Re: IPE - ING Private Equity
Hi Dezza
An interesting company - completely new to me - so take my comments as first impressions and subject to moderation by those more familiar with the stock.
IPE is obviously suffering along with the rest of the market at the moment and its hard to distinguish between the general bear market effect, the current unpopularity of investment funds ( probably especially those with " Private Equity " in their names ) and factors specific to IPE.
In fact, the several "layers" involved are one of the problems.
At the top is the directorate/management of IPE - and I'd have to say the people involved are largely unknown to me and, I would guess, to most investors.
Then we have the management of the various funds in which IPE is invested. These people are even more " opaque", at least to me.
Finally, there is the management of the various companies in which the funds are invested. By their very nature, these people, and the companies, do not get exposed to any public/regulatory scrutiny.
The various layers also come with various fees, untimately borne by IPE shareholders.
IPE, at 74cents, is trading at a discount of 34.5% to latest NTA of $1-13. I havn't done any comparisons but investment funds typically trade at a discount and a sizable discount is probably to be expected in current market conditions.
The good news is that IPE doesn't have any interest bearing debt as at 31December, 2007 and I would expect that that wouldn't change. We don't know what the position is for the various investee funds nor for the companies in which they are invested. Neither, of course do we know how those companies are faring although there are some solid household names there - Griffins Foods, Kathmandu, Ezibuy - from the New Zealand perspective alone.
I certainly wouldn't be looking to buy/add until the market improves. Meanwhile, IPE looks interesting enough to add to my watchlist for the eventual upturn.