12 Comments

Very interesting. Can you point me to your source for the cash outside China? I am having trouble finding it in the annual report. thanks

Expand full comment
author

Page 9 of annual report breaks down balance sheet by subsidiaries. The 'VIEs and their subsidiaries' is the on shore China assets.

Expand full comment

damn, thats an interesting cpmpany. Thanks for the write up.

Any chance you might share your position size % considering the risks to refer to ?

Expand full comment
author

0.8%. Thats about the size I'd put on one of the names in my JP basket. I own a lot of smallish positions. If Charles wasn't so eager to lose money in media, I'd bet 5x bigger on this name. Still, mechanics of the buyback seem to be doing well to support price.

Expand full comment

Thanks for the transparency.

Expand full comment

Thanks for this, I thought it was one of those stocks that had no hope of ever moving

Expand full comment
author

With the buyback and management's willingness to buy back stock (at least that's what they're communicating), I'm currently bullish. While there's tremendous value in the Changyou business if listed in HK or China, I'm only looking at the cash value which has plenty of upside from here.

Expand full comment

That makes sense thanks for your response and for the article I probably am not going to put any money in it just because it is China and I have some other things I like but it's certainly got my interest

Expand full comment
author

Totally fair! I have no interest in 99% of Chinese listed U.S. stocks no matter the valuation, as money is stuck in China for most of them. Sohu is by no means a slam dunk either, as Charles continues to waste money on the media side of the biz and everything rests on shareholder returns. Outside of them willingly returning cash there is no means of seeing value.

This isn't a super high conviction position. I'm much more confident in my Japanese basket (combination of net net valuations + cost of borrowing yen is 0.75%).

The consistent march higher since the buyback announcement is showing the effect of the buyback on share price. I'm optimistic.

Expand full comment

Makes sense, have you looked Reysas, selling below liquidation value in Turkey? It's my biggest position

Expand full comment
author

Haven't looked at it. I own several turkish stocks including Mavi, Ulker, Koc, Efes, and others. Every Turkish reit/real estate co is trading at a discount to NAV I believe

Expand full comment

The idea that cash in China is trapped and can't be used for shareholder returns is just not true. Take a look at Vipshop. All of its business is in China, raised $US 160 billion in its IPO and secondary offering in 2012 and 2013 and repurchased $US 2 billion (equivalent to 30% of its current market cap) in the last 3 years alone. Company has an authorization of $1.3 billion still to go.

Expand full comment