Sigma Value. Bank Investing in 2. According to the FDIC’s Quarterly Banking Profile for the Fourth Quarter 2. FDIC- insured institutions earned $1. All of the banks in this list trade at richly deserved valuations north of 2x tangible book value (TBV), that is, all except for Customers Bank (CUBI) led by former Sovereign Bank CEO Jay Sidhu, and the two banks operating in Washington DC. Both Eagle. Bank and Cardinal Bank have pristine balance sheets – Cardinal, in particular, has $0 other real estate owned (OREO) and $0 loans receivable past due 9. The rapid demise of Sovereign after the 2. Lehman, Fannie and Freddie, and the overall collapse of the financial system in 2. To boost return on equity, the new management team, pressed by Whitworth, lowered credit standards and loaded up on an alphabet soup of structured products (5), and sure enough, on October 1. Sovereign was acquired by Spain’s Banco Santander SA for a measly $2. You need a long- term view with prudent risk- management strategies and not the short- term view of a hedge fund manager. Many providers of liquidity in this segment exited the business in 2. Ultimately, an investment in a bank is an investment in people. A fellow investor in Customers Bank warned me not to be “overly- wowed” by Jay’s knowledge of banking – a contradiction given knowledge is what we are seeking. Banking System. On May 2. FDIC released its Quarterly Banking Profile for the First Quarter of 2. U. S. At the depths of the financial crisis in early 2. FASB(2) looked into the abyss and ceded the rules governing mark- to- market accounting. The Fed’s balance sheet has tripled in size since the crisis to a record $2. Supported by one of the most profitable banking environments in modern history given the steepness of the yield curve, Net Interest Margin (NIM) of 3. Q1 2. 01. 1 was higher than the 3. In comparison, the 2. Our government tells us with “1. Hi My boss asked me to test the Cisco DMVPN tecnhologies in a little lab. How many routers and type of routers are necessary to buid this test lab? Cisco ASR 1000 Series Aggregation Services Routers Release Notes, Cisco IOS XE Release 3S. From millions of real job salary data. Average salary is Detailed starting salary, median salary, pay scale, bonus data report. No more missed important software updates! UpdateStar 11 lets you stay up to date and secure with the software on your computer. July 2. 00. 7 will become history. But what makes student debt so much more insidious then credit card or auto debt is its bankruptcy exclusion. In a Barron's Cover Story on April 1. Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, which has been investigating the For- Profit industry, says that FPEs account for 1. Economies of Light: The LED/OLED Revolution (1)Chapter 1: Introduction to the LED/OLED Revolution. Chapter 2: Sapphire. Chapter 3: MOCVD Equipment Chapter 4: Universal Display and the Value of Patents. Manage your page to keep your users updated View some of our premium pages: google.com. Upgrade to a Premium Page. This data sheet describes the benefits, specifications, and ordering information for the Cisco Unified Border Element. Career advice, tips, news and discussion is coming soon More Career Information. Salaries; Interview Questions; Sample Resumes; Jobs. Stack Exchange is a network of question-and-answer websites on topics in varied fields, each site covering a specific topic, where questions, answers, and users are. 3-Sigma Value Investment Management is a New York-based investment company headquartered at 575 Madison Avenue, 10th Floor, NY NY 10022. Cisco Asr 1001 Licensed Professional Counselor![]() Chapter 5: Cree is the First Solar of LED(1) Originally published January 2. May and August 2. Chapter 1. Introduction to the LED/OLED Revolution. A Light Emitting Diode (LED) is made of semiconductor materials (positively and negatively charged particles – “diodes”) placed on a sapphire substrate via a process called epitaxial deposition. The problem, of course, is price. The first LED- lit television was introduced by Sony in 2. CFL model. The final and by far the most significant cycle of LED adoption is general lighting, a global market measuring $8. First, streetlights are on for long periods of time: 1. Each of these categories has a different adoption period and usage pattern that relies heavily on when LED technology becomes economical. In street lighting and area (municipal) lighting, penetration will grow strongly over a small current installed base as a result of numerous government initiatives in the U. S., E. U., and China. Although fluorescent lighting is already fairly efficient, an analysis of payback for commercial applications indicates that LED lighting can offer a compelling value proposition: Some customers will accept this payback period, while others will wait for the cost to drop from $6. Additionally, many consumers have already made the switch to energy- efficient CFLs, rendering the value proposition for LEDs less compelling: Retrofits are obviously not an option in most cases, leaving the market to new construction, which, as we are all well aware, is under a great deal of pressure and is not expected to grow substantially for several years. Chapter 2: Sapphire. Thesis: The emergence of merchant suppliers of sapphire equipment removes the key barrier to entry, leading to structural overcapacity in the commodity sapphire market. Conclusion: Short Rubicon Technology (RBCN)On July 2. GT Solar (SOLR) went public with a business plan disruptive to the incumbent polysilicon producers: MEMC Electronic Materials (WFR), Wacker Chemie AG (WCH. Germany), Renewable Energy Corp (REC. Norway), GSL- Polysilicon (#1 in China), OCI Company (formerly DC Chemical in South Korea) and Hemlock (private; majority owned by Dow Chemical (DOW)). The bellwether of the group, MEMC, closed trading on the day of GT Solar’s IPO at $4. Improvements in yield and manufacturing are required to lower costs.(2) 2. LED (across all technologies / applications / wafer sizes) is the baseline year.(3) 8. MOCVD tools sold applicable to the LED market. Samsung hasn’t mentioned any pricing information for its 5. OLED but says it will be shipped to retail before the end of the year. At this early stage in the OLED lifecycle, there is only one customer of any significance – Samsung(6), who, in August 2. PANL, changing the key economic term. Management points to materials(7) sales to Samsung as a source of upside but materials (host and emitter) are a commodity business with margins that will ultimately approach zero as patents expire and the price decline curve follows the same pattern that we see over and over again, with sapphire and solar- grade silicon and computer memory, etc.(7) Mainly, emitter chemicals that convert electrical energy to a desired wavelength of light, and to a lesser extent host materials that are effectively a zero margin complement (no patent protection). PANL qualifies and resells the materials to OLED product manufacturers (i. Merck AG reports a segment called Performance Materials which is largely the production of liquid crystals for LCD. LG is not using PANL’s materials (or IP) to make its 5. OLED TV unveiled at CES in January. In opposition to our thesis, Cree management says a declining price of sapphire shouldn't impact Cree as much as a declining price of polysilicon impacts First Solar because sapphire (substrate cost) is a far smaller percentage (6%) of the cost of LED than polysilicon is a share of the cost of a solar cell (~3. Unfortunately, this over- simplified argument fails to account for the additional expenses built into Cree’s closed infrastructure, a wholly- owned supply chain designed to support a product sold at a 4. MW full year estimate). Japan – In January, Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) increased solar subsidies for residential PV systems to 2. GW in 2. 01. 0, from less than 2. GW in 2. 00. 8. 5. MW full year estimate) – although longer- term, the US will be a huge market. China – In March, China announced a 1. RMB/watt (US$2. 2. RMB/watt (US$2. 9. PV solar systems in China – comparable to the $2. California’s CSI program. MW full year estimate). However, the flaw in this logic is illustrated by Conergy’s recent renegotiation of its long- term supply agreement with MEMC. In April, Conergy, an important customer of MEMC- made solar wafers decided to play hardball in negotiations over the fate of its long- term wafer supply contract by announcing its intention to cancel it. The original $8 billion 1. Q0. 7 was subsequently cut in half to $4 billion in July 2. Now, Conergy is seeking a new one- year “replacement” contract at terms unbecoming to MEMC. If MEMC capitulates then they open a Pandora’s Box of widespread contract renegs/cancels across its entire customer base. Step 2: Identify Winners and Losers. While high cost polysilicon producers such as Hoku Scientific (HOKU) and the UMGS producers are obvious losers, their capitalizations are small and their cost of borrow expensive rendering them unattractive as short candidates. Contracts reset ASAPs annually. Phoenix Solar (PS4. G. DE), one of FSLR’s key customers, reports discounting Cd. Te modules by $0. In addition to writing down the value of inventories and accounts receivable, the cell/module manufactures will inevitably break their long- term wafer supply contracts in order to avoid the large pre- payments (a substantial use of cash) commonly agreed to when poly was in short supply. On its first quarter conference call, Suntech (STP) revealed that a project development customer called Global Solar Fund (GSF), in which Suntech owns an 8. MW shipped in Q1 or more than 3. In this highly plausible scenario, gross margin plummets from an inflated 3. Q- Cells is a market share loser with a leveraged capital structure. In addition to Q- Cells, its European peers Solarworld (SWVG. DE) and Solon (SOOG. DE) are burdened by a high non- silicon cost structure relative to Suntech and the other Chinese producers. As of June 3. 0, 2. Sigma Value was short First Solar (FSLR), Q- Cells (QCEG. DE) and Suntech (STP). We focus herein on First Solar (FSLR), rather than Q- Cells (QCEG. DE) or Suntech (STP), mainly because of its market cap. Reward in the Context of our Scenario Analysis. In an Upside Case Operating Scenario whereby First Solar (i) produces at a 1. GW); (ii) aggressively expands production to 2. GW by 2. 01. 1 ($2. COGS/watt 2. 5% sequentially until reaching $0. COGS/watt by 2. 01. A/R, inventory, other liabilities) become non- issues; and finally (vi) polysilicon stabilizes at $1. EBIT) margin equals 4. Q0. 9 implying management expects margins to deteriorate more quickly than the model suggests). On April 3. 0, after First Solar reported Q1 results, the stock jumped nearly 2. GM (COGS down sequentially from $0. ASPs ($2. 1. 2/watt down from $2. Q0. 8 but above consensus ~$2/watt) largely due to FX hedging. Furthermore, as discussed earlier, Juwi and First Solar are now “co- developing” projects financed off First Solar’s balance sheet, while Colexon, Conergy, and Phoenix are all facing significant working capital issues.
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