Altana Chemie AG (AAA)

[Rooster]

I've been looking into this company. There is a great article about them at: C&EN: BUSINESS - ALTANA SEEKS GROWTH NICHES

They have a relatively new CEO who seems very impressive. He is trying to be number 1 in several diverse specialty markets. It's an unusual situation because there are new directors but the company is the picture of stability on paper (their numbers are great). Their stock took a recent dip that makes the price an amazing bargain and there seems to be no real explanation for it. Their recent quarterly report was great. Perhaps Mr. Market is skittish because they have decided to leave the NYSE. If I buy shares in this company before they actually leave, what will happen later? They will no longer be regulated by the SEC. What effect will this have on my trading? Has anybody ever owned foreign stock that didn't trade on a U.S. exchange?

BTW: This company meets Graham's 7 statistical requirements except for the length of time it has been trading. It has a low P/E ratio and the price is less than 1.5 times net asset value.

[Hobbes]

Originally Posted by Rooster

I've been looking into this company. There is a great article about them at: C&EN: BUSINESS - ALTANA SEEKS GROWTH NICHES

They have a relatively new CEO who seems very impressive. He is trying to be number 1 in several diverse specialty markets. It's an unusual situation because there are new directors but the company is the picture of stability on paper (their numbers are great). Their stock took a recent dip that makes the price an amazing bargain and there seems to be no real explanation for it. Their recent quarterly report was great. Perhaps Mr. Market is skittish because they have decided to leave the NYSE. If I buy shares in this company before they actually leave, what will happen later? They will no longer be regulated by the SEC. What effect will this have on my trading? Has anybody ever owned foreign stock that didn't trade on a U.S. exchange?

BTW: This company meets Graham's 7 statistical requirements except for the length of time it has been trading. It has a low P/E ratio and the price is less than 1.5 times net asset value.

Bear in mind that the recent dip in price is due to a $44.217/share special distribution that was made after they sold off a portion of their business. They essentially gave the shareholders back 4.7 billion dollars of their equity. I would be a little afraid of what that the management is saying about their ability to turn additional equity into profits...

[Rooster]

So that's it. It's interesting that the European investors don't seem as worried about it. Do you know what will happen when they leave the NYSE? Would my broker still be able to find them? Would I still be able to keep up with them online?

Giving back the equity seems to fit in with how things have been going with them. The growth numbers are very steady. They seem to grow in a very orderly (German) fashion. Their ability to continue doing business as they have so far doesn't seem to be diminished.

[Hobbes]

Originally Posted by Rooster

So that's it. It's interesting that the European investors don't seem as worried about it. Do you know what will happen when they leave the NYSE? Would my broker still be able to find them? Would I still be able to keep up with them online?

Giving back the equity seems to fit in with how things have been going with them. The growth numbers are very steady. They seem to grow in a very orderly (German) fashion. Their ability to continue doing business as they have so far doesn't seem to be diminished.

I would imagine that your broker should still be able to trade them...do you know which exchange they are moving to? Euronext? The biggest problem that I can see is the time difference...if something happened that was going to affect the stock price and you wanted to act on it then you may or may not be paying attention at 4AM...

[Rooster]

I agree that it would be good to keep an eye on them. I was attracted to them originally because they are more in the line of a Graham investment. His criteria favor companies with steady growth, a low P/E, a low P/BV, and solid financials (current ratios and debt ratios). Companies like this shouldn't need as much watching. Their recent price drop seems to be just the type of anomaly Graham would have watched for and celebrated. There seems to be no indication that their solid business record will change. They just have had this one bump in the road (which explains their TTM ROIC being low--Graham allowed for this sort of short-term drop). I'm trying to make sure the bump in the road had nothing to do with any substantial change in their ability to do business. I only found one analyst who rated them recently. They seem to be under everyone's radar (another bonus in Graham's book). Does anybody use a paid stock-rating service that mentions them? More information would really be useful!

[Rooster]

Altana Chemie was de-listed by the NYSE this morning (it chose to de-list itself probably because it doesn't have a division in the U.S. anymore) so it stopped showing up on MSN Money charts. I called Firstrade this morning and found out that I can still buy it through them (via telephone) but it is now a pink sheet stock. That was disappointing because pink sheet stocks are usually pretty much speculative (and stupid). Then I found it on the Franfurt Stock Exchange with the ticker ALT (XE:ALT). It still seems like a good purchase. I found out that a lot of people sold it because of a tax advantage. The article I was reading said that they might be buying it back again. Interactive Brokers allows for online purchases in foreign exchanges. After I figured out their rates, though, I realized it would be cheaper to buy it through Firstrade as a pink sheet stock because the commission is the same price, $6.95, as their on-line trades. I was having trouble figuring out how to determine its trading volume, though, and I like looking at the three tools even though I don't feel obligated to sell when they tell me to. Any quotes I could find (pinksheets.com) were once a day and there wasn't any other information like trading volume.

So . . . the main point of this post. I found a website called ADVFN.com that has better charts than MSNMoney, it's free, and it includes foreign exchanges. So now I can keep track of Altana and buy it through Firstrade if it looks good. The webpage is ADVFN - Free stock prices, quotes, stock charts, market news and streaming real-time stock quotes.. You can make a portfolio like MSNMoney and you can click on charts from there and customize them and save your preferences (although it took me a while to figure out how to do it).

[ingo]

Hi all,

I would wait. With the sale of their pharmacy branch they've lost a lot of their market capitalization. There's the danger that they have to leave the German DAX. That would mean that some funds based on the Dax have to sell.

[Rooster]

DAX An index of 30 top German Stocks.
Investopedia Says: In German, DAX is short for "DEUTSCHER AKTIENINDEX", which essentially means performance index.



Where did you read that they might have to leave the DAX? Is that because their price per share is dropping too low?