Resmed has just announced another record quarterly result. For those unfamiliar with Resmed, the company is a manufacturer of flow generators and masks for sufferers of Obstructed Sleep Apnea (OSA). OSA is a condition that causes the airways to temporarily close while sleeping (apnea means “without breath”).
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by Ben MacNevin Posted in Companies, Insightful Insights.

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Colonial First State has just released their quarterly results to March 2013 for their Retail Property Trust. This retail-specific Australian Real Estate Investment Trust (A-REIT) comprises shopping centres, department stores, supermarkets and specialty stores.
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by Ben MacNevin Posted in Consumer discretionary, Insightful Insights.

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It seems that Rio Tinto can’t catch a break. In the past 12 months, the company has had to accept significant impairments, deal with a falling iron ore price, and now it has lowered its full year copper production target by 19 per cent as a result of a significant wall slide at their Kennecott Utah Copper mine.
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by Ben MacNevin Posted in Energy / Resources, Insightful Insights.

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Charlie Munger is one the most influential investors in the world today. As a founding partner of Berkshire Hathaway with Warren Buffett, Munger is known for his ability to logically process a number of steps in quick succession by employing about 90 relatively simple mental ‘models’.

You may be interested in the link below – to a speech that Charlie Munger presented and in which he discusses many of these models. The speech is well worth a read if you seek to improve your ability to make logical investment decisions (indeed, many of our blog posts reference these models in some way).
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by Ben MacNevin Posted in Companies, Insightful Insights, Investing Education, Market Valuation.

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Continuing on our CEO’s-get-paid-too-much-for-just-doing-their-job or Hey-they-didn’t-start-the-company-or-take-any-risk soap boxes, On 3 March, Switzerland conducted a referendum on executive remuneration which included some of the following proposals:

•  The aggregate compensation of the board of directors will be subject to shareholders’ approval on an annual basis
•  Severance payments and advance payments will be prohibited
•  A violation of the rules will be subject to criminal sanctions

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by Ben MacNevin Posted in Insightful Insights.

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Below is one of the most spectacular half-year financial results we have seen this reporting season.
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by Ben MacNevin Posted in Consumer discretionary, Insightful Insights.

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This article provides interesting context for Resmed and the reimbursement bidding process (extract of key paragraphs below)

Jaime Rosenthal, a senior at Washington University in St. Louis, called more than 100 hospitals in every state last summer, seeking prices for a hip replacement for a 62-year-old grandmother who was uninsured but had the means to pay herself. The quotes she received might surprise even hardened health care economists: only about half of the hospitals, including top-ranked orthopedic centers and community hospitals, could provide any sort of price estimate, despite repeated calls. Those that could gave quotes that varied by a factor of more than 10, from $11,100 to $125,798.

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by Ben MacNevin Posted in Health Care, Insightful Insights.

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Pumpkin Patch is a New Zealand company that specializes in higher-end children’s wear. The company began in New Zealand in 1990 and expanded into Australia in 1993, and has managed to reach mature growth in both markets. Many Australasian retailers that reach mature growth will use their positions to support overseas expansions. Pumpkin Patch has managed to launch a profitable wholesale business by signing distribution agreements to hundreds of department stores around the world. However, its store rollout into the UK in 2001 and the US in 2005 has really hurt the company. This retail model was never profitable, and while a high New Zealand dollar and sluggish retail environment did little to help their margins, management were unable to replicate the success of the Australasian stores. The company accumulated NZD13.5 million of retained losses before management made the decision to close their UK and US stores and focus on their online and wholesale divisions.
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by Ben MacNevin Posted in Consumer discretionary, Insightful Insights, Manufacturing.

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Newspapers around the world are being forced from their printed rivers of gold into the online realm in order to survive and thrive. While the industry has struggled over the past decade to establish itself with profitable online models, they have enourmous potential because of there penetration. There are a number of papers that have unlocked the secret to providing the right amount of free content and generating reasonable returns – the Financial Times and the New York Times are two papers that are setting the online benchmark for the world to follow. Fairfax is about to launch a metered paywall in March for its metropolitan mastheads (the Sydney Morning Herald and the Age) – with the path already forged before it, can Fairfax successfully manage its online assets to turn around its ailing print division?
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by Ben MacNevin Posted in Media Companies.

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The S&P/ASX200 Index has increased by 15 per cent since mid-2012 to its current level of 4720, which has focused the attention of market commentators on the “psychologically important” 5000 mark. Since the GFC, the S&P/ASX200 Index has not been able to break through 5000 despite nearing this level in early 2010 and early 2011.

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by Ben MacNevin Posted in Insightful Insights, Value.able.

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