russia with its on division (13% of the sales but... 50% of the employees are there...), Poland and the Baltic countries.

P/E: 9.2

Analysis of Aperam

Company: Aperam

Business: Steel production that is organized in three divisions: Stainless & Electrical Steel, Service & Solutions and Alloys & Specialties
  
Active: The have six main plants located in Brazil, Belgium and France. Besides from the production sites they are operating in 40 different countries.

P/E: -8.8

Analysis of Allianz

Company: Allianz

Business: Insurance company divided into two parts: Insurance Operations with a wide range of Property-Casualty and Life/Health insurance products for both private and corporate customers. Secondly they have with their float also Asset Management with more than € 1,852 billion assets under management with active investment strategies. (we know that active does not always equalise good... Buy index funds people!)
 
Active: Biggest insurance company in Germany, besides from that active in 70 countries with 78 million customers.

P/E: 10.0

Analysis of Sampo

Company: Sampo

Business: Insurance company divided into three parts: Property and casualty insurance, Life insurance and Investment (they use their float just like any other insurance company). They own over 20% of the Nordea bank.
 
Active: Strong Nordic presence so in Finland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, the Baltic countries and also in Russia.

P/E: 12.4

Dividend from Intel

I received some dividend from Intel in the quantity of 17.25 € for my 100 Shares. Unfortunately since the stock is American I have to pay some heavy taxes on that dividend and all I ended up with is 12.85 € which will be added to the Stock Dividend page.

So the question is... Is there any chance of getting that tax money back or is that lost forever? What is the tax advantage of only having European stocks?

Analysis of ArcelorMittal

Company: ArcelorMittal

Business: Mining (iron ore + coal) as well as steel production. I found it funny that they are talking about up stream and down stream just like oil companies to describe the two parts.

Active: At least they claim to be the largest steel producer in the Americas, Africa and Europe. They have 16 mines running or under development (globally) and are running steel-mills in 20 countries.

P/E: -5.1

Analysis of Barclays

Company: Barclays

Business: Financial services provider engaged in personal banking, credit cards, corporate and investment banking as well as wealth and investment management. A funny sentence that I found on their homepage "Barclays moves, lends, invests and protects money for customers and clients worldwide." I wonder what the difference is between a customer and a client? Is the money protection against thieves or tax offices?

Active: Global activity with presence in Europe, North and South America, Africa as well as in Asia. In total they are present in 50 countries world wide so in a way they are a diversification on their own.

P/E: -36.5