Asmus Puhl Finance Blog

Yesterday shares of Colfax Corp. (NYSE: CFX) reached a new all-time high at $ 62.09 after the company published the presentation and a audio replay of its Annual Investor Day on Dec. 17th!

Investors seem to like what the company had to say!

Colfax stock is up 54% this year!

If you are already a shareholder, lean back and enjoy the ride, if not wait for a cheaper entry point!

Markel Corp. (NYSE: MKL) announced that its board of directors has authorized a new share repurchase program covering purchases up to $300 million.

At a price/book ratio of just 1.2 management obviously thought that the best investment for Markel are its own shares.

The market still seemed to be worried about the Alterra integration but the share buyback announcement helped the share price to climb 2.6 % within 3 days.

Why don’t you join Markel’s decision to buy their shares, they are cheap ?!

Colfax Corporation (NYSE. CFX) will host its Annual Investor Event on December 17, 2013, only a few days before Christmas!

If you are not too busy to buy Christmas gifts at that time you’ll have a chance to get valuable insight into this fine company at this event!

Markel Corporation (NYSE: MKL) likes to bore us with good results over many years as CIO Tom Gayner pointed out after a conversation with a longterm shareholder.

So let’s have a quick look at the “boring“ Q3 2013 results:

As always Seeking Alpha published the transcript of their 2013 Q3 Conference Call and the company published the 10Q.

Total operating revenues grew 39% to $3 billion in 2013, from $2.2 billion in 2012.

The increase is due to a 42% increase in revenues from the insurance operations which includes $531 million from the Alterra segment and a 41% increase in revenues from their non-insurance operations which they refer to as Markel Ventures, as CFO Anne Waleski explained.

As Alterra added 6 points the combined ratio was 97% for the first nine months of 2013 compared to 96% in 2012. This highlights the integration effort still to make with Alterra.

Book value per common share outstanding increased 14% to $462.33 in Q3 up from $403.85 at the end of 2012.

And now have a look at this:

In the first nine months of 2013, revenue from Markel Ventures were $486 million, compared to $345 million in 2012. Net income to shareholders from Markel Ventures doubled to $18 million in 2013, compared to $9 million in 2012!

The last couple of quarters we already learned about the rapidly increasing importance of Markel Ventures and now its share of EBITDA from the company rose 54% to $64.2 million, up from $41.5 million a year ago!

At yesterday’s closing price of $ 538.58 the market valued Markel at at price/book ratio of only 1.2

2 things will more than others drive results at Markel in the future: Further improving results from the insurance segments when Alterra Holdings will be successfully integrated and the ever growing importance of Markel Ventures.

This stock is definitively a buy at this price!

Markel Corporation (NYSE: MKL) reported its Q3 2013 results!

Have a look!

When Colfax Corp. (NYSE: CFX) released its Q3 2013 Earnings it looked a bit like the previous quarter:

The economy is still sluggish but Colfax is humming along continuing with its M&A activity and applying the Colfax Business System (CBS) tools to improve margins and streamline all internal procedures.

As always Seeking Alpha published the conference call transcript.

The company reported net sales of $1.15 billion, an increase of 6% over the same period last year and overall margins expanded from 10.9% in the second quarter to 11.1% in the third quarter.

Adjusted EPS in Q3 was $0.56 per share. This represents a 70% increase versus the $0.33 per share reported last year.

There were some positive highlights in the quarter:

For the gas and fluid-handling segment, net sales for the third quarter were $511 million, an organic increase of 8%, compared to $465 million in last year’s third quarter.

Order activity accelerated across all end markets except marine during the quarter and bookings were helped by large orders in the power and mining end markets. This is typical for the heavy industry business Colfax is in: large orders can distort quarterly results.

The book-to-bill ratio for Colfax as a whole in the third quarter was 1.04:1, stronger than typical for the third quarter, reflecting the exceptionally strong quarter for gas- and fluid-handling orders.

But again, third quarter sales for fabrication technology were $503 million, down 1.2% organically versus the third quarter of 2012 and as there are no indicators that this trend will change in the fourth quarter Colfax lowers its guidance for revenue and earnings.

But this should not distort your long term view of Colfax!

Just imagine how this strong and efficient company will run forward when the economy starts to improve.

At a share price of $ 56.06 Colfax trades at a p/e ratio of 27 for FY 2013 and 22 for FY 2014.

Not cheap, certainly, but not too expensive either.

If you want to start a new position in Colfax perhaps you should consider „to buy in thirds“ over the next months.

Colfax Corp. (CFX: NYSE) released its Q3 2013 results which came in 0.03 $ better than analyst expectation!

Have a look!

Colfax Corp. (NYSE: CFX) is busy and its acquisition tour continues, step by step!

Today the company announced that they entered into a binding agreement to aquire CKD Kompresory in Prague, Czech Republic, for approximately $57M.

CKD Kompresory is a leading supplier of multi-stage centrifugal compressors to the oil & gas, petrochemical, power and steel industries and will be integrated into the Howden business.

Don’t ask Colfax Management whether the US government shut down will affect their business and investment activity: they will laugh at you!

Colfax Corp. stock (NYSE: CFX) on Wednesday Sept. 11 reached a new 52-week high  at $56.28 and closed the trading day at $55.72, reflecting a year-to-date return of 65.0%.

Capitalism at work!

Cheers!

Colfax (NYSE: CFX) started the “acquisition tour” it already announced in its Q2 2013 conference call by acquiring Fläkt Woods Group’s Global Infrastructure and Industry Business!

The price they paid appears very reasonable at about 9 times EBITDA and 1.1 times revenue.

The task for this acquisition specialist obviously will be to bring it up to Colfax margin standards by applying their Colfax Business System (“CBS”) tools and integrating it into the Howden business.

And their will be more news to come at the acquisition front as CEO Steve Simms stated in the press release: their is still money left from the May 2013 public offering  waiting to be spent!

Stay tuned!