I’ve added several deep value names to my Japanese portfolio over the last few months. While there are many net-nets in Japan, the names below are either double net nets or close, meaning if these stocks doubled, they would still be net nets. There are cheaper names in Japan, but I’m filtering a bit for profitability. Since I don’t know when value will be realized, I don’t want to own melting ice cubes. The names below and just about everything else in my Japan bucket are consistently profitable and have a history of growing book value per share.
I have 5658 since September and 5697 since November, they are cheap and there are chances of Nippon Steel buying them with a premium. I'm glad we are looking at the same names as I started investing in Japan mainly because your substack.
The Reuters poll gave 14 respondents out of 155 as considering going private, so that's just a hair over 9%. Nevertheless, it remains very likely that this figure will rise – Japan is (still) a place of long-standing tradition. A meaningful fraction of firms may feel that the benefits of being listed are less valuable than stepping away from these pesky requirements to change the way they allocate capital which has worked perfectly well for decades, through times good and bad.
Mk Seiko Co Ltd (5906) is another interesting one. P/TBV < 0.5 and pays a non-growing dividend. Need to read up on what happened in 2022 but it's a bit difficult since their only financial reports are in Japanese (as far as I could find).
I have 5658 since September and 5697 since November, they are cheap and there are chances of Nippon Steel buying them with a premium. I'm glad we are looking at the same names as I started investing in Japan mainly because your substack.
The Reuters poll gave 14 respondents out of 155 as considering going private, so that's just a hair over 9%. Nevertheless, it remains very likely that this figure will rise – Japan is (still) a place of long-standing tradition. A meaningful fraction of firms may feel that the benefits of being listed are less valuable than stepping away from these pesky requirements to change the way they allocate capital which has worked perfectly well for decades, through times good and bad.
I would use EV/EBIT instead of P/E. I think P/E is outdated and most studies show that low EV/EBIT stocks outperform low P/E stocks.
Mk Seiko Co Ltd (5906) is another interesting one. P/TBV < 0.5 and pays a non-growing dividend. Need to read up on what happened in 2022 but it's a bit difficult since their only financial reports are in Japanese (as far as I could find).