RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:Target RaisedDropped it. Entered data for 2016, 2017, then stopped in the middle of 2018.
(1) Financial statements for the first two revenue-generating years have errors arising from misclassification of certain items. (2) There were instances of unexplained recasting between consecutive years. (3) Trading liquidity is very poor, so poor that a serious buy-in should be accompanied by a prayer that the company grows to many times its current size before you might want to sell.
Item (1) underwent some cleanup after a change in external auditor, but this problem suggests a lack of knowledge and/or experience in senior management. Item (2) is a particular concern for me and requires direct contact with the CFO for explanation. Item (3) is pretty much fatal.
What initially caught my eye was some of the brands they picked up, because I have some passing familiarity with them. I understood them to be successful, and wondered how DE could possibly buy them out. One acceptable possibility was that they looked around for older ownership, hoping to find people who wanted to retire but didn't have family to pass the business to. I'm still curious there.
Aside -- inflation matters. My constant-dollar DIV dividend before the 2020 cut (.01958) but after the two increases was lower than when I first bought in 2015 (.01854). Dividend up 5.6%, inflation 8.0%, so purchasing power of my dividend had fallen 2.4%. That's a bad thing, and Air Miles not keeping up with inflation is a bad thing. Let's hope it's temporary.
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babedinkleman wrote: We'll just have to agree to disagree.....you are clearly more of a numbers guy than me. I don't disagree with your new take on Air Miles....but that inflation based disappointment was laughable. They will indeed lose market share over time. And as I said with the price DIV paid, while not ideal, is more than fine. I'm just not sure how you make any real money in an efficient market when you need everything to be so spelled out black and white. There are always be some unknowns....or known unknowns.....or unknown unknowns.
Here's a question for you. I saw you posted on the Decisive Dividend board about possibly taking a position after doing some analysis (I saw this post a week ago, no worries about me stalking you). Me as an uneducated schmuck looks at that stock and within 30 seconds see a stock that has never even come close to covering it's dividend with net income. As they have always been paying out far more dividends than they make in profits how does this stock interest you? I know some think paying dividends out of cash flow and in the end borrowing money from Peter to pay Paul is ok but you don't strike me as that type. Serious question and I am interested in your take or reasoning given your opinion on DIV (which I'm assuming you sold a good portion of your position in this price range)