Il boom dell'acciaio e di tutto il manifatturiero - gz
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By: GZ on Martedì 09 Dicembre 2003 11:22
La cosa di cui molti parlano da sabato è questa strepitosa intervista su Barron's a Jeff Gendell che gestisce 1 miliardo di dollari con Tontine Associates e l'anno scorso ha fatto +138%.
I titoli che ha menzionato Gendell ieri mattina con un eccezione o due hanno tutti aperto con dei salti del +10% perchè tutti sono rimasti un poco impressionati da quello che diceva e non sono riuscito a comprarli . E il Dow Jones ieri ha fatto un nuovo record dell'anno sull'onda dell'entusiasmo per i settori industriali ciclici pesanti di cui parla Gendell trascinato da titoli come Alcoa (alluminio) e International Paper (cartario)
In sostanza che siamo in un anno di boom del manifatturiero, ma non solo in Asia, in America per la prima volta da venti anni con il dollaro debole e l'espansione fiscale e monetaria c'è il boom delle industrie cicliche pesanti,
tipo acciaierie (ieri US Steel ha fatto +7%!), e tutto quello che ha a che fare con le materie prime, la loro lavorazione e il loro trasporto, specialmente industria cartaria, del legname, alluminio, nickel, platino e loro lavorazioni, gas naturale... E ad esempio le società delle ferrovie o dei cargo o trasporti marittimi.
Leggerlo perchè ne vale la pena, non è un "analista", ma un tizio che l'anno scorso con mezzo miliardo di dollari in gestione ne ha guadagnati 600 milioni
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Money manager sees manufacturing revival and soaring prices for steel, other commodities
By SANDRA WARD
An Interview With Jeff Gendell -- He is so right so often, he's scary. And the returns of the two funds managed by his $1 billion Tontine Associates have been frighteningly good since he started the shop in 1997. This year alone, Gendell's Tontine Financial Partners was up 75.3%, after fees, through November. The more broadly invested Tontine Partners was up 138%, after fees, through the same period. Contrarian to the core, quick to make connections between seemingly disparate events, and courageous in his convictions, Gendell is always out in front of big trends.
Consider his bold bet on home builders, for instance, or, a year ago in these pages, his declaration that economic recovery was in full swing and his forecast of big gains in agriculture and natural gas. The former general partner at Leon Levy's and Jack Nash's Odyssey Partners now expects a big boom in U.S. manufacturing, leading to the strongest economic recovery in his 25 years of investing. Don't be scared. Read on.
Barron's: Was there anything you didn't get right last year?
Gendell: Sometimes you have one of those years where you get lucky. If anything, we underestimated the economy. The economy is far stronger than we thought it was going to be. Last year we thought by the end of the year we would see a very standard recovery and that GDP [gross domestic product] would be about 6% by the third quarter.
The real issue now is the economy is getting vastly overheated. The farming economy got very strong, very fast, much as we predicted. Now we think the positive surprise will be in the manufacturing area. A lot of people think U.S. manufacturing is dead. This is going to be the strongest recovery in the last 25 years -- my entire investing career -- and it is all going to be centralized in the industrial sector of the economy.
Q: Why is that?
A: It's all about shipping rates. With the demand for Chinese production so great, the Baltic shipping rates have roughly tripled in the last year.
A lot of people are making excuses and suggesting China is a one-time event, China is growing too fast and China's rate of growth will eventually slow down. We look at everything as a math problem. This is a very simple math problem. When you have an economy this big growing at 8% to 9% a year for five to seven years, you are going to have to increase shipping capacity to keep up with that growth. Take a look at a ton of iron ore that is moving from Australia or Brazil to China. The price of shipping that iron ore has gone from $7 a ton to over $20 a ton for a $20 item. It now costs more to ship the ton of iron ore than it does for the iron ore itself.
Q: Low shipping rates were one of the biggest advantages for China.
A: Exactly. Now that shipping will be rationed for at least the next 12 to 24 months because of scarce supply, high-end objects are going to get on the ships, but low-end objects aren't. With freight rates more than tripling, it is going to have amazing implications for the U.S. The U.S. will have to rev up an enormous amount of capacity to relieve the pressure. There is going to be a shortage of steel in this country next year, which is going to surprise a lot of people. A lot of steel makers built a lot of capacity on their ability to use scrap and process it. After 25 years of using scrap to make new steel, all of a sudden you are running out of scrap. New steel, rather than scrap, is going to have a big boom. That is one of our big themes. But it will happen all over.
Look at inventories of copper. A year ago, copper inventories were at 900,000 metric tons. They've gone down almost every week this year and are now well below 500,000 metric tons -- around 475,000 metric tons -- and dropping every week.
At some point in time, people will worry there is only three weeks of copper supply in inventory. What happens if we have a failure here or there? We are going to see outright shortages in a lot of commodities. Another of our big themes for the new year is to own everything that is commodity-related with a distinct end market.
Q: But you don't own any copper.
A: We don't own any copper, but we own steel, we own certain lumber companies, we own iron-ore companies and we own several companies that are in what I call the low-end casting and forging business, because their businesses will see 20% to 40% increases in revenues in the next two years.
Q: Revenues?
A: Revenues.
Q: What casting and forging companies are you investing in?
A: We are still buying them, so we would rather not talk about them. But look at rail cars, for example. There's a company called Greenbrier, which we don't own and we missed the move its shares made. But Greenbrier makes rail cars, and their backlog is up over 200% from a year ago and they are having trouble finding parts. We own and we are buying a lot of the companies that are going to be delivering all those parts. We also own several domestic steel makers that will supply the steel.
Q: How does the lifting of the tariffs affect the outlook for steel companies?
A: It will have absolutely no impact on the steel companies. We don't need protectionism for the steel companies. It has helped up to now. It allowed the whole steel industry to restructure. But steel prices are going to go up so much in the next six months, lifting the tariffs isn't going to matter.
Q: They've been down so long, do these companies understand the position they are in?
A: A lot of the companies we own aren't nearly as bullish as we are. We have been telling all of our companies to buy their steel forward for the past 12 months. They looked at us with wide eyes because that's a plan of action so far removed from anything they've heard of late. Now all of a sudden, for the past three to four weeks, they're getting an extremely rude awakening. We just hope they can raise their prices faster than the costs go up. That will be the biggest problem they face in the next six months. Then the trick will be, what do they do with all their capital?
Look at our favorite group, the home builders. I hate to tell everybody home builders still are 40% of our portfolio. But the homebuilders, despite all their stock-price gains and despite all the shorts in the stocks, continue to buy back enormous amounts of their shares because they are selling at seven to eight times earnings. Buybacks don't necessarily drive up stocks, but they enforce discipline on an industry. The capital discipline of buying back stock versus expanding rapidly in an industry is very important.
Q: What is the implication of this for inflation and interest rates in the U.S.?
A: That is the $64,000 question. When people ask us if we are bullish, we say given the outlook for Mishawaka and
Milwaukee, we're incredibly bullish.
Q: Mishawaka?
A: It's in Indiana. If you live in the heartland, the area, say, between Pennsylvania and the Mississippi River, where they've gotten used to slightly higher-than-normal unemployment rates, industries are suddenly coming back. There's going to be unbelievable job growth. People aren't going to be too worried about inflation. Also, these commodity products aren't a big part of GDP, and so shortages or price hikes might not have an effect on the whole psychology of inflation.
I'll make another off-the-wall prediction: State revenues are going to go through the roof. These deficits everybody is talking about at the state level will dissipate. A lot of the deficits at the state level have occurred in the Midwest, where the economy hasn't been strong enough to overcome the spending increases. If we start seeing employment gains of 200,000 a month, which we expect because of the surge in the manufacturing sector, and GDP growth of 4% to 6%, there will be some fairly hefty increases in state revenues.
Q: If steel prices go up, the prices of lots of other goods are going to go up. What happens with auto prices?
A: It is going to drive everything up, but you'd be surprised how little steel is used in cars and other things. If you use 800 pounds of steel in a car and the price of steel goes up $100 a ton, that is less than $50 for that car. It will have an impact for items that are fully steel loaded. Other types of steel -- stainless steel, for instance -- will go up even more. But the shortage in the economy right now is in the bulk material called steel, not necessarily in the specialty metals. Because China, as a developing country trying to catch up with developed nations, needs steel, and not specialty steel, to build roads and factories.
They already take all our scrap steel. Scrap steel prices are up 100% in the last year because they are buying up everything they can get. So if the price of importing steel goes up by $50 to $75 a ton, it is going to be a lot easier to produce it and sell it in the Midwest than it will be to import it, given the scarcity of shipping capacity. All this import and export traffic going to and from China is starting to force the railroads to run at capacity on certain runs. They are going to raise prices, too. We expect to see all sorts of shortages.
Q: How about an example?
A: Louisiana-Pacific is one of the best examples of what we see happening. They make OSB -- oriented strandboard, or panel board -- for houses. A year ago, the company had about $700 million in debt and not a lot of respect on Wall Street. They embarked on a plan to reduce their leverage. They sold assets, including some forest, and took some write-downs. Then, their OSB business started going through the roof. A year ago, OSB prices were roughly $200 per thousand board feet. We calculated Louisiana-Pacific would generate about $300 million in cash if OSB prices went to $300. Well, OSB prices are at $470. Here is a company that Wall Street thought would be lucky to earn $1, and in the fourth quarter alone it will probably earn $2. The stock has doubled. They are buying back $200 million of notes that had precluded them from doing any share buybacks. After that, they'll have more than $600 million in cash, $400 million in debt and nothing to do with that cash. All their plants are up to snuff, so we think the next best step for them is to buy back 20 million to 30 million shares. This is an $18 stock that can go to 25. But a lot of that assumption depends on management's capital discipline. We own this because it is an OSB producer. We own this because they have $600 million in cash, not because they can go out and buy other assets. We are hoping they make the right decision on what to do with all that cash. We bought only half as much as we wanted before the stock started to run up, but we will be buying more the day they start implementing the 20 million-share buyback they authorized last month. We also think OSB prices will fall quite a bit, although to still-profitable levels, and that will create a buying opportunity for us.
Q: How about a more current pick?
A: I'll give you an example of a stock that a year from now is going to look a lot like Louisiana-Pacific: Cleveland-Cliffs. Barron's wrote a few paragraphs on it in August. Cleveland-Cliffs owns iron-ore plants and iron-ore mines. They mine about 18 million tons for themselves and do some contract mining for others. Their debt equals their cash and they have slightly more than 10 million shares outstanding. The price of iron ore should go up by $4 to $5 a ton in the next two years. We actually think the price is going to go up a lot more, but for the sake for argument, let's just say it goes up $4 to $5. That's another $80 million for Cleveland-Cliffs in pretax income.
Q: When did you buy this and at what prices?
A: We bought most of our stock earlier this year between $15 and $20. The stock is now at $39 a share. In 2005, this company will be easily earning $4 to $6 a share. What isn't as well known about this company is that it also owns 7% of International Steel Group, which is planning to come public this month. Cleveland-Cliffs has a 15-year contract to provide iron ore to International Steel. If we are correct, their interest in International Steel will be worth another $15 to $20 a share. So here's a debt-free company that is going to earn $5 a share. Add to that its stake in International Steel, and the stock has a lot more room to go up. An eight P/E on $5 a share brings you to $40, and an extra $20 from the International Steel interest could bring that to 60.
Q: What about a steel company?
A: U.S. Steel we own. Plain and simple, we think the price of steel is going up by $70 a ton.
Q: How long have you owned it?
A: We've owned it less than nine months. But if the price of steel goes up by $70 a ton, that's $1 billion of pretax earnings for them if they produce 13 million tons. Now, they won't see the full impact of the $70, but they are right on the cusp of a big surge in profitability.
Q: What about Nucor?
A: Nucor's brilliance for the past 25 years was to short scrap metal, in the sense that they were buying scrap at prices always at a discount. They used the scrap to make their steel. Scrap prices are up 100%. They are going even higher, and it is going to be very hard for Nucor to increase prices fast enough to pass on the increase in scrap prices.
Q: What other shortages do you foresee?
A: When you run a whole economy on just-in-time inventories, and all of a sudden goods aren't coming just in time or they're not coming at all, it creates problems. We see the problem at Louisiana-Pacific. Louisiana-Pacific can't get all the logs they want. They just shut a mill in Maine because they couldn't get enough logs to make strandboard. There is going to be more displacement. Possibly even more dramatic will be one of our old favorites, the coal business.
Q: You've been on that theme for a while.
A: In the last 90 days we've upped dramatically our position in the stocks of companies that mine Eastern coal.
Q: Why the focus on Eastern coal mines?
A: Not to flog the shipping problem to death, but Europeans are paying double for coal from levels a year ago, and it is all because of freight rates. They get most of their coal from places like Colombia, Brazil and South Africa, and so it is shipped a long way. Again, not only are shipping rates going up, but boats used for shipping cargo are becoming scarce and cargos will be rationed. In the next four to 12 weeks there is going to be a sudden urge for Europeans to start importing coal from the United States. It's been years since the U.S. has exported any coal. We could start shipping 10 million to 20 million tons because the voyage is a lot shorter. If the Europeans take more than 15 million tons, we are going to see coal prices ratcheting up. Already, the price of delivered coal to Europe is up more than $20 a ton this year, whereas the price of Eastern coal is up about $4 a ton. Within the next three months we expect the price of Eastern coal to be up another $6 to $10 a ton. The stocks could move 30% just on this because people are going to start extrapolating higher coal prices. This is the event that is going to trigger high coal prices. But higher demand from all the new coal plants being built right now is what will drive higher coal prices from 2005 to 2010. They are going to suck up all the excess capacity over the next five years.
Q: How are you investing in this?
A: We have big positions in Massey, Arch Coal and Consol Energy. Consol Energy is somewhat interesting because the big German utility RWE sold most of its 70% interest in the past three months. We wouldn't have bought it before that. As Eastern coal prices go up, they will drag the prices of other coal producers -- in Illinois and the Powder River Basin -- up.
Q: Knowing you, banks are a part of this overall theme.
A: We are buying up all the banks in manufacturing towns in Indiana and Illinois and all the hot spots between Pittsburgh and St. Louis up through Wisconsin. There will be a lot of demand. A lot of people will be going back to work. A lot of the thrifts and banks we own are going to start seeing deposits flood in. When loan demand goes up, it attracts other banks to the area. That is happening right now in the banking industry, and we are seeing a total grab for deposits. The next 12 months will be the most active for bank acquisitions in the last 10 years.
Q: Which banks are you focusing on?
A: Companies that have large deposit bases in very attractive areas. We first recommended First Mariner Bancorp at $8 a share and it is now trading at about $16. It is a $1 billion Baltimore-based bank, with a market value of just under $100 million. We think the company is worth a lot more than $100 million. Either they are going to buy some small thrifts in the next several years, or they are going to be bought for a very fancy price.
On the other side of the country, we like Downey Financial, which we've bought a lot of in the past 12 months. California is just one of those wonderful markets that continue to grow, and there are many potential buyers for Downey. About 25% of Downey is family-owned, and who knows if they want to sell or not? But you will never have more buyers for Downey than you have right now. It is trading at $49 a share and we would be disappointed if it received anything less than $65 in a takeout, which we think it is going to be sooner rather than later