I have done well following Cornwall capital. They have had quite a success with their activist investing in Japan. They are the same guys from big short book. If you see a net net with cornwall in the shareholder list on FT website, please tell me! They have been successful either pushing large buybacks or getting company sold.
Here is my list of Japan Net nets:
http://treasureinvesting.blogspot.co...-is-about.html
I observed about 80 cheap Japanese stocks in the past year, and generally they move when buybacks happen or earnings increase. I think it is better to bet on a good business with 50% net cash, than a crappy one with 100% net cash. The market heavily discounts cash in general unless they do special dividends or something, which is rare.
For example IFIS japan has a really nice business with high margins and very high ROIC (excluding excess cash), traded at <10x PE. 50% market cap net cash. They have a record of making cheap acquisitions. And after they increased earnings this year they jumped like 70%. Most of these net nets have awful ROIC (even excluding excess cash) and tiny margins, so they will never get a high PE. Unless they get sold or something.
Last edited by dfgg; 07-08-2017 at 10:23 AM.