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Bronte-Capital

Semi-Retired Fund Manager
Contributor's Links: Bronte Capital Cooking With John
My name is John Hempton and I am a (semi) retired fund manager based in Sydney Australia. My key expertise is in banks and insurance companies though my investing interests extend widely.  I run the Bronte Capital Blog. The purpose of this blog is to explore ...more
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17 to 32 of 57 Posts
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More Than Ten Thousand Tonnes Of Fuel Stolen: African Minerals Edition
Thursday, August 7, 2014 3:42 AM EDT
Wholesale fuel prices are less than $1000 per tonne. Even by the time you get it to Sierra Leone the price is likely to be less than $1500 per tonne.
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For Kicks: Just How Big Is Herbalife? And A Simple Proof That This Is Not A Pyramid
Wednesday, August 6, 2014 4:21 AM EDT
Herbalife has 3.7 million distributors. There is very fast turnover amongst the lower-tiers of the distributor tree.
In this article: HLF
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Valeant Pharmaceuticals Part IX: A Comment On The Sale Of The Facial Injectables Business
Tuesday, August 5, 2014 3:12 AM EDT
Valeant missed analyst projections of revenue and guided down their so-called "cash EPS". Regular readers know that I don't hold much regard for Valeant's non-GAAP numbers (such as cash EPS) but for the moment lets consider them.
In this article: VRX
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Steal Three Billion Dollars, Get A 700 Thousand Dollar Fine: The Scammers Have A Better Business Model - Sino Forest Edition
Friday, August 1, 2014 3:13 AM EDT
Sino Forest - familiar to many of my readers - was a large forestry company listed in Canada with operations in China.
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Fatal Risk: Beach Reading - A Great Book To Start Even If You Don't Quite Finish
Wednesday, July 30, 2014 4:37 AM EDT
For me (and because I was familiar with the broad details of the crisis anyway) the best book of the crisis is Roddy Boyd’s Fatal Risk.
In this article: AIG
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The Shorts Have It All Wrong - Why You Should Buy Herbalife
Monday, July 28, 2014 9:32 PM EDT
The shorts on Twitter/Seeking Alpha, having spent some time saying that the numbers don't matter (just the business model), are now claiming some victory on numbers. But lets examine them dispassionately...
In this article: HLF
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Herbalife Clubs - Another Experience
Wednesday, July 23, 2014 4:04 AM EDT
Bill Ackman has made something of my visit to a Herbalife club in his presentation. I have visited several. And I have a radically different interpretation.
In this article: HLF
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Valeant Pharmaceuticals Part VIII: Product Sales Distribution From The Department Of "Really".
Monday, July 21, 2014 10:28 AM EDT
A key part of the Valeant bull case is that they are extremely diversified as to their product mix and that diversification reduces the risk of competitor products or patent cliffs.
In this article: VRX
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The Miserable Circle Of Bad Service: Telefonica Edition
Thursday, July 3, 2014 4:52 PM EDT
One of the puzzles of this world is why European phone revenues per customer are so low - and sustainably so.
In this article: TEF, TTRAF
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Valeant Pharmaceuticals Part VII: First Notes On The Special Conference Call
Wednesday, June 18, 2014 5:19 AM EDT
The first observation is that Valeant's CEO Mike Pearson and I agree on the basic accounting issue at Valeant.
In this article: VRX
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Valeant Pharmaceuticals Part V: Share Pledges
Tuesday, June 17, 2014 6:02 AM EDT
Today is the day of Valeant's "fact based" presentation. As I demonstrated in Part IV you need to verify "facts" presented by Valeant. Mr Pearson (the CEO) stated categorically that Valeant bought their debt down quite quickly after the Biovail merger. They did not.
In this article: VRX
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Valeant Pharmaceuticals Part IV: Fact Based Discussions About The Reduction Of Debt
Monday, June 16, 2014 4:58 AM EDT
Valeant Pharmaceuticals International, Inc. today announced that it will conduct a fact-based presentation to refute recent misleading assertions made by Allergan, Inc. and others, as well as answer additional investor questions, on June 17, 2014.
In this article: AGN, VRX
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Valeant Pharmaceuticals: Part IIIA: Corrections And Amplifications On The Medicis Restructuring Charges
Friday, June 13, 2014 5:56 AM EDT
As shown in Part II, Valeant Pharmaceuticals makes huge and increasing losses after very large restructuring and other one-off expenses. If the GAAP accounts are the beginning and end of the story then Valeant is headed for bankruptcy. It has large and increasing losses and $17 billion in debt.
In this article: MRX, VRX
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Valeant Pharmaceuticals Part III: Assessing The One-off Charges From The Medicis Merger
Friday, June 13, 2014 4:12 AM EDT
In Part II of this series I explained how to look at Valeant Pharmaceutics GAAP and non-GAAP accounts. In particular I showed how the GAAP accounts show large and increasing losses which the company asks you to look through.
In this article: MRX, VRX
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Valeant Pharmaceuticals Part II: GAAP And Non-GAAP Accounts
Thursday, June 12, 2014 4:23 AM EDT
In Part 1 I introduced Valeant Pharmaceuticals and its business model which is to acquire pharmaceutical companies, strip them of their research expense and earn very high gross margins on sales.
In this article: VRX
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Valeant Pharmaceuticals International: An Extended Look
Tuesday, June 10, 2014 11:58 AM EDT
Valeant Pharmaceuticals is the hottest stock in the hottest sector (pharmaceuticals and biotech). It also has the strangest business model: it acquires existing companies, strips them of most of their research and development and a large proportion of their other staff and extracts huge margins.
In this article: VRX
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17 to 32 of 57 Posts
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