And this month’s bargains are…

The full range of value

I’m starting the month looking at Bloomsbury and Smith and Nephew, two companies at opposite ends of the value spectrum.

Publisher Bloomsbury appears in my Bargain and Thrifty lists:

The market values Bloomsbury at less than the value of its tangible assets, which, if it has a profitable future, makes it very cheap indeed..

At 2.6 times book value, medical device manufacturer Smith & Nephew is, relatively speaking, the most expensive company in my Nifty table of companies that are generally so profitable they trade above book value (beware of fallen angels though, like Game and T Clarke, which have profitable pasts and rather more uncertain futures):

Smith & Nephew might still be cheap, though, if I can convince myself its high levels of profitability in the past will be sustained in future.

Meanwhile, I have a confession. The push to find new blood for the Thrifty 30 means I’ve been neglecting my obligation to review each company when it publishes its annual report. As the table below shows, the number of unread annual reports littering my desktop is growing.

They will all have to be read, although reviews of IT distributor Northamber (review already started) and Printing.com are most pressing because of their low F_Scores, which indicate that some time ago both companies were already struggling.