Military Dinky
Military Dinky
 |
 MILITARY DINKY TOYS 669 ARMY JEEP USA EXPORT ISSUE RARE PICTURE BOX MIB  US $499.00
|
 MILITARY DINKY TOYS 661 WRECKER WITH WINDOWS PLASTIC WHEELS SCARCE MIB US $350.00
|
 RARE DINKY MILITARY 160 ROYAL ARTILLERY SET MIB US $299.99
|
 DINKY MILITARY FIGURE COLLECTION GOOD CONDITION ALL ORIGINAL US $289.00
|
 MILITARY DINKY TOYS 161B AA GUN US EXPORT RARE BROWN EARLY POST WAR US $275.00
|
 MILITARY DINKY TOYS 661 WRECKER WITH WINDOWS METAL WHEELS SCARCE MIB US $259.00
|
 MILITARY DINKY TOYS 689 MEDIUM ARTILLERY TRACTOR MIB US $255.00
|
 Vintage Dinky Toys military vehicles and soldiers US $250.00
|
 1959 DINKY 80F MILITARY AMBULANCE RENAULT CARRIER MINT W EXC BOX US $250.00
|
 DINKY 80f MILITARY AMBULANCE RENAULT CARRIER NMIB US $240.00
|
 MILITARY DINKY TOYS 651 CENTURION TANK LATE ISSUE GLOSS WITH MATT BASE MIB US $239.00
|
 MILITARY DINKY TOYS 697 25 PDR FIELD GUN GIFT SET LAST US $235.00
|
 Dinky 30sm Austin Military Sold only in US Market US $225.00
|
 MILITARY DINKY TOYS 642 RAF PRESSURE REFUELLER TANKER MIB US $175.00
|
 MILITARY DINKY TOYS 626 AMBULANCE LATE ISSUE WITH WINDOWS VNMIB US $175.00
|
 MILITARY DINKY TOYS 670 ARMOURED CAR PLASTIC WHEELS MIB US $175.00
|
 MILITARY DINKY TOYS 153 JEEP EARLY SMALL VERSION GREEN US $175.00
|
 MILITARY DINKY TOYS 677 ARMOURED COMMAND CAR MIB US $175.00
|
 MILITARY DINKY TOYS 623 COVERED TRUCK MIB US $175.00
|
 Dinky Toys Original Military Army Tank Transporter Tank Gift Set Empty Box 698 US $174.60
|
 VINTAGE RARE1950 DINKY 30 s AUSTIN MILITARY TRUCK US $159.99
|
 MILITARY DINKY TOYS 30HM DAIMLER AMBULANCE 2ND BASE US $155.00
|
 MILITARY DINKY TOYS 673 SCOUT CAR WITH DRIVER MIB US $135.00
|
 MILITARY DINKY TOYS 1032 ARMY LAND ROVER ACTION KIT MIB SCARCE US $125.00
|
 DINKY MILITARY TOYS LOT OF 6 US $125.00
|
 MILITARY DINKY TOYS 623 COVERED TRUCK EARLY NO DRIVER US $125.00
|
5 Firms with Bizarre Business Combinations - to invest in 2009
5 Firms with Bizarre Business Combinations - to invest in 2009!
(Abhishek Uppal; Reference to Jack Hough at SmartMoney)
Some businesses defy categorization. For example, an ice cream shop is a type of restaurant, while an ice cream shop that sells lawn furniture under the same roof is part of a broader group - retailers. Add a movie theater and you can still call the whole thing a seller of "consumer discretionary" items, or goods and services that shoppers want but don't need. But what if Dudley's Sundae & Deck Chair Cineplex also makes military satellites?
Then you have a conglomerate.
Such Franken-businesses usually arise from mergers and acquisitions. Conglomerate mergers were wildly popular during the late 1960s. But they fell out of favor after a string of studies beginning in 1974 showed that returns for highly-diversified businesses are generally poor. Many hodge-podge businesses still exist, of course, including giants like General Electric, which makes Christmas tree lights and mammography machines, and much else. GE stock today trades at its 1995 price.
Conglomerates in general got a reputation boost when a 2004 study in the Academy of Strategic Management Journal showed that they performed better during the 1990s than the 1960s. However, the past year's credit crisis battered firms like GE and Textron, a maker of helicopters and golf carts, because both companies have big financial units.
It's difficult to make a blanket statement about whether investors should shun or embrace conglomerates, for two reasons. First, it's not quite clear at what point a diversified business becomes one. Fortune Brands is sometimes called a conglomerate but its management might argue, sensibly, that it takes the same consumer-product savvy to sell faucets as to sell golf balls and bourbon, and that the businesses are therefore aligned. Second, not all conglomerates are run with the same motivations. Some serve the empire-building desires of managers, whose pay, studies show, is much more closely correlated with company size than with returns. Some are run like true investment portfolios. Berkshire Hathaway is undeniably a conglomerate, selling both catastrophic insurance and ice cream cones. From 1965 to the end of last year the book value of its shares increased 362,319%, or about 84 times the return of the broad-market S&P 500 index.
Below are listed four companies with truly bizarre business combinations. Their past returns are vastly different, but their prospects for future ones seem bright.
Crane's products include airplane landing gear and snack vending machines. Its shares have lost 43% in three years, vs. a 27% drop for the S&P 500 index. Weak construction and automotive markets have especially hurt sales of the company's engineered panels. Management has been trimming workers and costs, which might result in better profit margins once demand improves. The stock seems suitably cheap. It sells for less than 11 times earnings and pays a 3.8% dividend, and the company is only modestly indebted.
National Presto seems a bit like Acme from the Road Runner cartoons. It makes waffle makers, shoe polishers, military fuses and ammunition, adult diapers and plenty more (but not rocket-powered roller skates). The assortment might seem perplexing, but shareholders aren't complaining. Presto has conjured a 51% stock gain over the past three years. The company owes nothing and, at $79 a share, holds more than $21 a share in cash. Sales and profits are rising, shares cost less than 11 times earnings and there's even a dinky dividend - about 1.5%.
Leucadia National sells carpet padding and prepaid phone cards; owns casinos, mines and a company that makes blood transfusion products; and has stock interests in AmeriCredit, a car financer, and Jefferies, an investment bank. In other words, it's a mini Berkshire Hathaway, run by Nos. 377 and 355 on Forbes's list of the richest 400 Americans, Ian Cumming and Joseph Steinberg, instead of by No. 2 Warren Buffett. Cumming and Steinberg resemble Buffett in more than occupation. They formed Leucadia decades ago from the shell of a broken-down company. They maintain a comically spartan web site for a $5 billion investment vehicle, with little more than links to financial filings. And they've stomped the S&P 500, increasing their stock price by an average of 28.8% a year from 1978 through 2008, vs. 7.8% for the index. Leucadia's stock returns seem more volatile than Berkshire's, for better or worse. Over the past 10 years shares gained 167% compared with Berkshire's 29%, but over the past year they lost 52% vs. Berkshire's loss of 23%.
About the Author
Abhishek Uppal college graduate from Cornell University.
Very Hard Speed Thrash Metal With A Jackson Dinky