I'm sure that some alternatives are adequate for certain use cases, but am doubtful most competitors can match the breadth of varieties UG offers. Nonetheless, I think its reasonable to concede that certain competition is close, otherwise UG would have no reason to pursue developing lower-cost lines as they've indicated.
While UG's cosmetic marketing partners are fairly transparent, the specific manufacturers and final products using LUBRAJEL are more opaque. I'm working through ways to explore the qualitative differences between input ingredients, and will surely be covering this name in the future. Good or bad, it's hard to imagine that there won't be some very interesting developments.
Definitely an interesting company! Tim's concerns are my primary concern as well. They've carved out a nice niche for themselves, but given no IP protection and foreign competition, margins may compress. As you mentioned, the fact that they're developing their own lower cost version implies competitive threat is real. No debt is nice, but it's not cheap enough to get me excited.
I absolutely love illiquid nano caps, but I want a discount to own such a name and 9-10x ebitda isn't particularly cheap in this market, especially when many mid cap names with better growth prospects trade at similar or better valuations. This is on my watchlist if it ever sells off drastically because of a forced / uneconomic seller comes along.
Well said, Altay. I still do not own the stock; for many of the reasons cited. In follow up pieces I've expressed my primary interest: the pharmaceutical segment. I am more than content waiting for a potentially massively skewed risk/reward to present itself. Between China dynamics and a new CEO, I'm sure the next chapter will be interesting regardless.
Nice work. I wonder if the Chinese alternatives are 80% as good as LUBRAJEL?
I'm sure that some alternatives are adequate for certain use cases, but am doubtful most competitors can match the breadth of varieties UG offers. Nonetheless, I think its reasonable to concede that certain competition is close, otherwise UG would have no reason to pursue developing lower-cost lines as they've indicated.
While UG's cosmetic marketing partners are fairly transparent, the specific manufacturers and final products using LUBRAJEL are more opaque. I'm working through ways to explore the qualitative differences between input ingredients, and will surely be covering this name in the future. Good or bad, it's hard to imagine that there won't be some very interesting developments.
Thanks Tim!
Definitely an interesting company! Tim's concerns are my primary concern as well. They've carved out a nice niche for themselves, but given no IP protection and foreign competition, margins may compress. As you mentioned, the fact that they're developing their own lower cost version implies competitive threat is real. No debt is nice, but it's not cheap enough to get me excited.
I absolutely love illiquid nano caps, but I want a discount to own such a name and 9-10x ebitda isn't particularly cheap in this market, especially when many mid cap names with better growth prospects trade at similar or better valuations. This is on my watchlist if it ever sells off drastically because of a forced / uneconomic seller comes along.
Well said, Altay. I still do not own the stock; for many of the reasons cited. In follow up pieces I've expressed my primary interest: the pharmaceutical segment. I am more than content waiting for a potentially massively skewed risk/reward to present itself. Between China dynamics and a new CEO, I'm sure the next chapter will be interesting regardless.