Seeking Alpha
Seeking Alpha Portfolio App for iPad
Finance
(1)

alpha_zeta

alpha_zeta
Send Message
View as an RSS Feed
View alpha_zeta's Comments BY TICKER:
Latest  |  Highest rated
  • Maiden Holdings Maiden Preferred Offering [View article]
    Summarizing (and adding) concerns:
    1. Use of proceeds. Maybe i'm a bit harsh here but my first read was
    (a) why mention a potential use (the TRUPS) that's a couple of years away? Yes, mention it for completenes, but that means this capital will not be used in the next couple of years by other uses
    (b) the purpose to repurchase of stock. (i) Couldn't you use a less costly form of financing? (ii) did senior execs , associated companies, friends, etc buy the common shares in the past 6 months and upset that the price has not risen as much as expected...so then borrow funds, which will help support those recent insider/friends stock purchases

    2. Business profitability. Yup, in the high 90's and actually been increasing in the past year or two.

    3. Taking on more debt, particularly when profit margin declining -- hmmm, maybe go for the debt now just in case the Combined Loss Ratio creeps over 100%. Sure, it's non-cumulative, but ...

    4. Investments risk. How about something non-correlated to their insurance risk? less exposed to related industry? less exposed to the macro economy where they operate (eg. Europe)? credit risk? sovereign risks?

    5. Offering is BIG (Below Investment Grade), non-cumulative, etc and profitability ratio lower yet only slightly higher yield vs other preferred offering. I didn't pull up Excel, gather the raw data, etc, but just seems underpriced relative to its own securities and current financials... but then again the entire market is chasing yield and bidding up prices/lower yields.

    6. Related party contracts and ownership. Which entity do they want to do well and where the largest owners will benefit most?
    Aug 24 02:57 PM | Likes Like |Link to Comment
  • Is This The End Of Life Partners Holdings? [View article]
    @WFO
    A couple of items related to "50% of the policies exceed the LE, by definition":
    1. Measurement can be by (1) number of policies (2) $ value of the policies
    2. Average(statistical "Mean") versus Median (the middle number when items ranked)
    eg. consider the numbers 47% 10% 84% 63% 61% 78% 22%
    Median = middle ranked number 61% (4th number either direction)
    Average = 52%

    Yes, quite right about how far beyond the LE ...
    Simple total $ effect = Frequency(how often) x Severity(Magnitude)
    Break the 3,600 policies into smaller groups with some common elements eg. maybe way off the mark on estimates for person who received hip replacements , etc etc
    Need a new statistical estimate (distribution).
    Aug 22 10:24 AM | 1 Like Like |Link to Comment
  • Is This The End Of Life Partners Holdings? [View article]
    @ poster "call". At one point a few years ago, LPHI did engage a second (well known in USA) LE firm but how many cases they sent to that LE firm is unknown.

    One of the LE firms has developed a table of LE's, if I recall correctly, based on their own experience over several years in the business.

    Likely their experience data is insufficent to provide 100% Statistical credibility. So, the Margin/Provision for Adverse Deviation would be larger - in layman's terms, build in larger margins for scarcity of the experience data.

    Likely the "industry" data of Life Settlements is not so readily available.

    Evaluation relies on medical experts, on persons underwritten by insurers vs general/census population data.


    Well, to determine the credibility of the data, select your favourite statistical distribution that you can justify eg. Normal/bell curve distribution, Binomial, Poisson if you believe it's "memoryless" and use it's variance formula ... in statistical/stochastic calculus terms the second order moment generating function (the good 'ole Taylor Series expansion approximation or the integral formulas themselves).
    Aug 21 03:34 PM | Likes Like |Link to Comment
  • Is This The End Of Life Partners Holdings? [View article]
    Surprised held up this long, stopped folowing it.
    When does it become a trend (3,200 of 3,600) exceeding the guestimated LE's? There's only so much kicking-the-can down the road that an actuary can do via justifying reserve assumptions.

    Did the auditors comment on reserving?

    I've forgotten, was any of the longevity risk transferred to
    (a) reinsurers (a la Deustche Bank with Lloyds many years ago)?OR
    (b) to the capital markets (perhaps via a securitization offshore)?
    Aug 20 12:20 PM | Likes Like |Link to Comment
  • Pay Per Click Ads Help This Houston Promoter Run 2 Simultaneous Scams - Part 1: CHMR [View article]
    Awaiting Part 2
    Aug 15 10:11 AM | Likes Like |Link to Comment
  • BioMimetic Therapeutics: The FDA Gives A Smudged Map For The Minefields [View article]
    Sure hope you weren't long from early 2011.

    I'd like to fill in the blanks to understand BMTI's financial position, as the financial risk of the company has been increasing and despite some milestone income on a product/technology they sold, the following elements are more relevant today:

    __ = regular cash burn rate per month
    __ = extra costs to extend length of the trials
    __ = extra cost for additional trials
    __ = extra cost for additional endpoints (cancer, etc) study
    __ = other

    BMTI's projections as mentioned last spring / summer anticipated FDA response which kept on being extended from summer, to Sept, to sometime in Nov/Dec and now the response received is very unfavorable.

    I looked up the MELA stock you mentioned and even after some-time-later relenting of the FDA, MELA's stock price is still in the $3's which isn't any mind-blowing price recovery compared to earlier times.

    I suppose that's what happens when test results are/were at borderline levels.
    Jan 5 08:14 PM | Likes Like |Link to Comment
  • Mannkind and BioMimetic Suffer From Poor Management [View article]
    quick comment just reading first couple of paragraphs:

    What does it matter if Novo's foundation funds owns shares in BMTI? It investments in the biotech sector. It is always a long term holder b/c biotech sector R&D takes long time. Some products reach an approval...and some do not!

    Many things change within a one-year time period ...including the inconclusive/ questionable study results
    Aug 4 01:29 PM | Likes Like |Link to Comment
  • 6 Very Cheap Stocks in a Very Expensive Market [View article]
    Today: analysts drop their price targets on ING
    Aug 2 09:13 AM | Likes Like |Link to Comment
  • 6 Very Cheap Stocks in a Very Expensive Market [View article]
    AEG (and ING): very nice that you say the company plans to increase its ROE a little, but "How?" is not stated.

    In a low interest rate environment, the absolute yields are low and expenses cannot continue to be reduced, therefore shrinking investment margins are the norm.

    So, sell more volume you say?

    Now look at the risk based capital that must be posted :
    a) US regulatory - NAIC
    b) rating agency- S&P, Moody's, Fitch, etc
    c) European regulatory -- uh oh, whammmmo - look how much higher this cost is for some product lines sold by AEG (and ING )

    Solvency II is analogous to a "180 degree regulatory arbitrage", likely causing more strategic reviews of their businesses.

    Could the Europeans eventually divest some of their USA insurance operations? (in addition to the banking and reinsurance)
    Aug 1 08:56 AM | Likes Like |Link to Comment
  • Questions About Dividend Spook New Flyer Investors: Why I'm Buying [View article]
    Fliujniligui, that stock BSBR just tanked yesterday! Why? Growth rates maybe a bit slower BUT the DEFAULTS on loans were up quite a bit.

    New Flyer needs to come down in price before i get interested again.
    Jul 28 09:17 AM | Likes Like |Link to Comment
  • Mannkind and BioMimetic Suffer From Poor Management [View article]
    BMTI
    1. agree it would be irresponsible for FDA to approve without additional information

    2. if additional (a) trials (b) longer study period (c) more patients (d) data follow-up needed, this is going to cost BMTI more and more money, and time

    Some items are a major set-back and more trials is basically a Huge shift, more cash/capital will be needed.


    3. Revenue projections.
    (a) the need and competing products. Similar to dot.com 1990's era, what we've heard is the market size is XX and we will get x% of that. However, as FDA pointed out, why is the product even needed? Yes, it is less painful, but there are other solutions, and everyone seems to comment on only 1 other solution out there.

    (b) affordability and health care. As economy in USA worsens, tech companies now laying off in big numbers, slowdown in networking sector, employers cut back on health care. The Health Care Reforms passed legislation but have not been implemented, and may get cancelled if a different government wins next election. Thirdly, individuals how many can afford health care on their own? Wealth built up by pre and baby boomers is being bifurcated into the "have-lots" and growing mass of "have-nots". In some countries of the world, persons with injuries, and no medical care, continue on with their daily lives, persons with hip, leg, foot problems continue to do physical labor jobs. This can't happen in America??

    (c) actual sales. Everyone assumes sales will be "instantaneous". Fact is, there is a rather long period of learning curve, competing with other solutions, and so on. For example, look at their experience in Canada. Sales were rather dismal, so they changed their sales channel approach and there should be some growth because of course with hardly any sales before, it is difficult to be worse, but there will also be more costs.
    However, the sales projections for markets other than Canada are so lofty, the bar placed so high, and will not be achieved - expectations are way too high and more realistic scenarios should be considered.


    4. News about "financial and other incentives" (bribes?) for doctors to say or not say things about products/techniques. Yes, this activity has existed in many sector for a long time, but it has re-surfaced recently in the sector in which BMTI operates. This is not job of FDA but surely they will be aware of these events and likely to dig deeper on the results/claims made by BMTI and other companies.

    5. Law firms are conducting investigations into many of the issues raised by the FDA and on public statements made by BMTI. Perhaps the law firms will gain access to internal communications, emails, etc and to ascertain the degree of their claims against BMTI.
    Management time (or additional resources at additional cost) will be needed for this activity.


    more at another time
    Jul 28 09:04 AM | Likes Like |Link to Comment
  • Undervalued Cameco: Potentially the Best Uranium Buy [View article]
    What will happen in the mid to longer term on demand and price of uranium?
    Over the weekend China announced a breakthrough substantially REDUCING the URANIUM needed in nuclear reactors ... the article says the supply of uranium reserves will increase from 70years to 3,000 years ... enough uranium until for King Tut to double in age or more than double our current Gregorian calendar year ...certainly enough to last a one in 3,000 year event, or choose your own descriptions of a 3,000 year period.

    It would seem effective SUPPLY will be getting a huge boost. It's about time for some good news for energy costs to society.
    Jul 24 09:29 PM | Likes Like |Link to Comment
  • Mannkind and BioMimetic Suffer From Poor Management [View article]
    BMTI
    1. agree it would be irresponsible for FDA to approve without additional information

    2. if additional (a) trials (b) longer study period (c) more patients (d) data follow-up needed, this is going to cost BMTI more and more money, and time

    Some items are a major set-back and more trials is basically a Huge shift, more cash/capital will be needed.

    Pardon brief msg, need to run
    Jul 19 10:33 AM | Likes Like |Link to Comment
  • 4 Highly Shorted, High Dividend Yield Stocks with Impressive Free Cash Flow [View article]
    Dividend on CISG was annual....not sure if it will continue in future or at what (of course, that's a moot point if the buyout goes through). If buyout does not go through, stock could drop to $8 to $12 range.
    Jul 17 07:05 PM | Likes Like |Link to Comment
  • 4 Highly Shorted, High Dividend Yield Stocks with Impressive Free Cash Flow [View article]
    CISG is progressing through buyout process. At the beginning they named independent committee, lined up financing partners, and so forth. They do things properly in a considered manner.

    They respond to shareholder enquiries, and promptly. (unlike some other China, USA, etc companies)
    Jul 15 11:27 AM | Likes Like |Link to Comment
COMMENTS STATS
86 Comments
44 Likes