Motor distribution giant could be a gem

When I bought my investment newsletter publishing business I borrowed money from the bank to acquire assets that were mostly goodwill.

This made life difficult when the next step of the stock market cycle was a ferocious bear market.

I had to go back to my bankers for more money to keep me going with a business that boasted heavily negative net assets and didn’t look too impressive in terms of cash generation.

Fortunately they kept faith with me and over the next decade the business prospered dramatically.


Rubbish theory of value
Ten years later, I was making profits between five and 10 times the amount of the maximum loans I had outstanding to the bank.

This is the rubbish theory of value. My publishing business looked like rubbish in the early 1990s but turned out to be a jewel.

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