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Chroma Investing

Stock Investing for beginning investors, Investing Small Amounts of Money, interested in Buffett, Klarman, and Graham

Endwave (ENWV) an update

Posted on | February 27, 2010 | No Comments

I posted on ENWV back in December when they had the illusion of a Net Net stock with a margin of safety. But it was all in the details. They had a slog of Preferred shares that weighed on the balance sheet. They were losing money, and seemed to have a lot of unhappy shareholders. There have been some changes since and I wouldn’t want anyone to be stuck with my previous assessment as the only look at the company. I still don’t own any shares. I am still on advocating buying ENWV, but the situation has changed enough to make it worth looking at least.

In January ENWV bought back all the preferred shares from Oak Investments for $36 million. This was discounted from Oak’s original Investment by $9 million. This was a huge step in the right direction for shareholders for two reasons. First, it took the slightly submerged overhang of the preferred shares off the books, and at a discount. But more importantly the company is not beholden to Oak any more. This frees the company to be acquired by another company. That is not a prediction. But another company did not really have the option prior to the buy out of the preferred shares.

Since then, a whole lot interest has been paid to ENWV. On 2/8/10 Dimensional Advisors disclosed a 7.8% position in the company. On 2/10/10 Portolan Investment disclosed a 4.3% position in the company. On 2/16/10 Potomac Capital disclosed a 6.19% position. Empire has also increased its holdings, although some of that may have been a year end loss, and repurchase after 30 days. In any case, if you are the type of investor that likes to see other investors buying, then you would like this news. I am only interested in what investors I respect are doing, or company officers. Nothing in the 13G/A’s to indicate management is interested in their own stock.

I estimate their current NCAV value at $3.19- $3.52, depending on how you calculate it. Taking the Graham Margin of Safety of 33% gives you a purchase price somewhere around $2.32 on the high side. The shares closed yesterday at $2.60/share. But if you are willing to take a smaller margin of safety you might be interested. But I would caution you as always to think twice before making any investment. Do your own research. Double check everything. Since ENWV is still losing money on operations of $3.4 million per quarter, as reported in their latest 8k, ENWV still seems like a risky proposition to me.

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    About Chroma Investing

    Chroma - freedom from dilution with white and hence vivid in hue. Who said investing has to be all black and white, or gray.

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