74,1 Mio € außerplanmäßige Firmenwertabschreibungen... - 500 Beiträge pro Seite

[Truefairview]

bei Computerlinks. Ist ja total hart. Spricht eindeutig für die Qualität des Managements

[Speckratte]

Wahnsinn, habs auch kopfschüttelnd gelesen.

[DieBesteTraderin]

ABGESCHRIEBEN = GESCHICHTE

DER REST DER AD-HOC ist ZUKUNFT = BÖRSE = all unsere AKTIEN-KURS-GEWINNE !!!

DBT

[Obelisk]

Bei Articon hat eine solche Abschreibung zu einem gewaltigen Kurseinbruch geführt...................................

[okosling]

Von einem Board in England gestern (Motley Fool):

Germany`s lowest P/E, with cash and growth

Using Earnings before goodwill amortisation (which I think we agreed back in December is the right Earnings number to use), this has a P/E of about 3.4 for y/e Dec 2002, and forecast to be around 2.7 for this year and 2.3 for next year. Obviously, there must be a catch – declining industry? geared to the hilt? But no...

ComputerLinks is the company. IT reseller (70% is e-security).

51% owned by Fayrewood PLC (hence probably known to many of you).
14.5% owned by directors.
Market cap: EUR 18.2m. Net cash (Dec 2002): EUR 11.2m !

I`ll start with broker coverage (only HSBC Trinkaus & Burkhardt).
Their full report from Nov 2002 is here:
http://www.computerlinks.de/investorrelations/pdf/HSBC_0611_…

Their forecast for 2002: Revenue EUR 162m, EBITDA EUR 9.8m, EPS (before goodwill amortisation) EUR 0.87. The preliminary results were published on Friday, showing actual revenue EUR 165.8m and EBITDA EUR 10.2m. That prelim announcement didn`t actually give a figure for EPS, but I assume it must be around EUR 0.9. With a share price around EUR 3.10, this is a P/E of 3.4.
http://www.vwd.de/vwd/news.htm?id=20418407&navi=home&sektion…

The full year end report will be published on 11 March. The full 9 month accounts are here:
http://www.computerlinks.de/investorrelations/pdf/CPX302D.pd…

The forecast P/E figures I gave above are also derived from the HSBC report from Nov. I assume that with actual 2002 results slightly beating expectations, those figures will still hold good. HSBC have released an updated report today. I haven`t seen it, but highlights are reported here:
http://www.finanzen.net/analysen/analysen_detail.asp?Analyse…
Upgrade from Add to Buy. Price target now EUR 5.00.

The HSBC report from Nov said: “If the company decides to write down goodwill in Q4 2002, this would clearly be a catalyst to remove most of the discount and re-rate the stock.” The prelim announcement said they are writing down goodwill from EUR 87.4m at Dec 2001 to 8.4m at Dec 2002. This will reduce the future annual goodwill amortisation from EUR 4.8m to 0.5m.

In Germany, many popular databases are based on Earnings after goodwill amortisation, so this will reduce the P/E shown in those databases from around 7 to around 3, so it will come up on the radar screens of many investors who had not previously looked at it. Also, in a couple of weeks, when most 2002 actuals are available, the data typically presented in those tables will change from 2001/2002/2003 to 2002/2003/2004. So the table will show a P/E of about 3 with nice forecast growth. I believe this will help to `out` the value.

This company is also discussed on the FWY board, as it a listed subsidiary of FWY. FWY itself is said by many to be good value (I`m not disagreeing), but in my opinion, the German company is much better value, because (1) much lower P/E, (2) no debt, (3) better quality earnings (the other half of FWY is niche distribution with low margins, hence higher risk, while ComputerLinks has a good business model which is not so easily copied as it relies more on knowledge of its employees).

Here is some background info on e-security (which is 70% of their revenue):
http://techupdate.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t507-s2130936,00.html

Declaration: I hold 9000 of these, mostly bought in the last two weeks.