Analysis of BMW

Company: BMW

Business: A German automobile and motorcycle producer. They have three units which are: BMW (also motorcycle), Mini and Rolls-Royce. They don´t really flash it on their homepage but they also have the car sharing called DriveNow which to me is of importance because they can use that as an extra buffer for when car sales are low etc.

Active: They are actively selling their cars all over the world but still the main bulk of production is either in Germany or in the UK (due to Mini and Rolls-Royce)

P/E: 10.4

Analysis of Beiersdorf

Company: Beiersdorf

Business: A German consumer goods company that are divided into two business segments: The Consumer Business Segment and Tesa Business Segment. In Consumer they are for instance making all the Nivea products that involves crèmes, shower gels etc. and in the Tesa (which is standing pretty much on their own homepage here) they are making the self-adhesives that many of us also know.

Active: They are present all over the world since they are marketing and selling their product lines in over 100 countries.

P/E: 37.6

Analysis of Bayer

Company: Bayer

Business: A German chemical company that are active in pharmaceutical industry, in the agricultar industry and high-performance materials. They are divided into four business units: Bayer Healthcare, Bayer CropScience, Bayer MaterialScience and Service Areas (which include Bayer Business Services, Bayer Technology Services and Currenta).

Active: All over the world to describe their global presence they have over 50,000 employees in Europe, 16,000 in South America & Africa, 15,000 in North America and 26,000 in Asia & Pacific.

P/E: 29.2

Transfer to stock deposit... September 2013

I just made a slightly crazy thing... and I am sure that I will regret it during the coming month (maybe already tomorrow morning!) but so be it... If I will be forced to live on stale bread and water in the end of the month then I might trim off some kg anyway so no one will lose.

As I mentioned in a previous article I have been forced to drop down to half salary and before this salary drop I managed to save 50% each month. So with the salary cut I was down to being able to save practically nothing. To read that older article please go here. Why the starvation?

Analysis of BASF

Company: BASF

Business: A German chemical company. One of the biggest if not the biggest in the world which is why they love their slogan "BASF - The Chemical Company". They have several different business units: Chemicals, Performance Products, Functional Materials & Solutions, Agricultural Solutions & finally Oil & Gas. One could maybe consider oil and gas to be a bit outside their sphere of competence but considering that all the polymers they use in their every day business comes originally from oil they have no other way then to try to secure their raw material by owning their own wells.

Active: They are present all over the world and have globally 380 production sites the biggest one is still in Germany, Ludwigshafen. I have been there myself and to go from one business unit to the next one had to go by taxi.

 P/E: 13.6

Analysis of Guideline Geo

Company: Guideline Geo

Business: A Swedish company that are active within geophysics and geotechnology. They have three focus areas: Water - finding water in areas where it was not previously known to exist, Environment - mainly mapping of suburban areas to find best location for a city to expand and finally Infrastructure - where they aid with construction and maintenance. The company is built up by Abem, which has been around since 1923, and Malå.

Active: They are pretty global. At least they claim to have customers in over 100 countries.

P/E: 6.1

Dividend from BP: September 2013

I received once again dividend for my 350 British Petroleum shares since they pay out each quarter. I got 0.05763 GBP per share which translates into a total of 23.82 € for my shares. On this dividend they removed some taxes in the quantity of 6.28 € which left me with 17.54 € to re-invest somewhere.

The page concerning dividend has been updated and can be found here.

Analysis of Fenix Outdoor

Company: Fenix Outdoor AB (sorry but their home page is only in Swedish!)

Business: A Swedish company producing outdoor camping equipment and outdoor wear. They have several, at least within Europe well known brands where they are currently making an organic expansion.  Some of the brands are Fjällräven, Tierra, Primus and the retail part called Naturkompaniet. In Germany the brands are for instance being sold in Globetrotter. For the full list of brands and some additional information please look here but it is in Swedish also.

Active: Very strong presence in the Nordic countries and are currently expanding in Europe.

P/E: 22.5

What is coming next?

I have still two requests (Fenix Outdoor and Guideline Geo) that I will need to finish off and that will be done in the next couple of days. After that I have decided that it is a bit silly that I have not gone through all the stocks on Dax and MDax (and then some kind of selection from TecDax and SDax) so this simply must be done to have a proper database on the companies that Germany offers.

After that my idea would be to take a look at the major stocks in different European countries with most likely a focus towards the south and east since their might be some interesting grains to be found. But a little warning though... when I was going through that the last time which was a bit over a year ago then I found that all the "good" companies were still very expensive and only the bad ones had been severely beaten by Mr. Market as it also should be but for that reason I can not promise that we will find too many golden eggs.

While I make these pushes of the contrarian analysis then please just feel free to post requests for analysis of stocks that you find interesting here. I will try to make them as soon as possible and since these pushes will not be branch based I will try to bring in the things directly but it might take up to a week from request until analysis arrives.

General conclusion sport shoe companies

Based on the group of companies that I have now analysed which ranges from being very pure into sports and sports goods and then moving more and more towards outdoor activities but still a part of sport goods: Adidas, Nike, Puma, Asics, Amer Sports, Jarden Corporation, Mizuno, Wolverine and Deckers Outdoor.

Barry Ritholtz & The Big Picture

I have since two years back been reading The Big Picture Blog by Barry Ritholtz. He likes to have strong opinions about things, especially within economy and how bad the investment banks have been and how they have been sucking investors dry from money with large fees. In a way he has been speaking up for the little investor in the street. Which I felt that I belonged to. He has also been upset about how the 1% has been making more and more money in the US.

Now he and a fellow blogger that I do not follow have now created their own hedge-like fund where you can add in 1 million USD or more at only a fee of 1.25% per year for being able to take advantage of their excellent skills as investors.

Strangely enough (or is it not strange?) I felt betrayed by this move since the ones he were complaining on he has now joined himself. Did he only use his blog and his blog fame to get a foot into the "big" room to play with the big boys?

So for that reason I have decided to remove him from my blog list and I will add another well known American blogger called Mr. Money Mustache. His blog is more about life style and how you can save yourself to economical freedom. As he says if you can save 50% of your salary each month then you can reach financial independence in 17 years if you can save 75% then you can reach it in 7 years. So no matter what your salary is if you can adapt your life according to a certain level of spending then you can reach your independence. More expensive lifestyle, then more money is needed for being able to live on the capital gains. He also proclaims a healthy mixture of real estate, stocks, especially index funds and any other source of diversified income.

I like MMM so he is now added! Barry your out!

Analysis of Deckers

Company: Deckers Outdoor Corporation

Business: An American outdoor and sports shoe producer with focus on niche markets and nice products. The brands they have are for instance: Teva - a kind of sport sandals, Hoka One One - purely for marathon runners and Mozo - that are for people working in a kitchen. For the rest of the brands please look here.

Active: The are present in the US, Europe and in Asia.

P/E: 17.6

Analysis of Wolverine

Company: Wolverine World Wide

Business: An American sports, outdoor, work and regular shoe producer. They have several brands in their portfolio that they either fully own or license. To mention a few of the brands: Bates, Cat footwear, Merrell, Saucony and of course Wolverine. For the full list of brands please look here.

Active: They are active globally and their products are sold in 200 countries. Many of the brands I have seen in the stores but I have never bought one of them The last running shoes that I bought for myself was a pair of Asics.

P/E: 34.8

The German election

The German election to the Bundestag will be held tomorrow here in Germany. Since it is Bundestag I am not allowed to vote as a foreigner but of course, since I live & work here it is very much in my interest how the outcome will be. To take it one step further... it is and should be in the interest of  the entire Europe how the election will go in Germany. What is interesting here is that it seems as if the world and Europe do not care. Everyone cared very much in Italy, everyone cared about the election in France but in Germany? Not so much. Why is that I wonder?


Even though I am not allowed to vote I decided to make the Wahl-O-Mat to check which party would be the best one for me. To my surprise the first one became the Piratenpartei that is fairly young party that was started up with the entire European wave concerning internet rights, storage of personal information etc. For the last election they hardly had a party program but only pushed one point. Today it has become a more established party and their ideas and opinions correlate very strongly to the young German population. I have not talked to a single young person in Germany where Piratenpartei did not end up among the three top parties on their Wahl-O-Mat list. My second party on the list was Die Grüne and as a big chock Die Linke came in on third place. I have no clue how that happened and I would never vote on them since I find it appalling when a political party in one of the biggest democracies in the world are pushing that they should not send soldiers on UN missions because they might die. Sorry but as a democracy that is one of the burdens you must carry to keep the world at some kind of peaceful level and any party coming with idiotic things like that will never be taken serious by me.

Analysis of Mizuno

Company: Mizuno

Business: A Japanese sports goods company with similar product lines as the others and they themselves divide it into: Baseball goods, Sporting footwear, Sporting Apparel, Golf goods and Others. Mizuno started to produce their first golf clubs already in the 30s'. Just like Asics they have had a tough time due to the deflation in Japan.

Active: They are present all over the world with sales offices however 75% of their revenue has been coming from Japan so they have established themselves worse then Asics outside Japan.

P/E: 42.5

Stocks of Interest: September 2013

Now it was time to make an update of the page that contains the Stocks of Interest as can be found here. Over the course of the last months several of the stocks have increased in value but are still of interest for investment. Some companies have been added to the list and some companies are hanging on the boarder of being either kicked out or I must update their motivated P/E but only IF they are showing better growth.


The companies that are on the boarder are: HSBC Holding and NCC.

The latest additions to the list are: Sektkellerei Schloss Wachenheim, A2A, Agroton, Deutsche Beteiligungs AG, Investor, Industrivärden, Balaton and Lundbergs.

Analysis of Doro

Company: Doro

Business: A Swedish telecom company focusing on a growing niche market. They have succeeded were Ericsson failed (their final gaming mobile phone consuls did not work out but it was a niche market attempt). Doros successful business is to produce mobile phones for seniors all over the world which we all know is a lucrative market due to several reasons: They have money, they are loyal and they are a rapidly growing market! 

Active: Doro is active on five continents and are making sales in 30 countries world wide.

P/E: 19.1

Analysis of Jarden Corporation

Company: Jarden Corporation

Business: An American sports, outdoor and consumer products company. They have a broad portfolio of brands and the most well known to me are: Adio, Marmot, NUK, Billy Boy, Marker and K2. For the full list of brands please look here.

Active: With all their broad range of brands they are present world wide.

P/E: 15.3

The winners of the poll

Were all the voters that picked 600 euro! Congratulations! The exact amount was 580 euro and 6 cents. The 6 cents were directly dropped into the now empty jars and 80 euro was kept in cash and 500 was added to the bank account.

Analysis of Amer Sports

Company: Amer Sports

Business: A Finnish sports goods company that technically-advanced sports equipment, footwear, apparel and accessories improve performance and increase the enjoyment of sports and outdoor activities. They have several well known brands, at least to Europeans such as: Salomon, Wilson, Atomic and Arc'teryx for the full list please look here. Salomon was a French company that was bought by Adidas, I think it was in the 90s' for around 2.5 billion euros. Adidas never managed to get it running and therefor sold it to Amer Sports for around 550 million euros.

Active: They are present world wide and are making almost as much sales in North and South America as they do in Europe. Their own sales network is present in 33 countries.

P/E: 30.9

Analysis of Asics

Company: Asics

Business: A Japanese company that are manufacturing and selling sports goods. Hmmm... I´m not happy wit that they do not very clearly show the brands that they have besides from Asics. But from my previous investigations I knew that Onitsuka Tiger belonged to Asics and in the yearly report they also mention Haglöfs especially due to that the sales of their waterproof wear had been very good in 2012.

Active: World-wide and are trying to push the emerging markets. Without doubt their strongest base is still Japan and when you add up the sales from Europe and USA then that is only slightly more then the sales in Japan.

P/E: 25.5

An apology to all smartphone/iPhone users

I am very sorry for how bad the pages looked in the smartphones and the iPhones. I had not realised that the pages on the phones always started with my long annoying description of why I try build up a stock portfolio before the then new article appeared. So there was apparently always a lot of scrolling and time being wasted for no purpose. Sorry.

I have now made some changes which should significantly improve the reading experience. If any of you laptop, smartphone, iPhone, iPad or desktop readers are unhappy about some issue or any other aspects for that matter then please just let me know so that I can at least try to improve the situation for every one. In this case I happily stumbled upon the problem by accident.

And as a final remark I am not a professional blogger and therefore I do not know if I will find the solution to every problem but I will try my very best once I know what the issue is.

Analysis of Puma

Company: Puma SE

Business: A German sports footwear, apparel and accessories company. They have three major brands: Puma, Cobra Golf and Tretorn. To find out more about the brands then please look here. It is interesting to see that all of the big sport shoes companies  have their own golf brand. Were the executives so unhappy with their golf results which must have been due to the clubs so that they had to create their own brand? Strange that these companies are not promoting golf into being a public sport instead of exclusive as it is still today in many countries. They could make big bucks on that lobbying activity. Even better they could find the direct data for that by taking a closer look at Sweden in the 90s' beginning of 00s'. Today it has died again but I am sure much money was made during those years.

 

Active: World wide but strongest sales are made in Europe and USA.

P/E: 47.0

New stock bought: DBAG

After going through some investment companies in Germany as well as in Sweden I decided that it was a good moment to step into one of them. I therefore bought 50 Shares in Deutsche Beteiligungs AG to the price of 20.22 € per Share (including the fees).

With this buy I stepped into several mid-sized German companies that are the heart, soul and backbone of the German industry. These type of companies are also the reason for why Germany is famous world wide with their precise engineering and with their on-time delivery.

With the next month report I will update the Stock Portfolio list and especially the cash level which has now dropped down to zero. There might be a small chance that I will be able to push some money into the deposit next month due to two reasons:

1. I exchanged the coins that I had collected for many years and
2. I received around 220 € back from my health insurance since I did not visit the doctor during 2012.

I will let you know how it turns out.

Analysis of Nike

Company: Nike
 
Business: An American company that are selling and developing athletic footwear, apparel, equipment and accessories. They have several brands: Nike, Nike Golf, Hurley, Jordan Brand and Converse. For more information about the individual brands please look here.

Active: They are present world wide and they are known world wide by name and symbol. I do however not buy their products I guess it comes from their Air products that broke far to fast when I was a teenager and that has left its mark even until today.

P/E: 23.4