Food company Poulaillon (44m market cap) is taken private by the controlling family.

Another win for Emerging Value, although I would have liked to see it go higher.

This had been my top idea in hidden champions for over a year, with sometimes another Idea competing for the top spot.

I had been adding to Poulaillon heavily in 2025 and early 2026, so I got out with a large profit and some tax to pay.

This helps me to be at 3.9% YTD in Euros despite taking large provisions for capital gains after January reshuffling.

Many European nano caps are way too cheap and for this reason are being taken private by majority owners.

5.5% of my portfolio was reallocated two days ago.

I took the opportunity to add to Tech exposure in emerging markets, Defense in Europe, AI in China, Latin American renaissance, and a little bit of European hidden champions.

More importantly, this sets me for excellent performance in the next decade, just by having the right assets, the cheap valuations and the right geographies.

I really pushed the portfolio further towards tech and EMs, to benefit from the Asian Century, like my fellow writer and Friend Michael at Asian Century Stocks calls it.

I really believe in the Asian and especially Chinese century, and in the rest of Emerging markets.

The portfolio is now 55% composed of emerging markets and 28% of technology.

Cheaper valuations + faster growth = higher gains.

With this, we will keep performing well and should keep outperforming.

As I mentioned in my last update, I added to Kontron in Austria.

1 - Kontron AG, increased from 2.3% to 4% of my portfolio.

Internet of things company Kontron is on my todo list to add, so I added to this company heavily. It’s simple. If you want AI things to control things remotely and not get hacked and also cooperate with each other, you want IOT computers and protocols and systems the Kontron does. The market has no size limit. Think operating systems for drones and robots. But the valuation is also very cheap and insiders are buying a lot.

I believe that for this kind of systems, we are here in the early adopters phase of the markets, we could even be in the innovators phase if we talk about robots and drones.

The next company that I added: the cheapest e-commerce company globally, with a free call option for patient investors.

All other additions explained below.

Read more

IMS SA was analysed this summer.

The stock price went down a lot since then.

This was caused by deteriorating fundamentals. The company saw flat sales and increased costs.

Decreasing EBIT and EBITDA…

Read more

Overall these numbers are not significant and we are all waiting for markets to move in earnings again to produce results.

I observe that many quality companies are flat or down, while deep value and semi conductor exposed cyclical names are up a lot.

It is a good time to invest in quality companies in my opinion.

But it could also be a generational opportunity in some cyclical bottlenecks like semi conductor equipment, memory and rare metals. Lastly, for this type of businesses, I am not an expert. It is true that the Nvidia trade was legendary, and many value investors dismissed it.

I think that the memory trade is similar to the Nvidia trade and I have put a small portion of the portfolio -2%- in the memory trade. It is some speculation. I am not an expert on Semi conductors, and you should rather follow me for the value and quality ideas, not for that. Maybe my enter marks the top of the cycle, but I don’t think it is.

Macro is taking a more important part in recent times with the recent wars and AI Capex. The last decade nothing happened, this decade everything happens.

Emerging markets are direct beneficiaries of the commodity and resources for AI and the energy transition trends.

I am thinking to exit some more defensive names that worked well post covid to get into faster growth, with more focusing on macro trends if I find it (Electrification, AI, Copper) at value price. This is hard to find at value prices. If I don’t, I will keep adding to E-commerce and other quality compounders.

The full portfolio is for premium subscribers.

Subscribe now

Read more

Recently I have been making so much reshuffling again the portfolio, so my writing needs to align with my focus. The goal is to take this portfolio to another level in the future.

But first, let’s bring some Emerging value updates:

We are now over 7000. Thanks to all the new free and paid subcribers. I had some time trying to grow the subscriber count on the newsletter, then I came back to my main focus. Trying to be a better investor and provide better ideas.

I managed to get AI to generate one world map with my holdings once. It was pretty cool. Then I reshuffled the portfolio, tried to re-generate a map, and the AI constantly failed and hallucinated country names. Completely hallucinate. So I will continue to provide a list instead.

I would like to do more deep dives, more quick ideas, this is planned. I want to be the atlas of global quality value.

I conducted a client base and opportunity analysis of Dlocal, and I am not sharing the fintwit wide enthusiasm for the long term. Dlocal could do well if they reproduce their Latin American success in Asia, but so far, it is not proven. Being a middle man is tough. Short term, it still looks good.

A collaboration on a deep value idea in China with Diego Milano:

I published my annual review where I explained a bigger shift to quality companies, or quality value, and companies with ambition.

I published an update on an Amazon like business model in Europe. Another update soon.

I published an update on an ambitious tech business in Japan that I exited to go for more quality, but I will keep monitoring. AI and new google search algorithms is impacting its results. It remains very cheap on price to sales as they scale. Hey, I should probably re-enter when results improve, but for tax loss purposes I need to wait 1 year. 

I published a full review of Miniso from a business perspective.

I presented two new quality ideas that I bought.

I covered around 20 hong kong stocks: 

I ended up opening two positions from this list, with fast revenue and profit growth and good management.

External write ups:

Michael Fritzel actually covered one stock from this list.

https://www.asiancenturystocks.com/midea/

Mexico

Africa:

Pyramids and Pagodas

Softcare Limited (2698.HK) – A formidable fortress in Africa finding its footing

Genuine, investable plays on frontier market consumption are rare. Rarer still are companies that build unassailable local advantages rather than merely exporting to them. Softcare Limited (2698.HK; “Softcare”), the leading diaper and sanitary pad manufacturer operating in the world’s last high population growth region recently listed in Hong Kong and fits the bill. In this piece, we focus largely on its core diaper segment as it’s the bulk of the Company’s business, although other segments hold promise, as we discuss later…

Read more

4 months ago · 22 likes · Pyramids and Pagodas

Saudi Arabia

Free Capital

Everything You Need to Start Investing in the Saudi stock market ✅

Welcome to Free Capital 💅🏻…

Listen now

3 months ago · Free Capital

I reviewed Coinbase on my Free payment newsletter. Well, It was more my partner who reviewed it and me asking questions. It is a good discovery for me.

Payments Strategy and Investing

Coinbase - the new Visa rails for payments?

Hi there, we met and reviewed Coinbase, a company proposed by Bright. And I must say I learned a lot…

Read more

3 months ago · 4 likes · 3 comments · Emerging Value

Portfolio

The portfolio is up 1.7% this year. This is after provisioning quite some capital for capital gain taxes and moving it out to a bond fund.

I exited low IRR and lower conviction companies, with the mindset of “screw it, pay some tax in 1,5 years, but let’s build the portfolio for the million".

I don’t think it will be sufficient for this goal, but it will help to reach it faster.

I spend days looking at dozens and dozens of companies.

More importantly, I concentrated into my existing “Best buys” from past series. Often with fear. Another 1000 Euros. Then a few days later as I recycled capital, another 500 or 1000. Passing some psychological gaps.

Ok, 10 thousands in this position, 8 thousands in this one.

For some of you these numbers may seem ridiculously low. But these are around 3 salaries for example.

I also added to positions in the top 5, or positions already at 200% returns. A very psychologically difficult thing to do.

Now, with a roughly 60 position portfolio, the top 10 is 45% of it, and the top 5 is 30%.

Many positions are smaller conviction or turnarounds where I am waiting for signs to add. Others are in risky geographies that I don’t want to concentrate.

I have exited low conviction

• Haleon plc (A spin off of GSK received),

• British American Tobacco +65% and probably over 100% with dividends - a pure value investment)

• Thai Beverage -5% approx - I think that Thai Beverage can do ok from there but I am looking for more aggressive growth or valuation)

• Jardine Matheson +65% approximately.

My Jardine Matheson and British American Tobacco pitches were great value for subscribers. By going global and watching all the companies from a valuation perspective I am able to get some of the cheapest in the world for quality value. This is what you find from Emerging value. I don’t do silver miners or data centre plays. I focus on what I can do: quality value and compounders.

Upgrade to paid

I have added to existing positions, and opened another new one from the quality value Hong Kong and China series.

Tech has now been pushed to 24% of the portfolio which is a great improvement, and more if we consider African telecoms with a fintech arm tech companies.

To find the very cheap opportunities I added to, please upgrade:

Upgrade to paid

A full portfolio breakdown, movements, and all companies updates from my AI developed tool stockwatchAI were included below.

Upgrade for a complete overview of Emerging market opportunities and global value stocks

Read more

I have taken advantage of a price rise in Arcelor Mittal to exit the legacy position and increase the quality of the portfolio. Arcelor Mittal was undervalued, has a scale moat and was conducting value accretive buybacks.

Buybacks work. (Patience holders).

I had reviewed Arcelor Mittal here:

The company has performed well lately and I got out at a 71% win ex dividends and traded at 13 times forward earnings. Quite high for a cyclical. It remains a good company but low quality. However it was a long term laggard.

With the proceeds, I initiated positions at a similar multiple (12-15) in two of the highest quality businesses in the world, with the highest moats. How did I do so? with holding companies.

If you are familiar with global holding companies, you probably know the ideas I will present:

The first one, I made great money from it between 2015 and 2019, I sold it in 2019. I could have held it for the long term because it was a bit cyclical. However it has now transformed with a large stake in a total quality company being around 35% of NAV, plus investments in other growth and quality businesses.

I am glad to be able to be back at a low price, as the company executed, with a steward of capital not dissimilar to a younger “Quality era” Warren Buffett.

After Eurofins scientific and Modern Dental that I traded in and out, It is another name that I re-enter to hold hopefully forever.

The second one, is a company I should have bought exposure earlier and I missed it. It is an incredible EM company with a moat stronger than the pyramid of Gizeh. It was an error to miss it, but it is never too late to enter a company you realised that you missed, if the valuation is ok. It is not cheap, but buying it through a web of holding companies creates good discounts.

Yes, but “holding companies are bad for shareholders” is the most recent consensus in the investing world. But in reality?

Both companies are hitting the buybacks button hard and I love it. I will potentially write full length articles about these opportunities, but I will do short theses below in order to provide timely updates to my subscribers.

Upgrade now

Read more

This is a complete overview of the opportunities that I see across emerging markets. Companies that are magnitude cheaper than developed market opportunities.

I also hold some developed market companies in hidden corners of the market, mostly serial acquirers, hidden champions, or legacy holdings from my dividend growth years.

While I could get a higher return by selling everything that is a HOLD, I aim for long term compounding tax free in some names at reasonable rates.

RatingCount

• STRONG BUY-15

• BUY-23

• HOLD-18

• Other / No Rating-3 (Speculative recovery)

Total: 59

Note: It is better viewed on desktop:

Based on January 2 weights.

| Product                          | Weight  |
|----------------------------------|---------|


| COCA COLA FEMSA (2020)           | 3.65%   |


Latin America Coca Cola Bottler with Venezuela exposure at P/E 15. HOLD.  


| BRITISH AMERICAN T (2019)        | 4.32%   |

Global tobacco company at P/E 11. Cautious BUY with the improvement in new product categories, but still quite low growth.



| POULAILLON (2021)                | 3.43%   |

French micro cap in bakery and food preparation with an adjusted P/E of 5 and a defensive business. STRONG BUY 

| INDOFOOD (2021)                  | 1.65%   |

Indonesian large food conglomerate at P/E 5 with some dividends. Illiquid, hard to trade. STRONG BUY.

| EMBOTELLADORA ANDINA (2020)      | 2.49%   |

Latin American Coca Cola Bottler at P/E 13. HOLD


| STARBUCKS CORPORATION (2016)     | 0.90%   |

Expensive at P/E 33. HOLD or even SELL for the enterprising investor


| NEWPRINCES SPA (2021)            | 4.42%   |

Italian Pan European Food company serial acquirer. P/E Ratio is not accurate, price to FCF under 10, and continued execution with the acquisition of Carrefour Italia to transform the food retailer using the Mercadona Model. BUY

Subscribe now

Read more

Welcome to another annual letter of emerging value. The year ended with positive performance at around 30.8% (in EUR). I hope your year provided good returns and that the next year will too.

This was above what I try to achieve. Probably it will be lower next year, but I have been reinvesting in some of the cheapest quality value stocks in the world to maintain a good risk reward profile on parts of the portfolio.

What worked well were good allocations to British American Tobacco for example, NewPrinces SPA the Italian Serial acquirer, Bank of Ireland, most of the African investments presented in the best buys Africa article, which really went up hard.

A good flow of dividends also supported returns.

Obviously there was also my 5 bagger in Glintt the Portuguese IT service/healthcare company that contributed, and some rebounds in various deep value names.

I recommend to upgrade to the top tier of Emerging value to get the ideas and best buys ranking as they come out.

Subscribe now

What did not work were some losers that kept losing, but they had a small position size as I decided to stop adding to losers unless it has really turned around.

Reflexions on four years investing in public

When I started my substack, it was because I had some unique exotic stocks with a strong value approach. I was the only one owning these companies publicly, so I thought that I would just write about it and see if people follow some of my ideas.

I was like a pirate of the investing seas, jumping in every corner to buy the most undervalued stock, the most hated stock. I was really into deep value, buying the cheapest companies around in terms of earnings, being contrarian and looking where others are not looking.

Doing so, I was naive and.. quite crazy. Some of these stocks had no public support for a reason. They were bad companies.

I had some thesis that ended up being Chinese frauds, some others that were supposedly defensive but were not in the end (Alcohol stocks suffering from consumption decrease, or low margin distributors hit by cost of debt, or holding companies that let cash sit idle).

I have refined my strategy.

Now, I moved a bit away from that approach. Pure deep value opportunities are rare. Usually, they are cheap but do not return a lot of capital and waste the rest. Or they are event based, where you need to buy something because you know of a value unlocking event that the market has not priced in yet (usually in micro caps).

I am not interested in these for a variety of reasons, mostly that I like investing in what I want to own, not in what I want to sell quickly after an event. I move towards growing companies, or companies with the goal to return a lot of capital.

I managed to do over 17% CAGR since 2021, which is for me exceptional and better than when I started investing, but only matching the SP500 which is crazy in my mind. I will be very happy with this return going forward, if only the SP500 can stop performing so well :)

And yes, all signs point to a slow down in the SP500 forward return due to a 50% over valuation of the index, with an AI capex bubble within it.

The Forward P/E of the SP500 is now 31.. the fair value would be 20 and this is generous.

Deep value versus quality value

Am I the next person shifting from deep value to quality value? I admit, yes.

I incorporate quality and growth investing much more, unless there are huge capital returns.

I am more interested in companies that can provide growth for decades. Waiting for value catalysts is sometimes excruciating.

I believe in investing in a company because they can develop well over the long term and I want to participate in this wealth creation through services and products.

It is a pleasure to know that I own part of a business, and see it in real life somewhere, and to receive dividends from the operations.

Growth is a good safety net as it protects your downside with each passing year, the business becoming more valuable.

These businesses let you compound without efforts.

All that I read about quality investing online helped me:

• The importance of a moat to protect the business from competition,

• The ability to raise prices,

• The high margins to remain profitable when there is a drop in sales,

• The good balance sheet to avoid big problems,

• The high returns on invested capital (and the ability to return capital).

Combining this approach with a value entry price, or very often deep value by going global is going to help me obtain a long list of multibagger ideas.

Emerging markets are the best markets to look for these ideas as we have lower valuations, longer runways, less competition and often deep moats. This is the value for my portfolio and for you the readers. There are also such value or growth opportunities sometimes available in developed markets, but this is much more difficult to discover.

If I don’t go for quality, the business will have a quality element to it, such as integrated energy companies or banks that provide good margins over the cycle, in protected geographies.

Management: Prefer companies with ambition.

Companies with ambition use capital faster and more aggressively. Usually they worked better than companies with the sole goal to optimise and survive. This was evident in the case of serial acquirers who multiplied in value during the past few years. I should continue to trim/cut companies without ambition and keep companies with ambitious managements and plans.

A big question I ask myself is what I want to achieve?

I am currently thinking, and hesitating between keeping some investments after deep value has rerated, with the IRR going forward that could be in the low teens percentage.

The big question is what do I want to achieve? A few higher percentage points in total returns in my portfolio, or just keep compounding safely in the 10+% range? Numbers on a screen or dividends that will allow me to support my lifestyle when needed? I am thinking more about the second, because I am thinking about the present in terms of lifestyle and family.

I get a steady and bigger stream of dividends every year. Do I need to shoot for another 30% year or a 15% year would be enough?

Having a substack also puts some pressure on the total returns performance figure, whereas if I did not have a substack I would probably just receive the dividends and relax and accept a slower compounding from companies that had large re-ratings such as British American Tobacco and Jardine Matheson, both above 55% returns ex dividends.

This is why the biggest value are the best buys articles and the ideas, as my real portfolio has an element of buy and hold to it and is not a model portfolio where you can move things around at will with excel, without liquidity constraints and taxes to pay, and with a strict performance goal.

My conclusion is that I should start selling slowly these kind of lower return companies when their capital allocation is no longer adequate or the valuation exceeds 15 times earnings. This is for low growth companies.

However, Jardine Matheson continues to build value with buybacks in the Indonesian subsidiaries and recycling of capital at Hong Kong land, pushing me to hold, and British American is not a great business, but is still sending large dividends and buybacks, and could get higher growth with the new products being developed.

The legacy of Emerging value:

My goal with this newsletter is to make great investments. To get examples of 5 and 10 and baggers and to prove that the best returns are in global value investing and not in popular names. The idea is that one day people look back at my 20 years old ideas and wonder how visionary they were. I believe in the formidable force that emerging market consumer growth has, combined with low valuations. I like holding serial acquirers for the long run too. I don’t over promise on potential multibaggers. I aim to catch them.

Recently Nvidia proved that bet wrong because it became a very fast multibagger that beat anything I have done. But I think it is the exception and not the rule and I expect returns going forward to be negative or low for Nvidia, due to competition.

What I achieved so far is not enough, but I keep my list of large winners below will update it over the years.

Note that this excludes my Genomic VC type bets and the companies held before 2021 (MTN group and Bank of Ireland - large winners)

5 Baggers: 1 (Glintt Technology - sold)

4 Bagger: 1 (Terravest)

3 Bagger: 0

2 Bagger: 2 (NewPrinces SPA, Airtel Africa)

1 Bagger: (Alphabet, First Pacific, African company#2, Emboteladora Andina, Emerging finance company, Boustead Singapore -Sold).

Some bad performers include the following. They are mostly small caps as they are not as strong as the large caps.

Berentzen - 50%

Uk hidden small cap - 60%

Text SA - 55%

Intrum - 46%

I have since on January 5 sold the Japanese serial acquirer Universal Engeisha on forward P/E of 15 with a gain of 60%, due to the relatively low growth to valuation.

I am thinking of selling loser Text SA if the revenues don’t stabilise, although the value left after selling is residual.

Here are my stake increases I made today, Just the cheapest quality value from my best buys lists.

subscribe below for a complete portfolio, as well as a unique set of emerging market opportunities in quality value investing.

Instead of Amazon, Brookfield and Costco, I am investing in some emerging markets Amazons, Brookfields and Costcos at a fraction of the valuations. History will tell if these are legendary investments or not.

Subscribe now

Read more

Therefore I emphasise and insist again to all my readers to take a long term fundamental view on investing and to not bother with volatility.

I am expecting a smaller gain maybe in 2026. There were no huge stock moves apart from further gains in Bank of Ireland stock making it a 5 bagger, which is a problem because I would prefer it lower for buybacks. I am expecting probably some return to earth for this stock.

The market is a bit in “buy the year winner” moves for window dressing. It makes no sense, as the best value is in the losers, and we will probably see the losers in 2026 start strongly. (Similar to British American tobacco in 2024)

I moved the tech sector weight up to 15% and I think it could go to 25%+ considering that I expect all these tech companies to double outside of Alphabet and maybe Text SA which is a turnaround.

In the end it’s hard to move the weights a lot from a decent sized portfolio without selling a lot of companies or adding a lot of money.

I will become more sector agnostic, but my targets are to increase Energy and Genomics exposure. Two completely different sectors: Deep value and long term growth. And as long as Energy is cheap, I should focus on this rather than Genomics which is not really value investing.

| Industry           | Sector Weight % |
|--------------------|-----------------|
| Consumer defensive | 27.33%          |
| Finance            | 16.09%          |
| Tech               | 15.05%          |
| Holding company    | 12.85%          |
| Energy/Industry    | 10.60%          |
| Healthcare         | 7.47%           |
| Services           | 5.06%           |
| Telecoms           | 2.55%           |
| Real Estate        | 1.71%           |

Below is the full portfolio, additions, commentary on 6 companies, and all the companies news posted directly from my stockwatchAI tool in order to provide more content.

There are 28 emerging market companies included, and around 10 serial acquirers, depending on definitions.

Subscribe now

Read more

This is, like Japan, the first and the last UK themed update as I will focus on emerging market stocks.

In this update you will find 3 serial acquirers and 2 defensive companies.

This newsletter is sponsored by.. me. check my stock watch tool if it’s something of interest. It solved my problem with following company news for obscure or non US companies.

Let’s continue:

5 - British American Tobacco

British American is continuing with the transformation towards a reduced risk product company.

It trades at 12 times forward earnings with a dividend yield of 5.8%.

The company has provided a near 100% return in my portfolio when including dividends.

It still remains a solid dividend player.

More importantly, Velo is growing exceptionally well, from a low volume base.

Glo, the reduced combustion cigarette, is showing very promising product development and reception, as it was recently launched.

Vuse, the leading vape in the world, is being supported by disposable vapes bans and enforcement on illegal vaping products, and is growing again according to Bats fanatic Nicotinecap on X.

https://x.com/nicotinecap/status/1980514159151444412

The guidance for 2025 remains weak, the company expects an acceleration from 2026.

I can’t count how many 200 Euros dividends I have received from Bats and immediately invested in the cheapest stock available in the portfolio. For some it’s very low, for some it’s high, but over time it ads up.

On top of that we have now expanding buybacks.

4-Glaxo (GSK)

GSK is an old position of mine that belongs to the boring but defensive type of company.

This is a defensive company in the Healthcare sector. The business is composed of Vaccines, General Medecine and Specialty Medecines (Oncology, Respiratory, HIV).

Vaccines and General are really stable businesses, while Specialty is more growth and patent oriented.

It appears to be very undervalued at 9.9 PE.

The problem is that GSK did not provide growth for the past five years in terms of profit.

Note that in 2022, GSK spun off the consumer business, therefore showing an artificial metrics drop on the chart above.

But since about a year, growth accelerated, showing the results of the long term transformation built by soon to be leaving CEO Emma Watson.

in 2025, GSK started buybacks and dividend increases.

While growth is expected to average 9% in profits per year, this seems too cheap. This is a bit more expensive in terms of free cash flow than 10 times earnings (14), due to settlements, contingent considerations for acquisitions and growth. This is the negative part but if the growth continues at this rate it would be very interesting.

Indeed, growth is now a new factor.

I think that GSK is definitely undervalued but maybe not as much as being a top buy.

The defensive stocks are more like holds and the serial acquirers are more exciting:

3-Serial acquirer update - 14 times earnings - plenty of net cash, 2.5 times profit ex cash

2-Serial acquirer update - 8 times earnings

1-Serial acquirer update - 10 times earnings

Subscribe now

Read more

As on Monday evening, the portfolio is back at all time highs due to Trump warming up to China. This is like a never ending story and it could turn with a clash against China again in 30 days. It is now up 27% YTD (all in EUR) and I am CAGR’ing at over 18% since 2021, despite a lot of traps and huge macro challenges.

I cannot complain. I can say that it does not really affect me positively or negatively. Maybe I am at the phase where I focus more on the intellectual process than on the intangible gains. I focus on spending well too.

A lot of stocks which had outstanding performance and were over 100% or 80% came back down, so that means that my path to multibaggers stardom is going to be a bit more delayed. It appears to me that these stocks had very good momentum as the deep value was recognised by the market. These momentum traders piled up on value stocks going up fast, and exit as momentum fades away. Many of my investments sit now in the +40 to 80% range in a year of two, which is more realistic than getting multibaggers in 1 year.

There was a concentration of best performing stocks, caused by a buy and hold strategy.

The update on the number of baggers generated is complete with some good multibaggers, although helped by some Covid panic buys. My next bagger count update will be for 2025 year end. This is more about sharing than anything really useful for me.

https://emergingvalue.substack.com/about

As usual, I plan to add to existing holdings as they represent good value. I did not get much dividends but I just added to the last “top 1 deep value” stock which is also quality and a technology stock.

I am currently writing up and analysing further a petrochemical stock that may be what I will add to my portfolio when large dividends hit the account, as it is also incredible value. This position was already revealed to premium subscribers, but I am considering to add, and for this I need to really dig deeper. Or I may continue to add to technology companies.

I found a lot of new ideas this summer, but nothing at the moment, probably because I was busy coding an AI portfolio tool (more on this soon), but also because the current ideas in my extended portfolio are awesome value. I am not saying that they are all the fastest growing companies, but the value is incredible. You would never find this value in private deals. Public markets are awesome.

Two important investments showed price corrections while fundamentals actually improved, and one company was upgraded from Turnaround to deep value again (Berentzen) as fundamentals showed strength.

Details on the three companies and two others below in the premium section. There is no new position this month.

Subscribe now

Read more

Fico, Nike, LVMH, Brown Forman and alcohol stocks.

Nevertheless, quality investing is one of the best investing method out there.

It does not get the incredible short term returns of value or growth investing, especially now as AI capex companies show strong speculation, but if you enter at the right valuations you can get 15%+ returns as long as you hold. It is a perfect strategy for the passive investor who wants to invest in good companies and let them compound slowly.

I have warmed up to quality investing lately because I like to compound without having to constantly buy and sell and I accept to pay “a tax”, in the form of lower returns, for the extra peace of mind.

However, great entry prices can add extra returns points and that is what I focus on in my approach to the strategy.

First, we have some companies that I don’t own but could be interesting.

Retail company the North West Company at 13 times forward earnings: I recommend reading about it from “Canadiandividendinvesting” and other writers.

FDJ the French state lottery company trades at 11 times forward earnings, but there is some regulatory overhang as the French state is trying to tax it more due to it’s overspending and deficit problems.

Coca Cola Icecek in Türkyie trades at 6 times forward earnings and I cannot buy it. Alas, I cannot trade it. But if you can, It is really quality value.

Let’s not include the company that was 1st on quality in July in my list, because I have included it in the latest deep value list, because it is also deep value.

Two new companies join the list.

6-Embotelladora Andina (AKO)

This company out of Chile is an official bottler for Coca Cola in Chile, Paraguay, parts of Brazil and Argentina. They also produce other beverages and expand through small acquisitions.

Coca Cola is a great business, and it is selling for 12.6 times forward earnings and 6.8 times EV/EBITDA.

The growth is done with pricing, new categories and inorganic expansion.

EPS growth is expected in the 10% range, with a dividend on top.

In H1 2025, the volume was up 7.7% due to the recovery from the Argentinian economic shock of 2024, adjusted EBITDA up 6.1% and net profit to shareholders up 21.4%.

This comes with 3 new plants in construction in Brazil and Paraguay, to catch up with growing demand.

Similar to this, but at 13 times earnings, we have Coca Cola Femsa, more centered around Mexico and Brazil.

5-Eurofins Scientific

The Testing company has great historical performance, expects 11% and 14.5% EPS growth in 2026 and 2027.

Food testing and Healthcare diagnostics is a non cyclical business that does very well during recessions.

On July 23, it released H1 2025 results. Showing great impact from share count reduction with 18% EPS growth.

Eurofins continued with programatic acquisitions, closing 22 year to date at 0.75 times revenue.

On September 2, Eurofins announced having completed the acquisition of related party real estate, raising leverage by 0.2 points but removing a conflict of interest as well as owning more sites for the long term.

Just consistent execution by Eurofins, which is exposed also to the rise of testing that comes with improvements in healthcare and personalised medecine.

This is available at 15.9 forward EPS.

Subscribe now

Read more

A Hidden champion is still a good company that will be much bigger in 10 years.

Hidden champions are mostly serial acquirers.

There is not much change to the list. I don’t write to make clicks. I write to make a portfolio with 3-4-5-10 baggers.

In General, this category of stocks has appreciated substantially and while I bought most at 10 times profits or under, they are nearly all at 12-15 times profit. I think the top 2 are still good opportunities, and I still hold all the companies.

To get all the ideas on time before the eventual reratings, please upgrade below.

Upgrade now

8-Kontron AG (Austria)

The Austrian IOT service company has provided good results. It has a IT service business focused on IOT, and a growing but small Internet of things software segment.

In July, Kontron effectively sold Jumptec, a lower margin business, to Congatec, and both companies will cooperate on further design and manufacturing.

H1 results showed 98 million Euros of EBITDA ex one off effects. But looking at the accounts, it is very complicated to find the net profit level ex one off gains from the deconsolidation of Jumptec.

The real earnings of the business ex Jumptec will become clear in 2026. Analysts estimates have come down with the Tariff man in 2025, but long term, the trend for growth is clear.

The company trades at 12.3 times forward earnings with exposure to the above future massive trends. This does not even include robotics, which will need IOT management.

Due to the lack of visibility on earnings, it is only 8th on the list. I paid under 10 times earnings but I am willing to let the management continue to create value.

7-UNIVERSAL ENGEISHA (6061.JP)

It is a serial acquirer in decorating plant renting services in Japan. A very rare business.

The revenue and profit history is very good.

Plant rentals is 65% of the business. But in terms of profit, it’s more like 95%. They have only an estimated 8% market share in this business, leaving room for ample expansion

• New earnings released for FY 2025: Net profit CAGR was only 9% in the past three years and is projected in the same range for next year (9.8%)

• It’s not that great at 14 times forward earnings, especially that the cash is not returned much to shareholders but used for M&A, but the last few years have been difficult.

• The management comments that “Although both the Sales to Ordinary Profit Ratio and the Equity Ratio fell short of the target figures in this consolidated fiscal year, this is viewed as a short-term effect due to strengthened M&A activity, and we will continue to strive for the target figures.” (Translated).

• The target is for a large acceleration in 2028. If they reach the 3 Billion net income for 2028, (vs 1.8 Billion now), the returns will be good, with a 18.5% CAGR net income growth.

6-Tasmea - Australia

-Tasmea is a forward P/E 15 company, exposed to the mining, gold, and infrastructure electrification cycle. It is a hidden champion, acquiring and growing mining and electricity maintenance companies while also growing organically.

FY 2025 showed revenue growth at 37% and EPS adjusted at 48%. This is due to large acquisitions and organic growth in electrification.

However Tasmea spooked the market and spooked me quite a bit with a capital raise of about 4% of the market cap, months after paying special dividends. Really strange.

Tasmea has diversified from Iron Ore towards more electrification.

This, and the relatively high valuation makes the company rank in the middle of the list. However, with agressive growth and ambitious plans, I am willing to see what Tasmea will do in the future. As with serial acquirers, never selling is the best option. The downside is limited by the constant activity and the upside is unlimited.

2026 growth ex acquisitions is planned to be again very strong, based on contracts secured.

Share

5-Supreme PLC (LSE)

Supreme is a serial acquirer in the defensive consumer goods space: Mostly with vaping, batteries, soft drinks and lightning. These represent a good defensive business with strong growth.

They manufacture distribute the products in local shops across the UK and Ireland, and more and more in Europe.

That means that they can cut costs and expand distribution after making acquisitions. On top of that they make very very cheap acquisitions, sometimes out of bankruptcy.

The problem is that Vaping is under scrutiny in the UK. Disposable vapes have just been banned and they are adapting to pods. They may be over earning since in their last release the earnings started slowing down hard, with Adjusted EPS up 3% only.

A strong levy on Vaping in October 2026 will also hurt vaping sales.

• As expected, sales slowed down.

The company expects around flat revenue and EBITDA down around 13% after two exceptional years.

At a Forward P/E of 9.5, and with further acquisitions planned, It’s a decent deal. The company was hyped up by some short term investors during 2023 and 2024 and it’s more quiet now, but long term investors should take excitement with a pinch of salt. Now it’s consolidating earnings for a year before starting again to grow probably in 2027.

4-Modern Dental (HK 3600).

This is a dental company out of Hong Kong that sells prosthetics to a global sales network.

I like Modern Dental because it is a company of builders, building services, products and solutions for the long term. covers it.

The price went up since July.

Modern dental produced blowout earnings. The group produced 7% revenue growth but 34% net income growth, with efficiency increasing.

The profit improvement was caused by digital transformation, currency movement, and M&A (Dental lab in Thailand).

Digital transformation of the prothesis production cuts some steps in the manufacturing process, reduces errors and returns. It helps the company to raise margins in the long term.

at 9.2 times forward earnings, it rates well on the list.

The rest of the list is below with three hidden champions from Europe:

• #3 is a very small illiquid and almost unknown serial acquirer with large net cash.

• #2 is mid cap in a defensive sector serial acquirer. It is agressive, and could implement a revolutionary business model in Italy, already proven in Spain.

• #1 is a very small French small cap at 3 to 5 times Free cash flow when I deduct optional growth cash flow, and it is very defensive.

**REMINDER** The subscription price is rising to 200$ Annual and 30$ Monthly on October 15. **** Only 1 days left ****

Upgrade now

To get the full report on the hidden champions, and the past report on deep value, upgrade now and support the publication. Emerging value is now focusing on new opportunities around emerging markets, but keep holding a substantial European exposure.

Thanks!!

Read more

⭐️Weekly lists of rankings within my portfolio, and also maybe outside my portfolio as the watchlist is be interesting.

✅ These rankings will show you the cheapest, or the best, or most interesting stocks.

📑 It will also help covering earnings and updates on portfolio companies

It is hard to get to P/E 6 and under, but we try.

I downgraded one of the stocks from the previous list to a deep value turnaround since H1 revenues were not good. This company is Berentzen group, the German drinks company. It is still extremely cheap. I have been writing to them, but now I need to make the time to call them to discuss strategies and shareholder value. I have some doubts that the business is fully stable in the Liquor segment. No everything works well.

On the other hand, Grupo Aval, the Colombian Bank is leaving the top 6, as it went up after July and trades at a NTM P/E of 7. Still pretty good.

In this deep value article I don’t include commodities, mining and stuff like this. Obviously, anyone can find Petrobras and some deep value miners, but you cannot make a whole portfolio of that. Well, you could but it would be very aggressive. I covered my picks in Energy here and I believe that I have some unique names.

Two new asian names enter the game, they are deep value but could also enter the quality list as these are good businesses.

Let’s start.

6-CAFOM

This company was higher in the list in July, but a stock price rise makes it go down the ranking. It still remains a deep value+growth stock.

• Market cap: 100 million of Euros.

Cafom consists of two businesses:

1. Oversea France retail of furniture and home appliances. Oversea France is in the Caribbean, the Indian Ocean and the Pacific Ocean. And over there, there is little competition from E-commerce Giants.

2. Vente-Unique is a first party e-commerce website for furniture in Europe. The amazon Playbook. Without AWS, but with marketplaces logistic services and ads. More similar to JD.com. Vente unique is also Listed and 63% owned by Cafom.

H1 2025 was released, with group net sales +2.9%. Net profit was flat because of flat profits in Overseas France and front end investments in Vente Unique.

Cafom is a french nano cap. A hidden gem.

Then, on July 22, Vente-Unique, the listed E-commerce subsidiary posted good revenue growth (Chiffre d’affaires at 11.7%) and GMV (Volume d’affaires at +16.5%)growth showing the strength of the business model.

The CAFOM stock reacted positively. we are not at 6.6 times earnings.

Full H1 analysis below:

Subscribe below to get the top 5 and latest updates.

5-Asian tech at 6 times earnings

4-Em finance at 5 times earnings

3-Asian consumer goods at 6 times earnings

2-North American developer buying back stock at 0.4 times book at 4 times earnings

1-Asian holding at 4 times earnings. Actually I just received a big dividend from (1) and invested it in (5).

Also included: The cheapest non owned stocks in my watchlist of over 200 names.

Access a universe of 160+ EM stocks and 200+ hidden champions with access to my Koyfin lists. Premium section: The price will increase to 200$ on October 15, and the monthly price will be raised as well. You can lock the annual price forever.

Subscribe now

Read more

The big Capital gain is as I sold Glintt Global for a 5 bagger. I explained in the past that I was going to hold companies for the long term, but I recently adjusted this to include only compounders / top quality. I don’t have enough disclosure to be certain of that with Glintt global, in terms of acquisitions and product strategy.

This is one more bagger for the newsletter, this time a 5 bagger. The price has now come back down towards 1.70 Euros.

Another company that reached the 100% return bar, despite me adding a lot to the position, is an emerging market financial company, and I can guarantee that nobody wanted to invest in this one. The name of this micro cap is still hidden.

I think that between the two companies, I only heard of one investor that owned Glintt. People want to buy what is popular and make them feel comfortable, or what is loved and hyped by groups of investors. I continue to invest in lonely land.

With the proceeds of Glintt and another sale of a stock that performed flat+ dividends but I still like, I have added hard to my convictions of best buys, and I have entered two higher priced than usually quality growth companies to track them. (Higher price than usual, it’s still under 20 times earnings for great companies). I think that having exited a 5 bagger let me relax a bit on valuations. I promise that this is over and I am back to bargain quality value investing.

What did I buy, and what contributed to the performance? update below in the premium section.

• A complete coverage of EM stocks and some European hidden champions

• Proven 2x, 3x and more returns on some ideas.

• Updates with screens for the cheapest stocks in Emerging Markets or Europe.

Subscribe now

Read more

Not every investment I did turned well, and I have had some value traps. Dealing with value traps is one big challenge for value investors. Sometimes the business is not doing well, but still cheap, sometimes it’s just doing poorly but not dying. A key I think is to look for maximum capital returns.

In that case, you welcome a low share price. But it’s not always happening, and management teams don’t always align with shareholders in the short term. They have priorities to stabilise the debt levels or do low ROIC business expansions and spending. These can cause value traps.

1.CK Hutchison

It is a global holding company out of Hong Kong.

I overpaid when I initially bought it (P/E around 12 or 15 I do not remember), in regard to the lower quality of the business. This are risks when you start investing: you are less demanding in terms of quality or prices.

It has several segments:

• Retail (As Watson and other health and beauty store brands): a GREAT Business. But in China, hard business.

• Infrastructure: Ok business but a downturn due to low inflation until 2021, now it’s going to get better as regulatory resets allow for higher price rises. It’s a quasi bond like business, so the price you pay is key.

• Ports: Good business.

• Telecoms: Quite a bad business.

• Others: Energy + Medical + Indonesian Telecoms: pretty good business.

The bad businesses, China retail and Telecoms, have seen their contributions drop to nearly 10% of the profit of the company, so they cannot impact results more unless they go negative to losses and they are not cut.

Deleveraging was completed, so the company has firepower to acquire more assets.

There is a ports sale deal planned for 2026. it’s worth nearly the market cap of CK Hutchison. “The aggregate Enterprise Value for 100% of HPH Ports Sale Perimeter including the Panama Ports has been agreed at US$22.8 Billions”.

What to look for:

• Earnings growth: it should happen with ports, energy and retail, as well as potentially infrastructure.

• Acquisitions in infrastructure

• Closure of the ports deal

• Buybacks. The management has not done buybacks, a huge failure and lack of alignment in my opinion. I feel that the company is ripe for a rerating and better capital allocation.

The forward P/E is 8.5. Underlying earnings growth in H1 was 11%. A pretty good recovery.

I like that it has energy exposure and exposure to some industries that could become growth engines in a different macro or geopolitical environment.

2.Intrum

Intrum is a Swedish collection agency that I bought at 10 times earnings.

It is a debt collection business out of Sweden and the leader in Europe.

The company pursued a capital light strategy and it caused a sell-of of their bonds because it sold some of their investment book at a discount, which caused leverage to spike.

It has now corrected with a reorganisation and some capital increase. Intrum can always invest at high IRRs. It needs to invest to grow and maintain earnings, but these investments are profitable, so they should do it.

The Q2 2025 earnings were published and showed improved profits, thanks to AI and automation cutting costs, but topline was decreasing and it is a concern.

Indeed, sales (What they call income), decreased from 4606 to 4206 million Krona.

However EBIT and Net income is increasing.

Why? AI. Collections is the best business for AI. You replace manual emails, outbound or inbound calls with AI following simple rules.

Therefore, intrum is reducing the workforce. (with a human cost). It is evolving towards a software type of business.

It trades at 5.6 times forward earnings, but leverage is at 4.8 times EBITDA.

What are the key metrics to watch?

Efficiency can only go so far. We need to see revenue growth on more servicing deals and more investment in cooperation with Cerberus (the capital partnership), and we need to see leverage go down.

Wait and See:

I will be publishing a more detailed update on Intrum.

Further details in the premium section:

3. Berentzen Group

4. Portmeirion

5. Vietnam Holding

Subscribe now

Read more

The Emerging Value approach, mixing quality, value and international, including a large emerging market weighting, continues to perform well in excess of indexes, despite being 2 or 3 times cheaper. Yep, the train has just started and the future returns for this segment are likely going to be historic, especially versus the SP500.

In order to perform in the future, I have analysed my biggest errors of omission. While I had some big tech companies that I missed in the 2010’s, I was still an early investor, so I will ignore that because I did not have the knowledge to act well.

Meta:

I thought that Meta was an interesting opportunity when it was at PER 10, except with terrible capital allocation, but I felt that my companies in my portfolio were good enough opportunities at similar or lower price to earnings. In retrospect, I could have been aggressive and sold all my value stocks to do one all in to Meta. An improvement in business outlook reflects much faster into the valuation and share price at a US large cap than at a micro cap or a EM stock. Also, Meta had amazing growth in user monetisation in the past years. I think that now, it has returned to a terrible capital allocation with AI Capex, as people never change, and Zuck will never change. The Metaverse v2 is here.

Mercado Libre.

Around 2022, I was more focused on other value opportunities, or tech companies that were less dominant but cheaper. I also did not have direct relations with the Latam countries and did not know how dominant and profitable it was becoming. As a consequence to this error, I aim to review more of these Emerging market tech companies in order to be able to attack when they are given. In 2024 I was able to put some capital, maybe not enough, into Chinese E-commerce.

Regarding deep value stocks, I cannot think of any that I missed. I missed not adding more aggressively to down stocks but I keep discipline to avoid burning capital in a falling knife. There was the case of the Rolls Royce turnaround, but I did not really study the company. I sold some stocks way too early, that is for certain, and another problem.

Updates below on the large winners for the month, news for PayPal, JD’s acquisition, and my buys and sales below in the premium section.

Upgrade for a unique set of EM and international value opportunities.

Subscribe now

Read more

.

Here you will not find any MercadoLibre or NuBank.

Simply because I don’t see MercadoLibre that attractive valuation wise, compared to my personal best buys. It’s a great business of course, and would like to own it at the right price. I missed it, and it was a failure on my part. We cannot catch them all.

It terms of P/E it is trading at a forward P/E of 43 which is rich. It already has a market cap of 120 Billion USD. It is not cheap on price to sales too (5). Therefore, for me it is a hold but not necessarily a buy. Latin America is a big continent, but at 120 a billion USD market capitalisation, I don’t see a multi bagger soon. It is half of Alibaba for example, while it is small compared to it. I would like to hold it at the right price, but I prefer other tech plays.

I would love to own : the easy returns have been achieved in my opinion.

There is also no NU bank. It is a great growing business but I admit that I do not really understand the insane profitability of Brazilian fintechs. I am too limited to understand it. Credit growth in Brazil has been very strong. Buffett says to “invest only in what you can understand”, and I must admit that I don’t understand it well. So, I pass.

At Emerging value, I always searched a bit deeper, beneath the surface to find some more hidden gems. Some of these gems were also presented in previous best buys, as these are not exclusive, but in any case I included the recent earnings reviews.

Subscribe now

5-Coca Cola Andina (NYSE)

Embotelladora Andida is a Coca Cola Bottler covering Chile, Argentina, Brazil. It has a Forward P/E of 12 and a 4% dividend.

It is a quality stock that beats inflation while paying dividends. Earnings are expected to grow at around 10% per year.

The underlying currencies are due for a rebound, especially the Chilean Peso in my opinion, due to the impact of the coming copper shortage.

But Embotelladora Andina is not only Chilean. It has upside potential from Argentina and Brazil.

Here is my short note from 2021. It is up over 100% with dividends. I like slow and boring quality investing.

• For premium subscribers, I will cover two deep value stocks at P/Es of 4 and 6, but the best opportunities are maybe the two high quality stocks with almost no coverage and P/Es between 10 and 15.

• Subscribe below and benefit from the 7 days trial!

• The newsletter with probably the most global hidden gems and widest coverage of Emerging markets.

Subscribe now

Read more

Nike, Fair Isaac, LVMH, Copart, Lotus Bakeries, the list goes on. Overvalued quality stocks crash regularly because the bubble was extreme.

It started going down on my chart.

If you held these as long term investments, I think it’s still a fair strategy to hold and go through the drawdowns, although at 60 times earnings, it is probably time to sell, take a tax hit, and buy a cheaper quality company at 10-15 times earnings.

Overall, these companies crashes are opportunities. Quality investors overate the quality companies regularly then underrate them as they experience a 1-2 year slowdown. Then they say that they are “not really quality”.

I have learned so much from quality investors online. I also learned from my reviews of François Rochon letters. He is an awesome investor beating the market over a long time period. When I read his letters corresponding to his best years, I saw more than quality. I saw value investing mentioned everywhere.

I would say that Buffett and Rochon combine quality and value perfectly.

If you want more detail, please read this quickly / badly written raw review I did on François Rochon letters.

So I think that the problem, is that quality influencers have a bias to transform the best investors into “quality only” investors. Some even quote Buffett while preaching against his valuation principles or dismissing his early days deep value strategy.

These are inherent biases as they struggle with a valuation mindset. Some people just want the best shiny company at any price. A form of fear of missing out. Some people just want the cheapest stuff (I am like this): fear of paying up. Each group needs to fight off their biases.

Share

Subscribe now

Quality with a good entry price remains an excellent strategy. This provides some anchor to a portfolio where we don’t need to trade in and out.

Here we go with 5 quality stocks.

Upgrade now

5-PayPal

• Value score: 4/5

• Defensive score: 5/5

• Growth score: 3/5

PayPal, the payments and commerce company, has revenue and net income growing in a straight line over many years, but with a slowdown in revenue since 2 years.

Hated, doubted, however when you look at the metrics, say what you say, it is a quality company.

The buyback is cancelling shares like no tomorrow.

Forward P/E is 14.4. You might think that the business is dead due to competition. And it is true that they lagged behind on some segments, but the growth is on par with the market in payment volume. The main thesis is that it’s about to grow in profitability even more with ads and extra services, after they recruited the head of Uber. For more details, please see my report below.

The ROIC is now at 13.6%

EPS is expected to grow 9 to 13% a year in the next three years.

4-Eurofins Scientific (France)

The healthcare and food testing company is recovering from a covid cyclical high.

• Value score: 4/5

• Defensive score: 5/5

• Growth score: 4/5

Before that, it produced a 40000% return and more.

This was an incredible growth company with acquisitions and organic growth.

ROIC is a bit on the low side at 8% last year, but this is because of recent investment in Real estate and accounting treatments. Eurofins wants to own more and more laboratories real estate, which is an upfront investment, but is key to increase returns over the long terms as no rent will be due. The company prefers free cash flow before investment in real estate.

According to the 2024 Annual report, Return on capital employed also rebounded, improving year-on-year by 180bps to 12.2% vs 10.4% in 2023 and 9.1% in 2019.

Considering that this is in the first few sentences of the annual letter, it is a strong focus of the company.

I caught the rebound on this company by buying at the low prices. Eurofins has been buying back shares heavily in the last 12 months, with shares outstanding down.

We are at a forward P/E of 15.7 and expected adjusted EPS growth of 13% a year for the future, it is a good opportunity in my opinion.

Eurofins targets 2.4 billion EUR in EBITDA and 1.5 billion EUR in free cash flow** by 2027. The current market capitalisation is 11 billion EUR. That would be a 7.3x Multiple of Free cash flow.

Adjusted before acquisitions and real estate purchases.

I fully expect PayPal and Eurofins to be relatively quick doubles and to continue to compound at a decent rate from there.

Note: this is not financial advice, but my opinion on the companies. Anyone should do their own due diligence to confirm a company thesis presented and form their independent opinion.

The rest of the article is available only to paid subscribers (150$ a year).

This gives access to movements, best buys, full portfolio, hidden small caps, for a portfolio beating the SP500 this year. (+20% in EUR - all my returns are in EUR) with a much cheaper newsletter than average. The reason for this relative success is looking for quality+value no matter where it is.

I just sold this value company at 100%+ return on my cost basis. I don’t win all the time, but I get some wins. I reinvest in better opportunities.

And where is the quality + Value ? The next three are all in Emerging markets. And they are really promising. They already delivered good returns for me, except number 3. And EMs should continue to outperform.

I aim to provide the most complete cover of Emerging markets.

• Number 3… The highest quality business you can find, similar to an investor favourite in North America. Except cheaper at 12 times earnings. Exposed to Latam secular shifts in financial markets, doing acquisitons. Very few talk about it. I am still cautious because I am learning more about it, but I entered the position.

• Number 2… The second highest quality business you can find? In the USA, it trades for 50 times earnings. In EM, it trades for 15, and I bought it at 9 times earnings. In all honesty I believe in a multibagger here in the long term. (OTC market or local market). Since 2015 it multiplied revenues by 10 in USD, and still has large potential.

• Number 1..

  ✅Incredible ROICs over 100%, ✅one free call option and a ✅P/E under 10.

  This is why I now focus more and more on Emerging markets. I have added to number 1.

  Upgrade now

Read more

One that recovered was Bastide Le Confort. But Sometimes you have to realise when you make a mistake, and I sold Healthcare company Bastide Le Confort after it rerated to a Forward P/E around 12.

My return was positive after I added during the 2024 crash, but my initial buy was still underwater and losing money, so it was a bad investment overall, despite the ability to recover.

I am expecting more good things in the long term from Bastide, but ultimately the returns on invested capital are a bit too low and comparing to other opportunities in the market, it cannot grow while returning capital at the same time.

Bastide needs to use all of its capital plus debt to grow. They still get positive growth because of the spread between cost of capital (in the 5% when using debt and 0% when using cash flow), and returns (in the 8-10% range).

But after exiting the deep value range, it became an average compounder that can grow earnings at 8-12% a year while using all its capital. So I sold.

I want either cheaper, or better. This is key to aim to continue to perform well.

My repositioning was based on my portfolio letter where I wrote that I wanted to position myself more for a commodities cycle exposure.

TASMEA

The first company I bought, after some research, is Tasmea limited (Australia). This company was brought to me by substack newsletters so it’s fair to keep the name public.

-Tasmea is a forward P/E 13 company (similar to Bastide), exposed to the mining, gold, and infrastructure electrification cycle. It is a hidden champion, acquiring and growing mining and electricity maintenance companies while also growing organically.

I am skeptical of the whole “software serial acquirer space” at current valuations, but I find the Australian mining maintenance serial acquirer space interesting due to lower valuation and organic growth capacities.

Here are quotes from their IR presentation

• The majority of Tasmea subsidiary revenues is derived via Master Service Agreements with its blue-chip customer base for maintenance services on a schedule of rates basis

• The majority of Tasmea subsidiary revenues are generated from a high repeat customer base and are annuity in nature

• By way of emphasis, Tasmea subsidiaries focus on maintenance, not construction, and production, not exploration, which isolates Tasmea’s exposure to commodity price risk

Now, In my “understanding the compounder cycle” article, I caution against taking past growth for permanent growth when it could be a temporary cycle. However I want to be exposed to this commodity cycle more, so it is a deliberate risk. I believe that I have better overall opportunities than Tasmea (see my best buys series) but none exposed to Mining and these commodities, and this is a portfolio positioning.

Electricity and mining markets are well oriented in Australia.

For more information on Tasmea, I recommend searching Tasmea Substack in google.

Emerging market compounder

-The second company is small, in healthcare, it is extremely cheap at 7 times forward earnings, very high quality, and in a weak economy country.

Contrary to Bastide, it will be able to grow and pay dividends at the same time thanks to a much higher ROIC - in the 20% range and growing. Here, there are no existing write ups.

A basket of these should perform well ✅. The reason I also diversify is because I find the best fundamental stocks often in some emerging markets and smaller caps carrying more risk. This works, and it will work even more and more as the SP500 is bloated at elevated valuations while my portfolio is much cheaper.

My other additions are to my existing holdings on the commodities/tech exposure.

Cheaper, higher return on capital.

Details below:

Subscribe now

Read more

It’s not Constellation Software type quality, it’s not Microsoft type quality. So why buy them?

• It is hard to find Microsoft and CSUs at 10 times earnings. There are a few approaching this quality in frontier/emerging markets (I own them) but you cannot have a defensive portfolio consisting only of frontier markets.

A Hidden champion is still a good company that will be much bigger in 10 years.

This is the medium quality compounder. Here, there are no turnarounds again, only companies executing well. Some are higher than the P/E 10 max, but not when I bought them.

My idea is to let them compound (or not). The winners will keep making the performance and the losers don’t lose much. This is the magic of investing!

Upgrade now

Others that could be on that list are SDI plc or Terravest, but I talked enough about these.

(SDI up 63% since everybody was skeptical of SDI. I remember all the arguments against the stock on social media)

6-Modern Dental (HK 3600).

This is a dental company out of Hong Kong that sells prosthetics to a global sales network.

It was found by

Over the past decade they grew revenue and profits at a good pace, mixing organic growth and acquisitions, with the tailwind of digitalization.

The revenue growth was not great but digitalization doubled the profit margin.

About 1.5% of sales are made by a new aligner “TrioClear”.

in 2025, they bought a company in Thailand. It has a solid growth profile.

Modern Dental is currently in a downturn. A downturn that translates into flat sales growth except for the acquisition.

Reasons are:

• Procurement pricing in the China region

• Dental prosthetics are cyclical and the US region is in a recession.

At the moment, Modern Dental trades at 9.2 P/E, 4% dividend and carries daily but modest buybacks.

IR presentation 2024

I had some crazy trades on Modern Dental because the stock shot up post covid amid some speculation.

I had a multibagger in a few months and sold. I rebought and resold two times at a later stage. Now I am only up 24%. It was mostly luck, but luck happens when you search for it.

I stopped trading as market conditions post covid returned to normal.

I like Modern Dental because it is a company of builders, building services, products and solutions for the long term. It is only 6th because it has a Hong Kong discount which should stay for a while.

5-UNIVERSAL ENGEISHA Co (6061.JP)

It is a weird company from Japan. It is a serial acquirer in decorating plant renting services.

Revenue and profit history is very good. We are now trading at 14.4 expected P/E for 2025. It is not that cheap, but my position is up 49%, so it was much cheaper when I bought it and shared it with my subscribers. It is a company I found on X (Thanks to the community). Sometimes it’s not only about finding but also timing the buys at a low valuation.

Plant rentals is 65% of the business. But in terms of profit, it’s more like 95%. They have only an estimated 8% market share in this business, leaving room for ample expansion

The whole sale business brings almost no profit and the retail business is loss making.

“In the wholesale business, demand for plants and other products subsided, sales fell short of plan, and the increase in labor costs could not be absorbed, resulting in increased revenue and decreased profits”

“In the retail business, revenue increased due to M&A, etc., but the operating loss only decreased due to M&A-related acquisition costs and increased labor costs”

Developments: Opening a new branch in the green business, launch new products.

The retail business is cyclically depressed, so there is potential to make extra 20% of profits here by my estimate when earnings are normalised and business rebounds.

Target: 3 Billion in net income (Doubling) by 2028. It is a company that has managed solid growth. With 18% of the market cap in net cash, there is firepower. To achieve this, the company relies on its high ROIC of 13-15%.

Share

4-Supreme PLC (LSE)

This is a company that is up 68% in my portfolio ex dividends.

Supreme is a serial acquirer in the defensive consumer goods space: Mostly with vaping, batteries, soft drinks and lightning. These represent a good defensive business with strong growth.

They manufacture distribute the products in local shops across the UK and Ireland, and more and more in Europe.

That means that they can cut costs and expand distribution after making acquisitions. On top of that they make very very cheap acquisitions, sometimes out of bankruptcy.

At 9.9 times forward P/E and 3% dividend yield, it is a bargain. So why isn’t it number one on this list?

The problem is that Vaping is under scrutiny in the UK. Disposable vapes have just been banned and they are adapting to pods. They may be over earning since in their last release the earnings started slowing down hard, with Adjusted EPS up 3% only.

A strong levy on Vaping in October 2026 will also hurt vaping sales.

Still, it is expected that the growth moves to the rest of vaping products and that it will remain resilient.

With low debt, further M&A should compensate for potential declines in Vaping, and Supreme remains a stock to watch.

In my piece “understanding the compounder cycle”, I bring the idea that great ROIC and ROE, metrics loved by quality investors, are often a sign of a a good past rather than a good moment to invest. The key is focusing on the cycle, after confirming the business quality and plans.

Supreme finds itself coming out of a up cycle and entering a down cycle in demand, as vaping is under regulatory crackdown in the UK. However the low P/E ratio somewhat compensates for it, and I am expecting supreme to come out on top from this down cycle. Does it happen in 2025, 2026 or 2027, time will tell.

Article:

The rest of the list is below with three hidden champions from Europe:

• #3 is a very small illiquid and almost unknown serial acquirer up 50% in the portfolio. It trades at a P/E ratio of 14 with net cash and is very early in the acquisition strategy. It will use the net cash to fund growth. The industry where it operates is counter cyclical.

• #2 is a very small cap that is underperforming and is only up about 20% in 5 years. Not all ideas work well. Operationally, everything is fine and I have been adding a little bit each year, since it trades at 3 to 5 times Free cash flow when I deduct optional growth cash flow, and it is very defensive.

• #1 is mid cap in a defensive sector. It is up over 200%, but through a series of acquisitions and perfect execution, it is as cheap as before, with a Free cash flow yield of 15%.

Upgrade now

To get the full report on the hidden champions, and the past report on deep value, upgrade now and support the publication.

Thanks!!

Read more