Monday, October 1, 2012

Paulson Is Quite Attractive!

In the title, I refer to the company, not the person. Shares of Paulson Capital (PLCC) trade for less than one-third of the company's net current assets, offering investors an opportunity to buy a Nasdaq-listed company for 30 cents on the liquid dollar.

If the name sounds familiar, it's because the company has been brought up on this site before. Just a few months ago, the company's share price rocketed onto the Value In Action page. As has occurred previously, however, shares have since fallen dramatically, offering investors another chance to get in on the ground floor (not to the say the share price couldn't fall still further, of course).

This time around, however, the company is much easier to understand. By shedding it's brokerage division, Paulson's balance sheet is cleaner with only $0.6 million in liabilities against $14.6 million in current assets. Most of these current assets are in the form of cash, receivables and securities (both market and non-market). Even if you were to write-down the value of the company's non-market securities to zero, the company would still trade at about half of its net current assets.

Don't expect a smooth ride, however. Earnings for this company are choppy, as revenues are heavily reliant on deal flow, which can rise and fall unpredictably. But this volatility can scare investors away while at the same time offering opportunities to buy when the margin of safety is high and sell when it's low. At the current price, the margin of safety looks rather elevated...

Disclosure: Author has a long position in shares of PLCC

2 comments:

pietje said...

PLCC received a delisting warning because their stock is trading < 1$. What is the procedure if the stock continues to trade low? Will it go to OTCBB? What will happen with minority shareholders?

Saj Karsan said...

Hi pietje,

Indeed that is a risk. They do have almost a year to meet that requirement, however.