Ben Graham's net-net's

Benjamin Graham, the father of value investing, was particularly fond of hunting for net-net's, that is stocks trading for less than their Current Assets minus ALL Liabilities.

From the INTELLIGENT INVESTOR, authored by Graham:

"The type of bargain issue that can be most readily identified is a common stock that sells for less than the company's net working capital alone, after deducting all prior obligations. This would mean that the buyer would pay nothing at all for the fixed assets - buildings, machinery, etc., or any goodwill items that might exist."

Graham's net-net's approach have outperformed market benchmarks by 10%-20% p.a. over time.

Unfortunately, qualifying stocks aren't very common these days. Currently, the JSE offers the following net-net's for the adventurous investor:

If you want more detail on Graham's net-net's and past performance, read on. In one of their research papers, Tweedy Browne offers additional insight into Graham's methodology and outcomes of such investment strategies. 

(Full paper at http://www.tweedy.com/resources/library_docs/papers/WhatHasWorkedInInvesting.pdf)

The net current asset value approach is the oldest approach to investment in groups of securities with common selection characteristics of which we are aware. Benjamin Graham developed and tested this criterion between 1930 and 1932. The net current assets investment selection criterion calls for the purchase of stocks which are priced at 66% or less of a company's underlying current assets (cash, receivables and inventory) net of all liabilities and claims senior to a company’s common stock (current liabilities, long-term debt, preferred stock, unfunded pension liabilities). For example, if a company's current assets are $100 per share and the sum of current liabilities, long-term debt, preferred stock, and unfunded pension liabilities is $40 per share, then net current assets would be $60 per share, and Graham would pay no more than 66% of $60, or $40, for this stock. Graham used the net current asset investment selection technique extensively in the operations of his investment management business, Graham-Newman Corporation, through 1956. Graham reported that the average return, over a 30-year period, on diversified portfolios of net current asset stocks was about 20% per year.

In the 1973 edition of The Intelligent Investor, Benjamin Graham commented on the
technique:

“It always seemed, and still seems, ridiculously simple to say that if one can acquire a diversified group of common stocks at a price less than the applicable net current assets alone — after deducting all prior claims, and counting as zero the fixed and other assets — the results should be quite satisfactory.”

In an article in the November/December 1986 issue of Financial Analysts Journal, “Ben Graham’s Net Current Asset Values: A Performance Update,” Henry Oppenheimer, an Associate Professor of Finance at the State University of New York at Binghamton, examined the investment results of stocks selling at or below 66% of net current asset value during the 13-year period from December 31, 1970 through December 31, 1983.

The study assumed that all stocks meeting the investment criterion were purchased on December 31 of each year, held for one year, and replaced on December 31 of the subsequent year by stocks meeting the same criterion on that date. To create the annual net current asset portfolios, Oppenheimer screened the entire Standard & Poor’s Security Owners Guide. The entire 13-year study sample size was 645 net current asset selections from the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), the American Stock Exchange (AMEX) and the over-the-counter securities market. The minimum December 31 sample was 18 companies and the maximum December 31 sample was 89 companies.

The mean return from net current asset stocks for the 13-year period was 29.4% per year versus 11.5% per year for the NYSE-AMEX Index. One million dollars invested in the net current asset portfolio on December 31, 1970 would have increased to $25,497,300 by December 31, 1983. By comparison, $1,000,000 invested in the NYSE-AMEX Index would have increased to $3,729,600 on December 31, 1983. The net current asset portfolio's exceptional performance over the entire 13 years was not consistent over smaller subsets of time within the 13-year period. For the three-year period, December 31, 1970 through December 31, 1973, which represents 23% of the 13-year study period, the mean annual return from the net current asset portfolio was .6% per year as compared to 4.6% per year for the NYSE-AMEX Index.

The study also examined the investment results from the net current asset companies which operated at a loss (about one-third of the entire sample of companies) as compared to the investment results of the net current asset companies which operated profitably. The companies operating at a loss had slightly higher investment returns than the companies with positive earnings: 31.3% per year for the unprofitable companies versus 28.9% per year for the profitable companies.