As promised last time, this is the summary post for the “All Belgian Shares” series. If you click this link you will see all 10 posts as Blog search results.
In the end, I put 28 stocks onto my larger watchlist.
As my watch list got honestly too long and unproductive, I started to manage my watchlist more systematically so that I can hopefully prioritize things better in the future. The main feature of my new watchlist design are 2 main inputs:
- A Quality score between 0 (shitty) and 9 (perfect) based initially on a high level assessment of factors that I find relevant
- A rudimentary caclulated fair value and a resulting upside potential
In a later post, I will this explain a little bit more in depth, but here is the result for the 28 Belgian shares that I will continue to track in one way or the other:
I have sorted them first by “quality” and then secondly, within the quality score by potential upside. As mentioned, the “fair value” is very subjective and high level. This is more a gut feeling and would need to be further refined in a deeper analysis. My priority is clearly on the higher quality stocks, with a score of 5 and upwards. And amongst them on those with a clear upside. Lotus Bakeries for instance, is clearly one of the highest quality stocks I have seen in a whicle, but it is just too expensive.
The ones I consider really low quality, I will revisit rather sporadically, if at all (or if a reader writes me why it would be interesting).
Thankfully, my only Belgian Portfolio company, EVS looks both, high quality and undervalued. I would not completely rule out to invest into a company with a lower quality score than 5, especially if there is a positive fundamental trajectory, but in general, I will prioritize what I perceive as quality.
Overall, there were clearly a few very interesting companies in Belgium that I didn’t have on my radar screen, so it was clearly worth it. I have however not decided yet where to go next. So I have to leave my readers with that Cliff hanger.
One remark at the end: For some strange reason, Belgium is one of the very few European countries into which I never had the opportunity to travel yet. After that series, Belgium is clearly on my travel list for the coming years.