Good morning!
Last call for Mello Beckenham tonight - with an unusually large company giving a presentation over dinner - Photo-Me International (LON:PHTM) .
A pleasant start to the day for me, with news of a special divi at one of my favourite micro caps:
Best Of Best (LON:BOTB)
Share price: 195p (up 10.8% today)
No. shares: 9.7m
Market cap: £18.9m
(at the time of writing, I hold a long position in this share)
Special dividend - and quite a decent one too, at 19.5p has been declared today. This company operates the supercar competitions which have been a prominent feature in UK airports for about 15 years - although these days most of their business is now online - making it a much more attractive investment proposition in my view (more scaleable, and without capex).
The Company continues to be both profitable and cash generative and benefits from a strong balance sheet with significant cash reserves. As a result of this, the Company has a cash balance surplus to the operational requirements of its continuing activities and deems it appropriate to declare the Special Interim Dividend.
After the Special Interim Dividend the Company will retain cash balances in excess of £1.0 million, which the Directors consider to be sufficient working capital to fund its activities over the next 12 month period.
This is a good illustration of why I like investing in companies with net cash on the balance sheet. Not only are they much safer investments usually (as cash in the bank means the company cannot usually go bust, and can ride out difficult patches), but also every now and then you get a pleasant surprise - e.g. a special divi, or an earnings-enhancing acquisition. So cash is really latent value, that some investors overlook - people often just look at the PER, and ignore the cash or debt position.
A nice pattern is emerging here, as BOTB also paid a 14.5p special divi in late 2014. I very much like management that distribute surplus cash to shareholders, it's a great discipline, and shows a very good mindset in my view. Management and outside shareholders are well aligned here, with management drawing (in my view) reasonable salaries, and having large personal shareholdings, so we all benefit from the special divi.
Illiquidity -…
