Painful Opportunity Cost Lesson, page-4

@ValueSnatcher ,

Like all these situations, it wasn't one specific thing that causes "ears to perk up" (if that was the case, every one would be doing it and then very little mis-pricing of stocks would occur); rather it was like the subject of a jigsaw puzzle that becomes clearer at an ever-faster rate with each incremental piece that gets added to it.

In AMC's case, one of the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle was the odd sale of an asset that had been a long-term drain on returns, another was the results from a few early business purchases that had exceeded expectations, yet another related to some changes to pricing strategy that seemed to be eminently sensible; another piece was found in results of investments in efficiency drives that were delivering the desired outcome.

So, really, mainly a broad picture being generated by a number of discrete leading indicators that all pointed to management achieving what they had earlier articulated.

Nothing that was said or done really failed the smell test for me.

But the one single thing that I think I can recall for many years is the sheer consistency in the value creation message, namely the clearly articulated, and very simple, 12% to 15% pa shareholder value creation strategy... made up one-third, each, from dividends, organic growth and acquisitions.

This message has been consistently on song for many years now.

I think that company managers who mention continually changing strategic objectives just about every time they interact with the market are invariably the ones who don't have a real grasp on their businesses.

But to be, year-in and year-out, saying the exact same thing to the market (and that thing being able to be quite readily audited) suggested to me that these new guys had to know exactly know what they are doing. Because what they were saying they were doing was all so transparent that, if they didn't do what they said, they would soon be found out.