As US military strategy transitions to an Asia-Pacific and more Navy-centric emphasis, anti-submarine warfare gains greater importance to counter both growing tensions in the South China Sea and a growing Chinese submarine threat. (See also my Seeking Alpha article entitled, "Sparton: Ready to Cash In on the Naval Arms Race.") While heavy durable military

Equal's 3rd largest shareholder urges Board to consider all alternatives and strengthen governance

Mill Valley, CA (April 3, 2013) - Lawndale Capital Management, LLC and its affiliate funds ("Lawndale") hold over 1.5 million shares, or more than 4%, of the outstanding equity of Equal Energy, Ltd. ("Equal" or the "Company.") On April 2, 2013, Lawndale sent a letter to Equal's board of directors, responding to March 25, 2013 press releases by Montclair Energy and Equal concerning Montclair's offer to acquire Equal for $4/share (the "Montclair Offer") and others' indications of interest in a transaction with Equal. Lawndale's letter did not support the Montclair Offer; rather, Lawndale recommended that the Company take certain actions to improve the board's independence and governance so that it could properly evaluate the Montclair Offer, and other alternatives to maximize

September Q1 FYE 2013's less than expected profits stemmed from two unrelated product production/acceptance delays, (discussed below) which have partially been made up already in the first part of the current Q2. Absent these delays, September quarterly results would have added to the impressive growth Sparton generated during the preceding fiscal year

Despite the company's fairly consistent delivery of operating performance and its large cinema market shares in Australia (#4), New Zealand (#3) and the United States (#11), Reading International lacks research coverage from any sell-side entertainment, consumer non-durable, or

In my original September 30, 2010 Just One Stock interview regarding Reading, and several other Seeking

Historical background on Reading, now a $254MM LTM revenue, but only a $124MM market cap company, is available in this past Just One Stock interview and periodic progress of Reading's many cinema and real estate activities can be tracked in these other Seeking Alpha articles on Reading. Despite the company's consistent delivery of operating performance and its large cinema market shares in Australia (#4), New Zealand (#3) and the United States (#11), Reading still lacks coverage by even a single

Historical background on Reading, now a $246MM revenue, but only a $100MM market cap company, is available in this past Just One Stock interview and these other Seeking Alpha articles. Notwithstanding the company's consistent delivery of operating performance, Reading lacks coverage by even a single sell-side industry analyst. This lack of secondary analysis contributes to the stock price of RDI trading at the biggest discount to book value/share of all three of the larger US publicly-traded theater exhibitors, Regal Cinemas (RGC), Cinemark

Sparton's renewed organic sales growth further confirms Sparton's repositioning to sustained profitability by an outstanding turnaround team that has already proven itself capable of making tough cuts when, and if, necessary, as well as investments in both R&D and business development.

This January 13, 2012 article in the online version of Institutional Investor describes the 1/3 reduction in Mr. Horowitz’ new base salary in the New Agreement, as “unprecedented.” Seeking Alpha recently published an article expressing an investor’s hope that activist involvement at larger tools comparable, Illinois Tool Works, (ITW) would qualitatively increase that company’s share price. However, here, changes in

Industry-wide box office results for Q3 2011 grew over the prior year. As illustrated in the table below, revenue growth at movie exhibitors with international operations such as

Strong Q4 FYE June 2011 results, announced a little over a month ago, show a company that continues positioning for both growth and higher margins in the future, with an upcoming Q1 earnings announcement and conference call this week. The upcoming results are sure to further confirm Sparton’s repositioning to sustained profitability by an outstanding turnaround team that has already proven itself capable of making tough cuts when, and if, necessary, as well as investments in both R&D and business development and highly accretive acquisitions.

At present prices, Sparton’s $88MM market valuation is less than 1.2X book with almost $23MM of net cash equal to over one-fourth of that market value.

Over the past 30 days, Sparton’s stock price is down >25%, far greater than the broad market, including small- and micro-cap indices. This decline is likely the result of undeserved investor anxiety from the lack of meaningful company news during a time of great broad market turmoil.

Sparton has yet to report its June quarterly results as its fiscal year ends in June. According to the Investor Relations page on Sparton's website, the company’s earnings release and next-day conference

Furthermore, Reading’s stock price trades at the biggest discount to book value/share of all these public cinema operators. This book value is greatly understated due to substantial unrealized appreciation in Reading’s sizable real estate holdings. Together, these factors make Reading a compelling risk/reward investment. Reading’s detailed 10-Q for this quarter can be found here and certain salient findings of this filing are discussed, below.

Box office results for Q2 2011 improved over the prior year industry-wide. Revenue growth at movie exhibitors with international operations such as Reading and Cinemark Holdings

In addition to a slide presentation discussing Reading’s 2010 and Q1 2011 performance, Reading’s Chairman and CEO, James Cotter, Sr. discussed his plans regarding each of Reading’s largest developable parcels, including many I discussed in my March 2011 article, entitled “Reading International: There's More Popping Than Just Corn”.

A very telling picture of 10-year operating performance –

One of the most interesting slides presented was slide showing the 10-year trend and levels of Revenues, Adjusted EBITDA, Assets and Debt from 2001 through 2010. What I found interesting that this slide illustrates (below)

• Despite

There is a coming tsunami of management buyout (MBO) bids that will be submitted to boards still relying on internal projections that were based on recession-level operating results. Most corporate boards don't get wise to this "sand-bagging" until there are several periods of exceeding projections, after which, they finally might hold management's projections to a little more scrutiny.

Furthermore, these MBO bids are promoted as doing a favor for shareowners by 'providing liquidity' to shareowners who suffered valuation declines in the recession. The MBO squeezes them out from participation in

• Reading maintained strong growth in both revenues and operating EBITDA. Total quarterly revenues grew +8.2% from prior year and 6.3% from prior quarter. Both of Reading’s segments, Cinema and Real Estate, contributed to this growth. Versus prior year, Reading’s larger Cinema segment revenues grew 5.7%, while its smaller Real Estate segment revenues grew 43.1%.

• Prior year 2009 operating cash flow benefited by a one-time sizable $2.6MM recovery (booked as a reduction in SG&A expense) of more than a year’s worth of litigation expenses related to Reading’s past investment in Malulani. Removing this one-time recovery to achieve normalized

Mercer operates three of the world’s most modern and efficient mills, with approximately 1.5 million air dried metric tonnes (“ADMT”) of total annual capacity at Celgar, British Columbia (500K ADMT), and Rosenthal (330K ADMT) & Stendal (645K ADMT) in eastern Germany. All are located near excellent fiber baskets and in close proximity to key global markets. Mercer’s pulp operations also produce a significant amount of excess renewable carbon-neutral electricity that is sold to third parties at premium “green energy” rates. The company’s financials are reported in Euros.

Mercer’s most recent investor presentation (Credit Suisse High Yield Conference) can be viewed (here).

Mercer's recently announced Q3 results