Suruga Corporation... Japanese real estate

I'm not sure if I'm late to the party (likely not, given that the Japanese market has been in a super-long bear market), but I'm looking at Japanese real estate companies. I was actually looking for low P/E stocks and noticed some real estate companies trading at low (trailing) P/Es. Real estate is cyclical so low P/Es don't necessarily mean they are "cheap". There is also some concern that the real estate market has peaked worldwide. My view is that even if real estate slows down in USA and in emerging markets, Japan should still see growth. After all, Japanese real estate did not join the rally in the other markets. Aging population in Japan is a negative for real estate but the positive economic news should overpower that IMO.

Anyway, the company I'm most interested in is Suruga Corporation (TSE: 1880), a small-cap trading at a trailing P/E of 4.6, P/BookValue of 0.7, and Debt/Equity of 1.2 (these numbers need to be verified since there was a stock split earlier this year and I'm not sure if the data providers are correct).

I'll do more research and post my more refined thoughts later...


UPDATE: There was a stock split a few months ago and that wasn't reflected in the P/E and P/BV figures from tse.com. So the P/E ratio is actually double what it is (around 11) and bookvalue is 1.5x so this isn't cheap as I had originally thought. I'm not going to research this stock further...

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