Leading on from last time, when I caught up with Quarto Inc (LON:QRT) , the small-cap illustrated and non-fiction publishers, today I'm looking more at the figures. My previous efforts were somewhat diverted by a rather interesting set of boardroom antics and the voting out of the long-standing CEO and founder, Laurence Orbach. So while much of the top structure of the company has changed in the period since I last looked at the company, one thing has been fairly constant - the share price. That's hovered at around 150p since more or less the end of 2010. My not buying then is fairly irrelevant to me from a potential investor perspective - I think I'm shrewder than I was, and it never hurts to give a company - particularly a cheap looking one - a second look.

I'll try to leave aside the management change issues, but in reality I suspect they permeate quite deeply. A company under the rather conservative control of a founder-CEO for so long surely expects some wobbling and wavering post his departure - particularly given the manner that it happened. So while we've seen an impressive track record of normality (barring 2008's exceptionals) it'd likely be foolish to expect more of the same - particularly as the new driving forces want to more quickly pay down debt and 'improve shareholder returns'. It's clear that historically investors weren't excited by this stock; it's been trading on a lowly valuation ever since the financial crisis - so I think much of the future price performance will depend on how exactly the new board go about carving up the business and rearranging the capital structure.

Crucially, though, what they have to work with seems good. Assets inside the business have earnt decent returns on capital going back as far as I can see (mid double digit), though this has hasn't returned to pre-crisis levels. I wonder if investors are sceptical of whether that will happen; the most clear knee-jerk reaction to seeing a company that produces books is that the internet/e-readers/the 21st century will destroy its business. I think Quarto's business model is substantially more resilient than one might expect though, with their diversification  and so on. The way the business is structured - something I mentioned last time, referring to the…

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