Professor Glen Arnold

Connect Group (LSE:CNCT) has been through a very difficult period during which it saw its strategy of integrating its newspaper delivery business (Smiths News) with its parcel delivery business (Tuffnells) fall apart. It turns out that there are few synergies. But there was significant disruption and loss of front line empowerment and accountability. Tuffnell’s people […]

Isn’t it great when share prices fall? If you intend to be a net investor, not a net seller of shares, over the next few years/decades then, when markets go down, you are given opportunities to buy portions of businesses you like at lower prices all because Mr Market is having a hissy-fit (assuming you […]

Here are some more great ideas from great investors said in a great way. Once you are able to tell the story of a stock to your family, your friends, or the dog and so that even a child could understand it, then you have a proper grasp of the situation Peter Lynch Don’t make […]

Peter Lynch’s performance when he ran Fidelity’s Magellan Fund was astounding. He achieved an annual rate of return of 29.2%, turning $1,000 into $28,000 in 13 years. Philip Fisher, the leading thinker in growth-at-a-reasonable-price school of thought, ran portfolios in California.  He is one of Warren Buffett’s heroes – Warren learned a lot about qualitative […]

Unlike the Lord, the market does not forgive those who know not what they do.                                       Warren Buffett (B.H. 1982) The market can be a cruel place for those who do not take the time to learn good investment methods and philosophy.   If you are unable to examine a company in sufficient depth for you […]

It is always good to remember key value investing principles.  Some of our greatest investors have expressed profound ideas in pithy sentences.  I need constantly to be reminded of “the right way”, to have my compass reset, so I enjoy reading these aphorisms again.  I hope you find some value in them. Although it’s easy […]

Simon Hedger, a friend and fellow shareholder in Haynes, and someone who looks into companies deeply, passed on some useful information about the fruits of all that investment the Haynes directors have been doing. His email:  “I think it would be good to highlight some of the new contracts they are winning across their portfolio […]

Haynes (LSE:HYNS) is most famous for its paper vehicle manuals.  But today that business accounts for only one-quarter of turnover.  Around one-half of turnover and virtually all profits come from supplying information online to 60,000 mechanics all over Europe. It is in this hi-tech business that we are most likely to find an economic franchise, […]

Warren Buffett stated (1991 letter) that a business with an economic franchise exhibited the following: (a) a product or service needed or desired (b) is thought by customers to have no close substitutes available (c) not price regulated. I see Haynes (LSE:HYNS) as serving three distinct markets.  It draws on many common assets controlled from […]

Haynes (LSE:HYNS) uses a lot of shareholders money and we need to assess whether that money generates a good rate of return.  There are different ways of measuring the money tied up in the business, ranging from “net assets” to “capital employed” defined as average total assets less current liabilities.  Haynes’ directors regard the latter […]