Comments on: Focusing My LENS on Concord Camera

By: Concord Camera Finally Liquidating

Concord Camera Finally Liquidating — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 13:23:30 +0000

[...] originally was attracted to Concord Camera since its shares use to trade for less than 2/3 of net current asset value. Now I’ll be lucky [...]

By: Concord Camera 2007 10-K Numbers - Fat Pitch Financials

Concord Camera 2007 10-K Numbers - Fat Pitch Financials — Fri, 28 Sep 2007 20:47:56 +0000

[...] Camera (LENS) released its 2007 10-K yesterday. Last week I calculated the net current asset value of Concord Camera, so I figured I should update my figures in the June 30, 2007 balance sheet. Here’s what I [...]

By: Martin84

Martin84 — Sun, 23 Sep 2007 10:17:10 +0000

Im not quite sure Ben Graham would have invested in this one. The thing is actually destroying value and an investor would have time working against him as a turnaround looks unlikely. I guess the thing to do here is to take a controlling stake and liquidate the company. If one lacks the financial resources for that one would have to hope that somebody else does it – so I guess the analysis needs to focus on the ownership picture and the feasibility of a change of ownership.

By: George

George — Fri, 21 Sep 2007 18:14:09 +0000

Welcome back valuegeek. No need to apologize for ragging on me. I enjoy the feedback.

I’m fully aware that the CEO, Ira Lampert, is a big drain on Concord Camera’s cash. My hope is that some activists eventually get involved with this stock and make the CEO work to get this company productive again. This is a small position in the Fat Pitch port and really a learning lesson for me on net/net stocks.

I’m going to hold you to that MWRK $25 challenge. I think it could take 2-3 years to get back to $50 but I don’t think $25 is out of the picture for this coming year. Be prepared to have to post publicly your defeat that you were wrong on Mothers Work being a value trap. ;-)

By: valuegeek

valuegeek — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 15:38:39 +0000

First off, let me apologize for continuing to rag on you about management integrity in the companies you choose, but you really do know how to pick them! Did you read the Yahoo message boards about the behavior of CEO Ira Lampert? He draws a $1M salary, and holds about 0.5M shares, which at book value is worth $9.36 per share, or $4.68M in total. Effectively, he is yielding 20+% return on his 10% ownership in the company. Would YOU liquidate such an attractive investment just to see a $4.68M one-time return of principal? And this is not counting the $7.6M SERP distribution he took from the company in 2006. There is no way Ira Lampert is going to let this particular personal cash cow be sold anytime soon, and it looks to me that revenues will continue to decline, and no promising products are in the pipeline, and CEO Lampert has a penchant for presiding over failed product launches. Are you kidding me with this?

BTW, if MWRK hits $25 at any time over the next year, I’ll concede defeat on my value trap preposition.