105 year old company and there's even an activist shareholder in the register (Effissimo Capital). Kinki Sharyo is a listed subsidiary of Kintetsu Group (9041).
I didn't mention this in the article, but the land/facility they own to build their trains is located in Osaka in a decent location. The current rental facility is leased to a shopping mall and it's adjacent to their factory (its a former factory site). The rental facility is valued at FMV 10.2 billion in FY2024 and it is 1/4th the size of the factory.
Does the rolling stock factory really need to be on land this valuable? Why not sell the entire project for a huge gain and buy land further outside the city for cheap and build a brand new facility? A plot 1/4 the size attached to the same parcel is worth 10.2 billion. The factory land if leased could be worth 40 billion+. Conservatively it's worth 25 billion to a developer to do all the work (just guessing, no idea). Book value including value of buildings, machinery, and land is 7.28 billion. Sell it all for 25 billion, and buy and build a new factory for say 15 billion way outside the city. Lots of value here.
Kinki Sharyo won design awards for JR West's 273 series YAKUMO and Kintetsu's 8A. The Blue Ribbon and Laurel prizes for 2025 in Japan. They're a small player, but their capabilities are respected in the industry. Doesn't really change the story here, but shows they're a capable player.
I'm doing my own quick write-up on KS. I will cite your article. As you say, the Osaka real estate has a fair value of 10.2T. At a 10.8T market cap, the rail business is basically "free". 2.7T of pension obligations may be the only "bad" you left off the list.
The pension obligations were accounted for in the NCAV calculation. 'Liabilities and retirement benefits' are under Fixed Debt on the JP balance sheet. When calculating NCAV I subtract TOTAL LIABILITIES from current assets to get NCAV. Then we can add back investment securities for NCAV+Inv Securities.
The real estate covers the entire mcap, then we also have a ton of current assets!
Ha! I was looking at Mitsubishi Heavy Industries earlier in the evening and must have had the trillion in my head. 708 million of net income on the real estate in FY2024, 10.25 billion. A 6.9% cap rate. Seems reasonable.
I see that you did include pension liabilities. Got it. Thank you.
Thanks for sharing the idea. I learnt a lot from your writing. Really appreciate it!
I have a question regarding the return rate. For example, assume the dividend rate is 3.5% and the buyout premium is 30% over the share price. Let's also assume that we have 10 companies of similar characteristics in the basket. Each year only one of the ten companies will be bought out or taken private at a premium of 30% over its share price. Since we don't know which one will be bought out, we allocate our capital evenly. The annual return will be 90% * 3.5% + 10%*33.5%=6.5%. Is this right? Feel free to correct me. Thanks!
The buyout premium is too low. The average buyout premium is higher than that in Japan iirc.
Also on average a basket of net-nets beats the index. If they go nowhere except dividend + buyout then your return is not great. Then again, if you fund the purchases via borrowed yen at 1%, your return remains good.
Either way, It's wrong to assume no return except dividend. Look at historical returns on net-nets in Japan and use a conservaitve estimate. Return will be much higher.
A lot to like, but definitely a bit riskier (in terms of earnings volatility) than many of my other basket names. Still, it's very very cheap. The rental real estate alone is worth the market cap!
Almost all Japanese companeis have FY ending March 31. You can find quarter by quarter financials on the Japanese IR website. Or any data aggregator. Those will be in Japanese, but can be google translated. The figures in my writeup are using most up to data quarterly numbers (FY2025 Q3).
I didn't mention this in the article, but the land/facility they own to build their trains is located in Osaka in a decent location. The current rental facility is leased to a shopping mall and it's adjacent to their factory (its a former factory site). The rental facility is valued at FMV 10.2 billion in FY2024 and it is 1/4th the size of the factory.
Does the rolling stock factory really need to be on land this valuable? Why not sell the entire project for a huge gain and buy land further outside the city for cheap and build a brand new facility? A plot 1/4 the size attached to the same parcel is worth 10.2 billion. The factory land if leased could be worth 40 billion+. Conservatively it's worth 25 billion to a developer to do all the work (just guessing, no idea). Book value including value of buildings, machinery, and land is 7.28 billion. Sell it all for 25 billion, and buy and build a new factory for say 15 billion way outside the city. Lots of value here.
Kinki Sharyo won design awards for JR West's 273 series YAKUMO and Kintetsu's 8A. The Blue Ribbon and Laurel prizes for 2025 in Japan. They're a small player, but their capabilities are respected in the industry. Doesn't really change the story here, but shows they're a capable player.
I'm doing my own quick write-up on KS. I will cite your article. As you say, the Osaka real estate has a fair value of 10.2T. At a 10.8T market cap, the rail business is basically "free". 2.7T of pension obligations may be the only "bad" you left off the list.
10.2T? It's 10.2 billion, not trillion!
The pension obligations were accounted for in the NCAV calculation. 'Liabilities and retirement benefits' are under Fixed Debt on the JP balance sheet. When calculating NCAV I subtract TOTAL LIABILITIES from current assets to get NCAV. Then we can add back investment securities for NCAV+Inv Securities.
The real estate covers the entire mcap, then we also have a ton of current assets!
Ha! I was looking at Mitsubishi Heavy Industries earlier in the evening and must have had the trillion in my head. 708 million of net income on the real estate in FY2024, 10.25 billion. A 6.9% cap rate. Seems reasonable.
I see that you did include pension liabilities. Got it. Thank you.
Thanks for sharing the idea. I learnt a lot from your writing. Really appreciate it!
I have a question regarding the return rate. For example, assume the dividend rate is 3.5% and the buyout premium is 30% over the share price. Let's also assume that we have 10 companies of similar characteristics in the basket. Each year only one of the ten companies will be bought out or taken private at a premium of 30% over its share price. Since we don't know which one will be bought out, we allocate our capital evenly. The annual return will be 90% * 3.5% + 10%*33.5%=6.5%. Is this right? Feel free to correct me. Thanks!
The buyout premium is too low. The average buyout premium is higher than that in Japan iirc.
Also on average a basket of net-nets beats the index. If they go nowhere except dividend + buyout then your return is not great. Then again, if you fund the purchases via borrowed yen at 1%, your return remains good.
Either way, It's wrong to assume no return except dividend. Look at historical returns on net-nets in Japan and use a conservaitve estimate. Return will be much higher.
got you. thanks for the reply. It makes a lot more sense now.
what did you make of earnings yesterday? any change to the thesis?
I own this too!
A lot to like, but definitely a bit riskier (in terms of earnings volatility) than many of my other basket names. Still, it's very very cheap. The rental real estate alone is worth the market cap!
I posted my little piece on K-S. I'm not breaking any new ground, just confirming your thesis with some valuation calculations.
Do you still own this given the run up?
yep
Thanks for this write-up. How do you find the 2024 annual report?
Just go to official website and click English on the top navigation then investor relations.
I guess fiscal years ended March 31, so the most recent annual report is March 2024. Is there a way to find more recent financial information?
Almost all Japanese companeis have FY ending March 31. You can find quarter by quarter financials on the Japanese IR website. Or any data aggregator. Those will be in Japanese, but can be google translated. The figures in my writeup are using most up to data quarterly numbers (FY2025 Q3).