8 Potential Bargains: Profitable, Cash-Rich Net/Nets

Occasionally, we take liberties with Ben Graham’s original formula used to identify companies trading below their net current asset value and loosen the criteria a bit. (Truth be told, Ben would not have bought a company unless it traded for less than 2/3 NCAV, and even then, he would have had to be convinced the company had legs.) This week we’ll identify some of the companies trading at less than twice their NCAV, with the following attributes:

*Market Cap Minimum $100 million
*Price/Earnings Ratio less than 20
*Net Cash (cash less LT debt) is at least 20 percent of market cap

The objective is to identify companies that are not just potentially cheap, but also have levels of cash adequate to weather storms that may be on the horizon. As always, this is a working list that requires additional research and scrutiny prior to making investment decisions. Not surprisingly, many on the list are tech companies. Perhaps we’ll dig deeper into a couple of the more compelling names in the coming weeks.

ZYGO Corp
Ticker: ZIGO
Price: $11.29
Mkt Cap: $20
NCAV: $102 million
Cash & ST Inv: $41 million
PE: 19

Palm Inc
Ticker: PALM
Price: $6.97
Mkt Cap: $731 million
NCAV: $521 million
Cash & ST Inv: $627 million
PE: 18.6

Rudolph Technologies
Ticker: RTEC
Price: $11.95
Mkt Cap: $349 million
NCAV: $211 million
Cash & ST Inv: $121 million
PE: 17

Integrated Silicon Solution Inc
Ticker: ISSI
Price: $6.52
Mkt Cap: $246 million
NCAV: $161 million
Cash & ST Inv: $134 million
PE: 16

Eagle Test Systems
Ticker: EGLT
Price: $10.95
Mkt Cap: $251 million
NCAV: $141 million
Cash & ST Inv: $112.5 million
PE: 14

Cutera Inc.
Ticker: CUTR
Price: $15.14
Mkt Cap: $192 million
NCAV: $99 milliom
Cash & ST Inv: $100 million
PE: 13

Benchmark Electronics
Ticker: BHE
Price: $17.95
Mkt Cap: $1.28 billion
NCAV: $852 million
Cash & ST Inv: $379 million
PE: 13

Conn's Inc
Ticker: CONN
Price: $18.1
Mkt Cap: $420 million
NCAV: $244 million
Cash & ST Inv: $210 million
PE: 11

Disclosure: The author does not have positions in any of the companies mentioned.

Comments

[Asit Alwayshasbeen]

The statistics that are used for the entire basis of this article are totally wrong for, for example, PALM.

PALM just returned $9 in cash to its shareholders and went seriously into debt. Their NCAV, for example, is negative.

If THOSE numbers are SO wrong then this could suggest the other numbers bear scrutiny as wee.