Earnings on Tap: Senvest, Seaboard and Installux

Senvest 2015 Q1 earnings showed that book value per share went to CDN$312 from CDN$264 just 3 months earlier. The company attributed some of the gains to favourable currency effects. The Canadian dollar was worth USD$0.79 at Q1 period end and today it is worth about USD$0.80. On the other hand, the Senvest Israel hedge funds is up 8% in April. So I can loosely say that Senvest further gained value up to today. So, the stock today at CDN$181 trades at around 55% of book! In my experience as a DIY investor, companies with liquid assets rarely trade below 60% of book. So the 50-60% range is my floor on Senvest stock. And typically, companies that trade at those levels reside in countries that have questionable corporate governance. But I don't think Senvest has such severe corporate governance issues to warrant such a discount.

The company's funds mostly focus on small and mid-cap companies. And they have outperformed the Russel 2000 index. The company also has CDN$736M in short positions. That is 29% of the balance sheet versus 27% the quarter earlier. This partially explains how the company can outperform the market. They mentioned one successful short of a financial company. The company was exposed to the Swiss de-pegging to the Euro. The management did not take credit for predicting the Swiss de-pegging and their short was based on other factors. But to me it shows that they did their homework and put in a sufficient margin of safety, and odds are things like that will happen.

Seaboard Corp reported Q1 earnings of $28.49 per share versus $40.55 per share a year earlier. The earnings was a disappointment but not a surprise when considering that pork was one of the worst performing commodities in Q1, even worse than oil. Pork prices reached a high of $1.20 last year during the swine flu epidemic, but last quarter had fallen to $0.60. Now it is back to around $0.80. The pork segment earned an operating profit of $19.1M versus $60.5M a year earlier. But this is not an apples to apples comparison as the company sold a 50% stake in a pork subdivision to Triumph. Management also mentioned that low feed prices were helpful for the results. Corn prices are at 8 year lows and I am hopeful that it will stay that way.

Seaboard's Marine Division earned an operating profit of $7.5M versus -$7.4M a year ago. This is one area where the company's performance exceeds the performance of a commodity industry. The company hopefully will benefit from increased trade with Cuba as they operate a huge facility Miami with a new 25 year lease.

	STAL
Price	€ 233.000
Market Cap	€ 70.72 M (USD $ 80 M)
P/E TTM	8.3 x
Div yield	3.4 %
P/BV	0.99
ROE	12.0 %
ROIC	13.1 %
LT Debt/Equity	0.07

The Searboard Trading and Milling Segment had a $9.2M loss from a affiliate in Brazil. This affiliate looks to be a continuing problem. We shall see how management handles it in the coming quarters.

Installux reported year end 2014 results that shows an improvement in profits despite a difficult economic climate. Sales were basically flat. My contrarian mind tells me that Europe could be the surprise in the coming several years. With the continuing QE by the European Central Bank money will flood Europe just like it did for America. I believe this will result in multiple expansion throughout Europe. Installux at 8.3x earnings is certainly a candidate for significant expansion. An expansion to 12x is very reasonable, and that would mean a 50% rise in stock value.