Email Inquiry to Athris Management - Aug 18, 2009
Invitation to connect on LinkedIn
Christopher Schulz
August 18, 2009
Raymund Scheffrahn... see more
Replaced
Dear Raymund,
Since our brief telephone conversation and email a while ago,
lots of things seem to have happened at Athris. Principally
at the level of share repurchases by controlling shareholder.
At least you believe in this wonderful group of assets you own.
I am pretty sure market participants have been lulled deep into
sleep. Why should they see value where others see? When
things are too obvious, market participants typically ignore
where they could be making money.
Conceptually I am wondering, why is it that Athris itself is not
doing any of these value enhancing share buybacks, thereby increasing
NAV per share to all shareholders. Would this not be an easy way to
redeploy assets and create value. Evidently this would take cash out of
your corporate treasury, which is not the same thing as GvO buying
in the open market for his own account and keeping asset pool together.
Wonder of any of my subscribers ever got to invest in your
company. From general lack of response to my investment recommendation
alerts, I would think they are secretly accumulating.
This is the way it always works in this industry. Smart people say they
have no interest, and then they buy it anyway. Its always good
to buy for yourself when you believe in something.
One thing I never quite understood, the 59,000 and change shares bought by GvO on June 30, 2009, should the seller of these assets not previously have reported a 3% ownership level. 59,000 shares at all times were 3% of votes.
In other respects, you seem to be doing a fine job in increasing the value of net assets responsibly. Too bad that others could not be encouraged of that vision.
Athris idea has not brought me so far any new clients but I guess it counts already as a decent idea. Who knows if some of the recent shareholders come out of the woodwork and tell me about their investments. Its not that easy to run a credible indep. research firm.
Good luck on investments.
Chris
posted by Christopher Schulz @ 3:17 PM
2 Comments:
At 5:43 PM,
Christopher Schulz said…
Guess what.. I never go any response to my initial email dated August 18.
Instead these guys went straight for the jugular.
Maybe the board members allowed G.v.Opel to buy his firs 100 MM CHF in open market at friendship price and imposed some tighter corporate governance standard for the next 100 MM CHF of stock.
That G.v.Opel wants to mop this spinoff/family office holding company now surprises me somewhat as he has been so vociferious about running an investment firm and has clamored for so long for this all.
maybe he didnt like the whole put-exercise in the magnitude at which it happened.
People didnt exactly give this guy a big vote of confidence. I wonder how this investor would behave if fellow investors would treat him more with YES SIR attitude. you want an investment fund. here is 2 billion, now manage it. Would he still try to buy out shareholders at 30% or 40% discount to NAV and try to get a 15-20% ceding of control premium if people gave him a huge boost of public confidence instead of treating him like an outlaw?
I think this guy surrounds himself too much by lawyer and advisor scumbags who run the show for him. too many smarty pants looking to raid companies the legally permissible way and no minority activitist drawing any convincing battle cries in Switzerland. The corporate culture one must say is pretty corrupt and skewed in favor of the big wigs.
At 11:36 AM,
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