Francis Chou (Trades, Portfolio) is the fund manager of Chou America Mutual Funds and he has been managing the Chou Funds in Canada since 1986.
Web Page:Â http://www.choufunds.com
He recently answered a few of GuruFocus readers’ questions; read the full interview here.
Since the fund started, it performed a +11.8% with +14.8% over the last 5 years, focusing its buys on Financial Services companies (43.2%), Basic Materials (18.8%) and Consumer Cyclical (18%).
His portfolio is composed of 23 stocks with a total value of $382 Mil and during the Q4, Chou added two new stocks:
Sears Canada Inc. (SRSC) and Chicago Bridge & Iron (CBI)
He bought 775,149 shares (Impact of 2% on his portfolio) of Sears Canada (SRSC) at an average price range of $7.35-$9.98.
Over the last 12 months, the stock tanked by 38% and is currently trading at a P/E (ttm) ratio of 7.90.
The company has a financial strength of 6/10 with a Cash to Debt of 7.89. Profitability & Growth is rated just 3 out of 10 but ratios are positive, with a ROA of 6.98% and a ROE of 15.78%. Just ROC is negative at its worst all time level: -32.93%.
In Q4, other Gurus like Edward Lampert, Bruce Berkowitz and Murray Stahl added SRSC to their portfolios.
He bought 67,446 shares (Impact of 0.74% on his portfolio) of Chicago Bridge & Iron Company (CBI)Â at an average price range of $37.78-$57.09.
Over the last 12 months, the stock tanked by 45% and is currently trading at a P/E (ttm) ratio of 9.10, better then 90% of competitors of the Global Engineering & Construction Industry.
The Company has a financial strength of 7/10 with a Cash to Debt of 0.19. Profitability & Growth is rated 6 out of 10 with positive ratios: ROA of 5.80%, ROE of 21.23%, ROC of 125.88%. These ratios are better then 90% of CBI’s competitors.
In, Q4 other Gurus like David Einhorn, Richard Snow, Jeremy Grantham, Jim Simons and Devid Dreman bought the stock for the first time.
