Professor Glen Arnold

PV Crystalox (LSE:PVSC) has current assets exceeding all liabilities by £34.2m (to be really conservative non-current asset values are ignored). This net current asset value, NCAV, per share of 21.4p compares with its current share price of 13p – 14p (MCap = £21m). The reason Mr Market has pushed this share down is that it […]

Haynes (LSE:HYNS) seems to have shocked Mr Market with a profit warning yesterday. Apparently, sales of printed manuals are declining in the US and Australia, as they have for at least six years. This is disappointing. But the key question is whether the core business is badly damaged. The first thing to note is that […]

Berkshire Hathaway was the largest company controlled by Buffett in 1970. His 29% of the votes plus the loyalty of other shareholders, many of which were former partners, meant he could dominate the boardroom and capital allocation decisions. Berkshire Hathaway had morphed from being a textiles-only company in the mid-1960s with $22m of tangible net […]

I’m going to search the entire UK market for new net current asset value investments. This will take a few days. In the meantime I’ll entertain you by relating the next stage in the Warren Buffett story. (For new subscribers: the earlier 40-odd Newsletters on Buffett’s investments can be found by searching on my Deep […]

At Friday’s AGM the non-executive directors did not have a satisfactory answer to my linked questions: “Director remuneration rose from around £1m to £1.7m in a year of very modest basic earnings (£0.1m or 0.13p per share) and with the company having only a market capitalisation £33m. Why such a jump? I’d like to link […]

Titon (LSE:TON) has been a very good share for me. In September 2013 I purchased at 37.9p. I sold all my holdings last week for 106p. Together with dividends (6.5p), that makes Titon almost a 3-bagger (a 197% increase, to be more precise). I’ve chosen to sell this particular share because I’m concerned that its […]

The way I see it there are three alternative routes which might lead to a jump in the share price. 1.Managerial excellence The executive directors have implemented a plan for revival. This required a survey of customers to discover what they were doing right and where they were going wrong. They are now trying to […]

Havelock Europa (LSE:HVE) is in the last chance saloon – if it continues trading at a loss of a million or three it will run out money within two years. It has to get going again as a company that serves its customers so well that it can charge prices that allow a good margin […]

Havelock Europa (LSE:HVE) has had a horrible few years. Back in 2007 its share was 160p. After years of losses caused by bad management and exacerbated by the recession I was able to pick up some shares last May for 14.61p. At the time, it looked OK on the Piotroski metrics (financial distress indicators), and […]

Despite TClarke (LSE:CTO) showing some positive signs of increased pricing power, revenue and profits, there are issues that we need to keep an eye on. We have yet to see large profits coming through. They say they are held back by the old low-margin contracts only now being completed. But can we be sure that […]