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The public be damned !

The Alpine Group, Inc (APNI.OB) manufactures wire and cable products in Israel through its subsidiary Superior Cables, Ltd.

Market Cap.       =   35.82 mils
Total debt          =   2.5   mils
Total cash          =   88.9  mils
Enterprise Value = - 50.52 mils

Price per share   =  3.26 $
Cash  per share  =  8    $
P/E                    =  3.24
ROE                  =  11.33%

Every share this company buys is 2.45 x cheaper than if it was bought by normal investor directly on stock exchange (8 : 3.26 = 2.45).
Management is buying back its shares, liquidating preferred stocks and purchasing the parent company's stock .


Public be damned ! said Martin Whitman in 1999.

Alpine's management would probably agree.

By GordonGekko at 2006-06-13 19:24 | Stocks | GordonGekko's blog


preferred shares

Don't forget to take the preferred shares into account. The per-share numbers listed above are for the
common shares. But you have to add in something for the preferred, since each 1 preferred share can
be converted into more than 730 common shares!

If you assume that conversion occurs, the assets per share are diluted by a factor of 2.
Let's see what the most recent 10Q has to say.

>The Company has excluded the assumed conversion of all stock options (1.0 million),
>restricted stock grants (0.7 million) and convertible preferred stock (12,828 preferred shares
>convertible into 9.4 [million] common shares)

As for management, the CEO and other officers have sold large blocks of the common stock.
Some are buying, some are selling. It may or may not be a good investment, I don't know.

It could be a mistake to ignore those convertible preferred shares!
By bugmegnat at Wed, 2006-06-14 00:16 | login or register to post comments

RE: preferred shares

Marek:

First, I just want to say that I really like the kinds of pure value stocks you uncover.  Keep up the good work!


RE: Alpine
Like Bug, I noticed the insider selling as well.  A lot of it seems to be option flipping, however.  But still big chunks of shares nonetheless.

Also, Bug is right about the preferred stock.  The diluted shares total around 24 million even after the dutch auction.   That means all your numbers, like P/E, should be doubled.  But they still have $3.70 in cash per share.  Although much smaller than $8, that's still a lot of cash.  Basically, buying the stock today at $3.38 you would get the company for free and be paid an additional $0.30 per share.


-theo
By Theo at Wed, 2006-06-14 11:35 | login or register to post comments

Screening

Marek/Theo, great job... I really like your writtings... I have learned a lot from them.... I wonder how do you screen to find this companies... I have run several screens but definitely have not come with anything like you guys.... any suggestions?

By Valuelight at Tue, 2006-06-20 11:14 | login or register to post comments

RE: Screening

I use MSN Money for my screening.  However, to be honest, most of my ideas do not come from screens anymore.  My best ideas come from reading the newspaper, blogs, magazine articles, analyst reports, SEC filings, newsletters, investing websites, and just talking to other investors.  There are a lot of smart people out there with great ideas to share.

-theo

By Theo at Wed, 2006-06-21 12:06 | login or register to post comments

RE:Screening

http://screener.finance.yahoo.com/newscreener.html


Click on Launch yahoo finance stock screener.This one I use.
By GordonGekko at Wed, 2006-06-21 12:52 | login or register to post comments