Genworth MI repurchases shares

Genworth MI (TSX: MIC) recently disclosed that they repurchased 1,454,196 shares in mid-May for roughly $34.38 per share, a repurchase representing $50 million.

The buyback algorithm they employed was less than subtle, mainly the repurchase of 137,210 shares per day for 10 days and 82,096 shares for the last day. As 57% of the shares outstanding are owned by Genworth (NYSE: GNW), they supplied 57% of the liquidity for these transactions. 620,818 shares were taken out of the public float.

This repurchase was executed at slightly less than book value, which means it will be mildly beneficial to book value per share – my estimates are that based off of end of Q1-2015, the transaction would add 3 cents of book value per diluted share.

Of course, the transaction will be hugely accretive to earnings – the buyback represents 1.56% of shares outstanding, which means this will add a couple pennies a share to the quarterly EPS figures. In addition, the buyback also means that the company will not have to give out an extra $2.3 million a year in dividends.

At the end of Q1, the company had $200 million in surplus of its own internal buffer, which is 220% of the minimum capital test required to operate. The company reported 233%.

As the company typically book about $90 million in income a quarter, the buyback likely represents a “cash neutral” policy of balancing dividends (est. $36 million in this upcoming quarter) and share buybacks, at least with its current market value. If their market value remains suppressed below book value and they keep executing buybacks on a quarterly basis, I foresee higher equity prices in the future.

Long-time readers here will remember that I disagreed strongly with management’s decision to repurchase shares at $40/share back in 2014. May 2015’s repurchase I completely agree with – a shame they could not execute it in March, but still, they (and shareholders) will receive good value for this $50 million repurchase.

I continue holding Genworth MI shares since mid-2012.

Liquidation spree – cash heavy

I have substantially liquidated a large position in my portfolio today and am sitting on an approximate 50% cash position yielding precisely 0.00%. The majority of this is denominated in US currency. I have no interest in swapping it for Canadian currency at this time.

For various reasons, while I have thought about investing cash temporarily in 30-year treasury bonds, at this time I prefer the comfort of plain cash. There are quite apparent liquidity issues concerning US treasuries (on an institutional level) that alerts my brain to a form of tail risk that I can’t quite express in words.

I have substantially completed nibbling on a small equity position in a company that I have not disclosed but since I am aiming for a 2% position and have obtained 1.3% to date, you can guess what kind of conviction I have for the underlying company. Looking for a double in a year for the reasons that the market is pricing in worse profitability than what will actually occur, and the industry the company is in can be described as fairly un-sexy at present.

Pinetree Capital (TSX: PNP.DB) will be redeeming more debentures at the end of this week and this will also result in a further injection of cash. There will likely be another redemption notice coming between now and the end of August which will clear out half of the remaining position, and the last half will occur between October and maturity (May 2016).

My largest equity holding is now Genworth MI (TSX: MIC) that I have held on since 2012. At its current price I am not interested in liquidating or purchasing more shares.

I am completely out of ideas and thus the next seven months may be a very boring period of time for portfolio management. I have a bunch of interesting companies that I have researched, but valuations are nowhere close to the point where I would pull the trigger. Examples include cash generators like Rogers Sugar (TSX: RSI) where I would ideally purchase under $4 a share. Companies like this I have on my watchlist, but are nowhere close to where I would want to purchase them with an acceptable margin of error.

I would not want to be a portfolio manager for a firm that required 100% deployment of capital. The decisions at this point would not be pleasant and I would take an extreme perspective of putting capital in the most defensive equities as possible. Most (if not all) of these have been bidded up due to the low interest rate environment.

For now, I wait and twiddle my thumbs.

Beef prices and demand destruction

Here’s an article on the CBC about the state of high beef prices (and how they are here to stay for years to come).

There are a few lessons here.

One is that these market-affecting events typically have causes that span a timeframe greater than a calendar year. For instance, this spike in pricing can likely be traced back to 2011 when there was a significant drought that affected most of the corn and grain-producing regions in the USA. The drought was a multi-year event.

When cattlemen cannot obtain enough feedstock for their livestock, they switch to liquidation mode. Beef prices paradoxically went to relative lows at the beginning of the drought but have skyrocketed (as far as food inflation prices go) ever since.

It will take some time for the supply-demand balance to restore itself. However, the other lesson here may be one of demand destruction – have steak prices gone high enough that people will permanently reduce their demand for the product, resulting in a reduction of overall volumes?

The analogy to the crude oil market is also fairly straight-forward in terms of things not coming to any equilibrium over the span of a calendar year.

Retail prices of beef (and other food products) over the past few years are available from Statistics Canada. Onions, carrots and white sugar are the only three things that have dropped in price from April 2011 to April 2015. (As a side note, celery is roughly equal in price, and onions, carrots and celery make the staple Mirepoix that is a classic mix for sauteing, so at least I won’t be giving that up in my diet).

A couple ways of playing the beef situation financially that come immediately to mind (although both do not make any sense under the circumstances). One are through food processors, e.g. Tyson Foods, (NYSE: TSN). There are few “pure beef” processors out there, but one that does come to mind, indirectly, is Leucadia’s (NYSE: LUK) very ill-timed purchase of National Beef Packing Company. I have no interest in either company (either short or long).

For those brave souls, however, cattle futures on the CME are the purest play on beef prices. They are not the purest play on beef volumes, however, which would be easier to play than the price of beef.

Anecdotally, I have noticed my own consumption of beef (especially my favourite cut of steak, rib-eye) decline as I generally look at the opportunity cost of the CAD$27/kg price vs. other meats that I am equally competent at cooking. Also there is the other option of buying tougher cuts of beef and a competent cook can prepare these in a manner that are palatable (e.g. thin-cut stir-fry), but it just isn’t the same!

A small note and investing in the lottery!

Almost everything I’ve put bids on (very near the market) have creeped away from the bid. It is also not like I put a ten million dollar limit order in the market either – I break things away into very small sized chunks and scale in as market volatility takes pricing lower (or vice-versa in the event of a sale).

My lead hunch at this point is to simply buy into long-dated US treasury bonds (e.g. NYSE: TLT) and just sit and wait and be patient for other opportunities as they may arise. If long-term 30-year yields go to about 3.2-3.3%, I just may pull the trigger. But if anything is like how things have been throughout the year, it is going to be a very boring year. Maybe I am slightly resentful that had I did the TLT route in early 2014, I’d be sitting on a rough 20% gain at present.

I will also point out that the Lotto MAX is at $50 million plus $33 million bonus draws which means that you have a better than 1-in-a-million probability with a $5 fee to win a million. Although the expected value of the lottery of course is negative, it almost seems like the only real chance of getting a big payout is through this medium compared to what I am seeing out in the markets at present.

Sad times indeed!

Maybe I should have invested in the CPP instead

The Canada Pension Plan reported a 2015 fiscal year-end (their fiscal year goes from April 1 to March 31) performance of 18.7% gross, or 18.3% net after fees.

Over the past 10 years, the CPP has realized a 6.2% real rate of return, while in order to remain sustainable they require a 4% real rate of return. When dealing with a $250 billion dollar fund, two percent compounded over 10 years makes quite a big difference.

I have had my doubts that the CPP would be able to realize increased returns as it grew simply because they are competing with a lot of other big players for the same pool of income. In a smaller scale, individual investors have to scour the beds of the financial oceans in order to find reasonable risk/reward opportunities.

There is likely going to be increased political pressure to either reduce CPP premiums or raise CPP benefits due to the outperformance of the CPP. It is likely such a decision would be a mistake because in the macroeconomic sense, central bank quantitative easing has inflated asset pricing to extremely high levels. It is very improbable the CPP can maintain its current performance and quite probable that they will pull in more “real-world” rates of returns (i.e. single digits).

However, all Canadians should be happy that the CPP is doing what it did – there is this pervasive myth that the CPP will not be able to pay out for existing and future generations and with the existing payment and benefit regime it is quite likely they will be able to pay for the indefinite future. Assuming you have made maximum contributions to the CPP, you would be entitled to a $12,780/year retirement benefit when you turn 65 years of age. While this is not a huge amount of income, when coupled with Old Age Security ($6,765/year) leaves approximately $19,500/year of pre-tax income which, if properly budgeted, will pay for a basic lifestyle in retirement.