A 30% ROE Compounder Insurer Trading at Book Value

Imagine a business that grew its book value per share by roughly 24% last year, earns a 30% return on equity, buys back its own stock by the truckload, and just mailed shareholders a $2 special dividend on top of it all.

Now imagine the market hands you that business for under 5 times earnings (a trailing P/E of 4.69) and about one times book.

Either the market knows something ugly, or the market simply forgot this name exists. Having read the filings, I'll argue it's mostly the latter — and that an investor is being asked to pay roughly the price of the furniture while the earnings engine is thrown in for free. With analysts pinning fair value near $34 against a ~$28.63 quote, even Wall Street's own scorecard implies it's marked down ~19%. The earnings math suggests the discount is far wider.

Let me show you the cigar — and yes, it's still lit.

The Insurer Below Book, Buying Itself Back, Ignored by Wall Street

Imagine a business that earns a ~12% return on equity, sells for less than the cash-and-bonds value of its own balance sheet (about 0.9x book, roughly 8% below book value), trades at a P/E of 8, and spends its spare change repurchasing its own stock only when it&

Why is S&P 500 hard to beat?

Because it purchased every stock when it becomes large (for only 0.01% position) and held on to it forever. Very few people purchased Nvidia in 2001 despite dotcom bubble and never bought or sold any shares. The so-called "rebalance" doesn't really buy any existing shares

69 Pence on the Pound for a Book That Compounds at 18.5%

A London-listed insurance private equity firm trades at £240M market cap against £350M book value — a 31% discount to NAV. The same NAV has compounded at 18.5% per year for the last nine years (11% per year since 2005). Of 23 current investments, exactly one is marked below cost.

A 138-Year-Old Thrift Trading 38% Below Book

A federally-chartered savings bank in the American Midwest carries $39M of book value, sits on roughly $20M of excess capital above what regulators require, and trades at a $24M market cap. The math, before we even get to the buybacks, is $0.62 on the dollar of book — and management

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The Insurer Below Book, Buying Itself Back, Ignored by Wall Street

Why is S&P 500 hard to beat?

69 Pence on the Pound for a Book That Compounds at 18.5%

A 138-Year-Old Thrift Trading 38% Below Book