value
Net-net bargains
The rule
Sometimes a company's cash and easy-to-sell things, minus all it owes, are worth more than its whole price. You buy a rupee for less than a rupee.
Where it flips
But a cheap company can still keep losing cash and eat away that bargain. The fix is to buy many net-nets together and avoid ones burning through the very assets that made them cheap.
This is Graham's deepest bargain idea. Take a company's short-term assets and subtract every debt it has. Once in a while, that leftover value is more than the price of the whole company. So you are buying safe, near-cash value for cheap. Buy a spread of such companies together and the maths itself gives you a cushion. You do not need to predict the future.
A worked example
A company has ₹120 crore of short-term assets and owes ₹40 crore in total, so ₹80 crore is left. Its whole market price is only ₹60 crore. Aayra is buying ₹80 crore of near-cash value for ₹60 crore, and the factories come free on top. [illustrative]
How to spot it
- ·price is below the net short-term asset value
- ·the cushion comes from the numbers, not a story
- ·bought as a group, not one bet
Benjamin Graham · The Intelligent Investor