Metrica Partners urges SK Chemicals to sell SK Bioscience shares upon the lockup expiry
- The board of SK Chemicals seems unconcerned with its shares trading at an 83% discount to net asset value. In Metrica’s view, the board has a fiduciary duty to care about its share price.
- The company should address the discount by selling a stake in its subsidiary SK Bioscience upon the IPO lock-up expiry of 18 September and distributing the proceeds to shareholders.
- SK Chemicals can pay a special dividend of 1.3x its share price while still retaining 50% ownership in SK Bioscience as well as 100% ownership of its profitable chemical and pharmaceutical businesses.
It’s not too late
In November we identified a possible turning point in the under-performance of value, based on a sharp spike in the volatility of the Asia-Pacific Value/ Growth ratio, which resembled a similar event in the year 2000. The previous occasion marked the start of a long period of value out-performance.
This is important because a repeat outcome this time should be very positive for RV strategies, which naturally have a long value factor bias. ... more
A tailwind from dispersion
The main success factor for a relative value strategy is the absolute level of spreads, and as discussed extensively in recent newsletters, the narrowing of value spreads which started in November 2020 is still intact and contributing positively to performance.
A secondary success factor is a high level of dispersion, or the degree to which individual names within the spread universe are moving independently. This is because dispersion helps to mitigate the impact of the inevitable periods of overall spread widening which occur from time to time. It allows rotation out of names which are narrowing against the trend, and into other names which are widening. ... more
The outlier rejoins the pack
We have been writing for some time about the bottoming-out of the value factor which started in November 2020.
This trend has been observed globally and among the various markets of the Asia-Pacific region.
However, one market had been notably absent from the trend: ... more
Record Q1 for M&A
M&A activity in Asia-Pacific is trending at a post-GFC record:
Several drivers exist in our view: ... more
Implications of bear steepening
Interest rates are in focus, with long-term Treasury yields rising steadily, the curve steepening and implied volatility moving higher.
We have previously considered the effect of these trends on equity relative value performance. How about the impact on corporate merger activity? ... more
Holding the floor
We have recently written about the potential turning point for Value versus Growth which occurred in mid-November.
To recap, we identified a sharp spike in the volatility of the Value / Growth ratio as resembling a similar event in the year 2000, which at that time marked the start of a long period of Value out-performance.
What do we need for the turning point thesis to hold? ... more
Why are volatility spikes significant?
In our last post we highlighted a volatility spike in the Value / Growth ratio as a potential sign that the multi-year under-performance of Value might be coming to an end.
More specifically, we looked at the 10-day volatility of the MSCI Asia-Pacific ex-Japan Value index divided by MSCI Asia-Pacific ex-Japan Growth index, which in November spiked to 30 for the first time in twenty years.
The last time this happened marked the start of a long period of Value outperformance.
Volatility spikes are often associated with market turning points. Why? ... more