Originally Posted by
mouse
Heartland seems to me to be a finance company in drag. Good. We need finance companies, and if they can get away with calling themselves Banks, so much the better.
The major, overseas owned NZ banks meanwhile can be seen as Pawnbrokers, without drag. Their Credit Cards, over 20% interest, are a bit steep. I do not have one, but have seen people at pack and save buying food with credit cards. (A historical note, in 1850, the time of Dickens, there were about 400 official pawnbrokers in London. They charged interest of between 15% and 20% per year. 'Victorian City, Judith Flanders, Atlantic Books, 2012').
NZ Farming Systems Uruguay had a sp of about half its net assett value. Olam of Singapore bought them up at 70 and 80 cents a share. Heartland is in a similar situation to NZFS. The sp is well below the 90 cents assett backing of the shares. How much is a Banking License worth? Heartland has one. If our price continues like this then it will be taken over by the Chinese. Lots of cash available. This could be their vehicle to come to NZ. I think if they made an offer of $1.00 at the moment they would get 50% of Heartland. At $1.50 they would get well over 90%. We would make a short term profit, but a long term loss.
My prediction is a share price of $1.00 by the end of this year, plus dividends. That seems to me to be pretty good.