New Peruvian ADR: Cementos Pacasmayo

Posted by David Hunkar on 17 March 2012, 8:10 am

Pacasmayo Cement of Peru started trading on the NYSE from Feb 13, 2012 with the ticker CPAC.Pacasmayo is the second Peruvian cement company to trade on the US markets. Here is a brief overview of this new ADR from the press release:

Cementos Pacasmayo is a leading Peruvian cement company, and the only cement manufacturer in the northern region of Peru. They are among the most profitable publicly-listed cement manufacturers in the world, based on operating margins over the past three years. They produce, distribute and sell cement and cement-related materials, such as concrete blocks and ready-mix concrete. Their products are primarily used in construction, which has been one of the fastest growing segments of the Peruvian economy in recent years. They also produce and sell quicklime for use in mining operations.

They sold 20 million ADRs at $11.50 per share raising $230.0 million. The ratio of ADR to common share is 1:5. After trading as low as $11.26 the stock closed just above the IPO price at $11.57 yesterday.

Founded in Lima, Peru in 1949 Pacasmayo is the second largest cement company in Peru. The company has operations in the north and east of the country with cement plants in Rioja and Pacasmayo, and ready-mix concrete plants in Chimbote, Trujillo, Pacasmayo, Piura and Cajamarca. Its common shares were listed on the Lima Stock Exchange under the ticker CPACASC1 in 1995.

For more information check out their corporate website here.

Cementos Lima is the biggest cement producer in Peru and its stock trades on OTC market under the ticker CEMTY.

Knowledge is Power: Bonds, BRICs, Latin American Investing Edition

Posted by David Hunkar on 14 March 2012, 7:51 pm

Four tips for bond investors

Crook: U.S. Retirees Face a Private-Savings Crisis

Do workers reap the benefits of productivity growth?

What can Europe learn from Sweden? Four lessons for fiscal discipline

Hire-and-fire labour law changes won’t ease Spain’s employment crisis

BRICs lose their shine

The case for investing in Latin America

Click to enlarge

Mongolia

Photo Courtesy of: Sibirsky Extreme

Performance of Foreign Bank Stocks Since March 2009 Lows

Posted by David Hunkar on 12 March 2012, 5:37 am

Quoting Barron’s, Blogger and fund manager Barry Ritholtz posted the following interesting chart on the performance of various asset classes since the March 2009 lows:

Click to enlarge

Source: Bottoms Up! From March 9, 2009 to Today, The Big Picture

I wanted to see how the various US-listed foreign banks have performed from March 9, 2009 to March 9, 2012. The table below shows that while most foreign banks traded on the New York Stock Exchange have recovered a few have not.

[TABLE=1057]

Note: Split-adjusted prices have been used for splits and reverse splits; Table includes most but not all of the foreign banks traded on the NYSE.

Data Source: Yahoo Finance

Despite undergoing reverse splits National Bank of Greece (NBG) and Bank of Ireland (IRE) are still down by double digit percentages. Among British banks Barclays (BCS) has performed better than HSBC (HBC). Overall emerging market banks have recovered strongly compared to developed market banks.

Disclosure: Long many of banks listed above.

Nuclear Power Growth Continues in Developing Countries

Posted by David Hunkar on 11 March 2012, 9:30 am

In an article last April I wrote that despite the events at the Fukushima, Japan “power generation from nuclear energy is set to rise in many countries.”.

I came across an interesting article in The Wall Street Journal this week on this topic.From the article:

Developing countries with an insatiable thirst for electricity are going full speed ahead with new reactors a year after the Fukushima Daiichi disaster disrupted the growth of nuclear power around the world.

Sixty nuclear reactors are currently under construction globally, with 163 more on order or planned, according to the World Nuclear Association. That is little changed from the trade group’s February 2011 survey—a month before Fukushima—showing 62 reactors under construction and 156 on order or planned.

The numbers belie the perception that the nuclear power industry was stopped in its tracks after the meltdown at the Fukushima nuclear plant following an earthquake and tsunami, the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl in 1986. While Japan and some European nations prepare to shut down or idle their nuclear plants, the march to build reactors continues in developing countries.

Source: Nuclear Pushes On Despite Fukushima, The Wall Street Journal

The journal article also includes a nice interactive graphic of atomic footprint across the globe.

According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration just 19% of the electricity power generation comes from nuclear power in the US. Coal remains the main source of electricity accounting for about 42% of total power generated. Among the developed countries electricity generation from nuclear power is the highest in France.

Related ETFs:

Market Vectors Uranium + Nuclear Energy ETF (NLR)
iShares S&P Global Nuclear Energy index ETF (NUCL)

Disclosure: No Positions