There are a couple of interesting articles in this week’s Investors Chronicle. One of their share tips for 2020 is Speedy Hire (SDY) which I own some shares in after attending a presentation by the company at a ShareSoc meeting in October. I was somewhat impressed by the apparent turnaround in the business that the management has achieved. You can read a write-up of the presentation here: https://roliscon.blog/2019/10/04/speedy-hire-presentation-burford-analysis-and-treatt-trading-statement/
Another very good article in Investors Chronicle was on the subject of fair-value accounting. It should be essential reading for all Burford Capital (BUR) investors. It explains how Enron used mark-to-market accounting to value long-term contracts. Their reported profits surged as they recognised future profits but the cash did not appear so the management then went from creative accounting to downright fraud by the use of off-balance sheet vehicles.
In reality it was using “mark-to-estimate” accounting as there were no public markets for the assets that could provide a sound valuation. How is this relevant to Burford? That company is in the same position in that the majority of its profits come from fair value gains on the value of the legal cases it is pursuing. As in Enron, the cash flows are very different to the reported profits. In 2018 the reported operating profit was $344 million but the cash outflow was $198 million.
As I said in my blog article mentioned above, I have always been doubtful about the merits of the company and one reason is the answer to the question “Do profits turn into cash?” The answer is “Not in the short term at Burford”. They are effectively recognising what they consider to be the likely chance of success in current profits. But winning legal claims is always in essence uncertain. I have been involved in several big cases and your lawyer always tells you that you have a very good chance of winning as they wish to collect their fees, but even if you win collecting any award can be uncertain”. In essence the accounts of Burford rely to a large extent on management’s estimates of the chance of winning cases and hence the future profits.
Incidentally a few respondents to my mention of my portfolio performance last year in a previous blog post and tweet requested details of my portfolio holdings and investment strategy. My response was that I don’t like disclosing the details mainly because listing all my holdings and providing reasons for them would be tedious but clearly one reason for success is avoiding companies such as Burford where profits do not turn into cash. As regards my investment strategy this is well covered in my book Business Perspective Investing https://www.roliscon.com/business-perspective-investing.html.
As I point out in the book, attending presentations by management or attending Annual General Meetings can give you useful information and the ShareSoc events are very relevant to that objective so I recommend them.
Roger Lawson (Twitter: https://twitter.com/RogerWLawson )