An Updated Sum Of The Parts Valuation of Vivendi, Buying More Shares, Also a Brief Update on $CMT

While I am waiting for Dole’s next quarterly report to come out so I can finish my updated valuations and analysis of it, I have been researching some new companies and reanalyzing Vivendi and Core Molding Technologies since new information has come out about both.

After revaluing CMT with updated quarterly numbers it is still selling at a very good discount to my estimate of intrinsic value and I may buy more shares at any time after hearing specifics from CMT management about how Navistar’s problems are affecting it.

When I did my first sum of the parts valuation of Vivendi in July I had no information or very limited information about the values of its subsidiaries: GVT, Canal+, SFR, and Universal Music Group.  Since that time some information has come out about three of those, which has helped clarify the sum of the parts valuation quite a bit.

Vivendi is still seeking to spin off or sell some of the below companies to unlock value in its shares.

• An estimated sale price for SFR if Vivendi were to find a buyer is at 15 billion Euros
• Canal+ 20% estimated price that Vivendi does not own has a conservative estimated IPO price of $900 million.  Vivendi owns 80% of Canal+ meaning conservatively its estimated stake in Canal+ has a price of $3.6 billion.
• Vivendi is seeking 5.5 billion Euros for its 53% stake in Maroc Telecom.  Vivendi’s current 53% stake market price in Maroc Telecom is worth 4.72 billion Euros or $6.02 billion.
• Vivendi owns 60% of Activision Blizzard which is currently worth $7.44 billion at market.
• Vivendi is seeking at minimum 7 billion Euros for GVT.
• I still cannot find any reasonable estimate of value for Universal Music Group so at this point I will still leave this out of my estimates.

Adding all of the above together and converting everything to US Dollars gets us to a total estimated price of $46.13 billion.  Vivendi’s numbers of shares are still 1.242 billion.

• $46.13/1.242=$37.14 per share.

For the sake of being conservative and assuming that Vivendi will not be able to get the prices it wants from some sales or spin offs of some of the subsidiaries, which is already the case in a couple instances, I will knock off $7.14 from the per share estimate which gets us to an extremely conservative, probably too conservative, value of Vivendi at $30 per share, which still does not even include UMG or Vivendi’s cash and debt.

Here is my original Vivendi article from June for a comparison of the values then and now.

The $30 per share price is an absolute worst case estimate of value.  Today I bought more shares at $19.22 per share for all portfolios that I manage, meaning there is still a 36% margin of safety to my absolute lowest case value of Vivendi, and an almost 50% discount to my more reasonable estimate of value.  Neither of the two estimates even take into account Universal Music Group, Vivendi’s cash, or debt.

Vivendi now makes up about 25% of my personal portfolio.

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China news, More Vivendi News and a look at the overall gaming industry.

Found some interesting and disconcerting news on China this weekend.

The first article, here,  talks about a potential “Hard Landing” for the Chinese economy and some of the reasons.  It also has other links throughout the page discussing China and some of their current and future problems in their economy.  Very interesting reads.

The second article is to me the more important one because I found something very disturbing in it.  In general it talks about how China’s PMI keeps dropping and how it looks like the Chinese economy keeps slowing.  PMI is a measure of the level of manufacturing and is further explained here.

About half way through the Fox Business article is the disturbing part though:

To shore up growth, Beijing lowered interest rates once and reduced banks’ reserve requirement ratio [RRR] twice this year.

Traders said on Friday they anticipate the central bank to lower banks’ RRR soon to ease a recent liquidity squeeze, triggered by regulatory requirements and a large initial public offer.

Isn’t that how the economic bubble and housing crisis started here in the US by lowering interest rates and reserve requirements for banks?  The US government and Federal Reserve started allowing banks to lower their reserve requirements, meaning they had less cash on hand, in order to encourage more lending, leading to more speculation, and the eventual crash.  Not a good sign in my opinion.

More Vivendi and Activision Blizzard news.  Also an overview of the overall video game industry:

The first article here, talks about ATVI and in his opinion that the video game industry is in decline.

The second article is a more in depth discussion of the overall video game industry.

I would also encourage everyone to read the comments sections of both articles as there is a good discussion, and opposing views to what the article states.

The third article is a different perspective on Vivendi from another contributor on Seeking Alpha.

If anyone has thoughts on any of the above articles please feel free to post.  Enjoy.

More good news for Vivendi shareholders.

More good news on the spin-off/asset sale front.

The articles go over spin-off and asset sale possibilities that Vivendi could do to unlock value.

The main thing I found interested is that they appear to be trying to sell or spin-off ATVI first which is what I think they should do, and what I stated in my article here.

I was surprised to see that they are thinking about selling SFR though.  They originally owned 66% of SFR and last year bought out the remaining 44% so that could be a quick show that buying the remaining portion was a mistake.

Whatever they decide to do, Vivendi will most likely unlock their missing value and the share should go up quite a bit higher after they make their decisions.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-06-29/vivendi-said-to-plan-sale-of-stake-in-activision-blizzard.html?cmpid=yhoo&source=email_rt_mc_body&ifp=0

http://in.reuters.com/article/2012/06/29/us-vivendi-assets-idINBRE85R17E20120629

Latest article published.

My latest article just got published on seekingalpha.com and can be seen here.

My valuations of Vivendi

I have used two different valuation techniques for Vivendi (VIVHY) Here we go.

Asset reproduction valuation done on 4-2-2012.  All #’s in millions of Euros unless otherwise noted.  Using 2011 10-k.

These valuations are done by me, using my estimates, and is not a recommendation for you to buy the stock. DO YOUR OWN HOMEWORK.

Assets:                                                   Book Value:                                  Reproduction Value:
Current assets
Cash                                                        3,304                                              3,304
Marketable Securities                              1,544                                              1,544
Accounts Receivable (net)                      6,730                                              4,500
Inventories                                               805                                                   500
Prepaid Expenses                                     0                                                       0
Deferred Taxes – tax liability                    700                                                  400
Total current assets                               13,083                                             10,248

PP&E Net                                                 9,001                                              6,000
Goodwill                                                  25,029                                            12,514.5
Intangible Assets                                     6,814                                                3,407
Total Assets                                            53,927                                            32,169.5

Number of shares 1,242
With IA: 53,927/1,242=43.42 Euros per share = $57.40 per share
Without IA: 47,113/1,242=37.93 Euros per share = $50.14 per share

Reproduction value:
With IA 32,169.5/1,242= 24.90 Euros per share = $34.24 per share
Without IA 28,762.5/1,242= 23.16 Euros per share = $30.62 per share

Current share price on 4-21-2012 = $16.50 per share

Sum of the parts valuations done on 4-26-2012 #s in millions of Euros unless otherwise noted.

44% of SFR bought in 2011 for 77,750 million Euros. Implied value of total stake since Vivendi now owns 100% of SFR = 17,360 Euros

60% of Activision (ATVI) =6,587 Euros

100% of SFR + 60% of ATVI =23,947 m Euros = $31,629 million

Vivendi has a total market cap currently of $23.46 billion

So you are getting most of the 60% of ATVI, all of GVT, all of Canal+, all of UMG, 53% of Maroc Telecom, which equals 5.41 billion Euros, all cash and debt for free, by just purchasing part of ATVI and all of SFR.
GVT, Canal+, UMG, and Maroc Telecom are the rest of their subsidiaries.

Valuing the whole of Vivendi, cash, and debt using above estimates, I am estimating very conservatively 40 Billion Euros = $53.832 billion of total value for Vivendi.

$53.832 billion/number of shares at full dilution of 1.250 billion= $43.07 per share

Current share price = $18.60 per share

This valuation would be used if they were to do a spin off or selling some of their assets and companies.

The reproduction valuation is generally the most conservative intrinsic value estimate and the one I use the most since I am very conservative and want the biggest margin of safety as possible.

Some other things I like about Vivendi besides the massive margin of safety are they pay a healthy yearly dividend. They have consistent free cash flow of at least 3 billion Euros per year after cap ex. Good margins. Cash and cash equivalents of over 3 billion Euros. Net operating loss carry forwards of around 8 billion Euros. Seth Klarman owns shares of Vivendi at his hedge fund Baupost Group, and has been buying more recently, actually got lucky and got in at a cheaper price than Klarman. Also the management of Vivendi is reviewing what they could do to unlock the value that is missing right now, by their own estimates at least 40%, could be spin offs or sale of some of their subsidiaries.

Risks: A lot of debt and continual huge amounts of cap ex in their telecom subsidiaries. European debt issues; most of their business is done in Europe, specifically France. If they decide not to do a spin off or asset sale it could take a while to unlock value, which would not bother me since it would enable me to acquire more shares.

Would like them to eventually do some kind of spin off or asset sale to pay down their debt which should also increase the share price. Would not even mind if they cancelled the dividend for a year or two to pay down debt either.

Feel free to give feedback.