Thursday 5 November 2015

Fenix Outdoor what to think?


Fenix Outdoor, a Swiss outdoor wear company

Fenix Outdoor used to be a Swedish company that now have their headquarters in Switzerland. Since I use one of their brands more or less on a daily basis and are extremely happy with their quality I have kept an eye on them from time to time.

Back in 2013 I made an analysis of them (analysis of Fenix Outdoor) and by the look of things that would have been an excellent moment to buy the company. Back then a P/E of 20 scared me which it still does today but not as much. Looking at Fenix Outdoor as an example the P/E is still around 20 but the share price have increased by around 28% during these two years which gives a more than fully acceptable yearly return. The share price was even up sniffing on 400 SEK which would have been a 50% increase if one would have acted upon it that is.


What has happened lately has however made me a bit confused and for that reason I toss out a general question to you fellow investors and hopefully you guys in Sweden can provide me with a good answer.

What is going on with Fenix Outdoor?

The Fenix Outdoor AB, Swedish company, was offered a share in Nidron Holding AG, a Swiss company, and these shares were later on converted into Fenix Outdoor International AG, also a Swiss company. I hope I have gotten that correct. Nidron was to 100% owned, voting power (A shares) as well as common stocks (B shares , by the Nordin family before the share exchange was made. After the share exchanges the Nordin family now owns, in Fenix Outdoor International AG, over 83% of the voting power and ALL the voting power shares (24 million) and the remaining tiny 17% voting power belongs to the 11.06 million common shares. Was it like this also before? Did they already have that much voting power?

The disturbing thing now is that Fenix Outdoor have started to make investments by using their own common shares (so the B shares) as part of the deals. For the Nordin family this now matters very little because they have all the power and are hardly even being diluted but for a small investor sitting there getting diluted with each new addition to the empire that Martin Nordin is building... well... It would not please me especially not now when the company construction is made so that the person taking the decision to make the acquisition by shares are hardly being influenced by it!

This feels like a very unfriendly move towards the common stock investors and I still wonder why people agreed to make the swap...

I hope that I have completely misunderstood the entire situation and for this reason I need your help guys. Please correct my if I see it wrong.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Anything to do with that they slowly try to remove the company from the stock exchange market by buying its own shares? ( I know nothing about the structure etc just guessing).

Anonymous said...

Hmmm... I do not think so. I guess it was a combination of decreasing taxes and as they claimed being closer to their growing markets. At least that was what I read concerning the move to Switzerland. Funny thing though is that via Globetrotter they owned i think it was 20% of a outdoor chain in Switzerland but that they sold directly so apparently they want nothing in the land they are in... Closer to market... Well... I wonder?

I hope everything is well with the company and for the shareholders and one day I hope to hear or see the truth.

-Fredrik von Oberhausen