Skywest (SKYW), a provider of regional flight services mainly to United Continental and Delta Airlines , has a balance sheet that I would describe as very interesting. The company literally has enough cash and securities on hand to buy back more than 80% of its shares. Skywest has a market cap of $793 million as […]
Whenever I’m in a store it always strikes me that every product on sale there, even the small and unusual ones, are produced by some fairly large and serious corporations that employ thousands of people and do millions in business. One such company is ACCO Brands Corp., which makes office supplies, laminators, shredders, and notebooks […]
Owens-Illinoisis is the leading global manufacturer of glass packaging, with a high free cash flow yield and the ability to pass its inflation costs through to its customers. I highly recommend it. For my full view on the company, see http://seekingalpha.com/article/738241-owens-illinois-a-leading-glass-company-at-a-very-good-price
I have long been attracted to companies with a high level of free cash flow, and I have found that telephone companies have been a fruitful place to look, as the companies combine a cash flow orientation with a recurrent source of income. And I think cable companies may have similar investment characteristics. There is […]
As you may know, a few weeks ago Dell reported remarkably disappointing earnings of 43 cents a share on a comparable basis versus 55 cents in the year-ago quarter, which caused the price to decline sharply. In my view, taking DELL’s substantial cash position into account and even allowing these bad results to be indicative […]
M & F Worldwide is a company that has come across my screens many times in the past, but I never could bring myself to write about it. The company was taken private last September by the well-known takeover artist Ron Perelman, and unfortunately for me, I’m not on record as saying it is an […]
Investment Technology Group (ITG) is in an interesting situation; the company primarily operates a trading platform and provides brokerage services, as well as providing investment research. As you may know, trading volumes have been low for the last few years, never having reclaimed the peak levels of 2008. This has naturally affected ITG’s earnings and […]
I have a soft spot in my heart for companies that are out-of-the-way, meaning that no one thinks about what they do. CSG Systems, for example, does nothing but handle the billing paperwork for other companies. And John B Sanfilippo & Son, Inc. (JBSS), is a producer of nut products. Owing to high levels of […]
Lexmark, the well-known printer company, presently offers a robust free cash flow yield of roughly 15%, and also has a vast cushion of cash and investments representing more than a third of its market cap. Although a lot of that money is in overseas subsidiaries, whatever isn’t is being wisely used to buy back shares […]
In my last article discussing Black Box, part of my positive opinion of the company was its performance in 2009. This led me to consider how far back into a company’s earnings history we should go. Ben Graham in his Security Analysis recommends at least a decade, but that runs into the situation that a […]