China Ceramics Co Ltd. (NASDAQ:CCCL); Taking Advantage of the Chinese Real Estate Boom

Following in the recent series of fantastic chinese companies, a new comer has been suggested by Omit Majumdar, a colleague of mine. The company has surged as an interesting opportunity for investors who want to position themselves to take advantage the prevailing economic environment in China.

As the construction boom beats relentlessly because of increased demand, the chinese consumers are looking to own home more akin to those available to the western countries. This is proving to be a great bonanza for companies involved in the construction business. Many chinese companies listed on US stock exchanges are still plague by the financial reporting scandals and are currently trading at multiples to their fundamentals low enough to make investors pant like Pavlov's dog.

As per Reuters, China Ceramics Co., Ltd. (China Ceramics), incorporated on June 22, 2007, is a manufacturer of ceramic tiles. These ceramic tiles are used for exterior siding and for interior flooring and design in residential and commercial buildings. The ceramic tiles, sold under the Hengda (HD), Hengdeli (HDL), TOERTO and WULIQIAO brands are available in over two thousand styles, colors and size combinations. China Ceramics has six principal product categories: porcelain tiles, glazed tiles, glazed porcelain tiles, rustic tiles, ultra-thin tiles and polished glazed tiles. Porcelain tiles are the Company’s major products and accounted for over 68.4% % of its total revenue during the year ended December 31, 2011. Ceramic tiles are used in the People's Republic of China (PRC) as a construction material for residential and commercial buildings. Ceramic tiles are used for flooring, interior walls for decorative purposes and on exterior siding.

China Ceramics manufacturing facilities operated as Jinjiang Hengda Ceramics Co., Ltd. are located in Jinjiang, Fujian Province, and its manufacturing facilities operated as Jiangxi Hengdali Ceramic Materials Co., Ltd. are located in Gaoan, Jiangxi Province. As of December 31, 2011, these facilities provided an aggregate annual production capacity of approximately 52 million square meters. As of December 31, 2011, the Company had twelve production lines. The Company primarily sells its products through a distributor network or directly to property developers.

The most recent financial data shows that the company has grown it's earnings from RMB 101M in 2006 to RMB 294M as of FY 2011. This is tremendous growth for a company operating in a real estate market that is showing anything but signs of slowing down while having little cues of overheating like we are currently experiencing in North America.

If we look at the historical performance of the company from a US perspective, it is obvious that the company is growing at a fast pace. The current trend also tells us that earnings will still be impressive even if the company does not grow as the chinese RMB will continue to appreciate compared to the USD in the foreseeable future. The company has a big free cash flow problem because it is aggressively reinvesting in it's growth, but other fundamentals of the company show that as soon as chinese companies start being valued adequately by the market it shall offer an interesting return for it's shareholders at current prices.

Disclosure: The Author is Long CCCL

Wood Composite Technologies Inc: The Last Cigar-Butt Company?

When Warren buffett started his partnership, he used to for cigar-butt companies. By that meaning, as Benjamin Graham tried to find before him, firms that were not very popular but still had one last puff of earnings or value to give to shareholders and that offered themselves at a valuation attractive enough to make them seem almost free.

It seems it is still possible to find companies with such caracteristics. Just looking at the latest quarterly filing will make you wonder why there are not more people jumping at this company.

According to Reuters, Wood Composite Technologies Inc. develops, manufactures and sells composite decking products. The Company’s products include decking boards and a variety of decking trims and fascia suitable for residential and commercial decking and dock purposes, which were manufactured on site in Nisku, Alberta. The Company markets these products throughout Canada and the United States to retail consumers and building contractors through various building supply dealers and wholesalers. It distributes the product in Canada under the brand name of Millennium Decking Inc., its wholly owned subsidiary while Millennium Decking (USA) Inc. acts as its marketing entity in the United States.

The first point of interest here is that the company is trading under cash on hand per share. Indeed as of the last quarterly filing dated may 24th 2012 of the company has 3.7 Millions CAD in cash on hand.

Another interesting fact here is that the company also has 17 millions CAD of carried forward unused losses that are set to expire in the next five years. This is very attractive for a company willing to by them for that pursposes only, without even considering the current cash hoard. At the minimum 15% marginal tax rate available for Canadian corporations, this represents about CAD 2.6 Million in cumulative potential savings from the point of view of a company willing the bid on the company.

With 74,205,825 shares outstanding, we can establish two different values for the firm. One that just considers a liquidation and distribution of the company's cash in the form of a liquidating dividend. This would value the company at 0.048$ per share. Another way to value the company would take the perspective of an acquirer looking for a way to save on taxes in the future. From such a perspective, the company would be worth at most 0.083$ per share.

As of June 15th 2012, the shares traded at an ask price of 0.03$ per share. An investor positioning himself today has the potential to realize a profit ranging 60% in the case of a liquidation to 177% in the case of an acquisition, which will certainly materialize over the next year. With most investments providing meaningless risk-free returns, it will be beneficial for current and potential shareholders to press the company to realize the full value of the company on the August 7th Shareholders meeting as it has completely stopped it's operating activities with the recent sale of it's Nisku plant.

Disclosure: The Author is Long WCT.V