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Archive for February, 2012
Stocks to Watch – Kingstone Companies Inc. (NASDAQ: KINS)
Kingstone Companies, Inc. (Kingstone) provides property and casualty insurance products to small businesses and individuals in New York State through its subsidiary, Kingston Insurance Company (KICO). It was formerly known as DCAP Group and was established in 1961.
The Company sold all if its asset including the book of business, of the 16 remaining retail business locations, which it owned in New York State (the New York Sale) on April 17, 2009. On June 30, 2009, its interest in the subsidiary that operated its three retail business locations in Pennsylvania (the Pennsylvania Sale) was sold. Moreover effective May 1, 2009, it sold all of its interest of the subsidiaries that operated its DCAP franchise business.
Its product lines include the following:
- Personal lines
- Commercial automobile, For-hire vehicle physical damage only policies
- Private passenger physical damage
- General liability policies
- Canine legal liability policies
Its main line of business is personal lines consisting of homeowners, dwelling fire, three- to four-family dwelling package, condominium, renters, mechanical breakdown and personal umbrella policies. The Company’s commercial automobile policies consist primarily of vehicles weighing less than 50,000 pounds owned by small contractors and artisans.
The Company’s For-hire vehicle physical damage only policies are designed for newer vehicles utilized as black cars (limousines), yellow taxicabs and car service vehicles. No vehicle older than 4 years is written in the program. By 2009, it was also writing policies for private passenger physical damage coverage under a product called Basic Auto.
The Company also writes a physical damage only product (PDO). During the same year, the Company commenced writing business owners policies (BOP). The BOP business consists primarily of small business retail risks without a cooking or residential exposure. In June 2009, it commenced writing artisan’s liability policies. By September of the same year, it started writing Canine legal liability policies. These policies cover bodily injury, property damage and medical payments for damages caused by the insured’s dog.
The Company’s headquarters is in Kingston, New York. KICO is a leading regional provider of insurance products for small and mid-sized businesses as well as for individuals.
KICO distributes its products exclusively through a network of select independent producers.
KICO was ranked #1 of the 81 insurers rated by the Professional Insurance Agents Association in its 2010 Company Performance Survey.
Kingstone Companies, Inc. (NASDAQ: KINS) 52 week: 2.47 – 3.88 Mkt cap: 12.47M Shares: 3.84M
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Stocks to Watch – HopFed Bancorp Inc. (NASDAQ: HFBC)
HopFed Bancorp, Inc. operates through its fully owned subsidiary, Hopkinsville Federal Savings Bank (the Bank). It was established in May 1997 and since then served as a savings and loan holding company. The Banks is a federally chartered stock savings bank, with branch offices in Kentucky and Tennessee.
The Bank’s business is principally composed of attracting deposits from the general public, and investing such deposits in loans secured by single-family residential real estate and investment securities, including the United States Government and agency securities, municipal and corporate bonds, collateralized mortgages obligations (CMOs), and mortgage-backed securities. It also originates single-family residential/construction loans, and multi-family and commercial real estate loans, as well as loans secured by deposits, other consumer loans and commercial loans.
Lending Activities
Its loan portfolio consisted of one- to four-family, residential mortgage loans, other loans secured by real estate include non-residential real estate loans, which amounted to $255.3 million, or 41.9% of the loan portfolio.
The Bank also offers construction loans, consumer and commercial loans. It primarily originates residential mortgage loans with adjustable rates. The Bank’s one- to four-family loan portfolio consists of closed-end first and second mortgages, as well as opened-ended home equity lines of credit.
It also engages in construction lending involving loans to individuals for construction of one- to four-family residential housing, multi-family housing and non-residential real estate located within the Bank’s market area, with such loans converting to permanent financing upon completion of construction. The Bank also makes loans to qualified builders for the construction of one- to four-family residential housing located in established subdivisions in the Bank’s market area.
Investment Activities
Its investment activities include investments in the United States Government agency securities, municipal and corporate bonds, CMOs and mortgage-backed securities. The usual investments include federally sponsored agency mortgage pass-through and federally sponsored agency and mortgage-related securities.
Deposit Activity and Other Sources of Funds
The Bank’s primary sources of funds for lending, investment activities and general operational purposes are deposits. In addition to this, the Bank also gets funds from loan principal and interest repayments, maturities of investment securities and mortgage-backed securities and interest payments thereon. It attracts deposits mainly from within its market area by offering various deposit instruments, including money market accounts, passbook savings accounts, individual retirement accounts, and certificates of deposit that range in maturity from 3 months to 5 years.
HopFed Bancorp, Inc. (NASDAQ: HFBC) 52 week: 4.98 – 9.41 Mkt cap: 63.99M Shares: 7.49M
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Stocks to Watch – Golden Enterprises Inc. (NASDAQ: GLDC)
Golden Enterprises, Inc. owns all of the issued and outstanding capital stock of Golden Flake Snack foods, Inc. (Golden Flake). It is a holding company which is involved in the production, marketing and distribution of snack products in Southeastern United States. It manufactures and distributes several salted snack items like potato chips, tortilla chips, corn chips, fried pork skins, baked and fried cheese curls, onion rings and puff corn.
It also sells a line of cakes and cookie items, canned dips, pretzels, peanut butter crackers, cheese crackers, dried meat products and nuts packaged by other manufacturers using the Golden Flake label. These products are sold through its own sales organization and independent distributors to commercial establishments, which sell food products in Alabama, Tennessee, Georgia, Mississippi, Louisiana, Kentucky, and South Carolina as well as parts of Florida, North Carolina, Arkansas, Missouri, Oklahoma, Virginia, Indiana, and Texas.
Consequently, these products are distributed to the consumers by either company transportation or commercial carrier out of the Birmingham and Ocala plants. Golden Flake’s products are distributed to a range of grocery store chains, discount stores, convenience stores, restaurants, and other outlets located in its marketing area. It competes with Pepsi Co., Inc.
The Company’s history can be dated back in 1923 when Mose Lischkoff and Frank Mosher had a deceptively simple idea – an idea that grew over the past 80 plus years from two gentlemen and a sack of potatoes into more than 1200 employees and 100 million pounds of potatoes a year. These two founders converted fresh, kettle-cooked potato chips into a snack food company known today as Golden Flake.
The original name is Magic City Foods which was a tiny basement operation located in a Hill’s grocery store, the company grew quickly. Before the curtain closed on 1923, Lischkoff and Mosher had already added two salesmen to meet the public demand for Magic City peanuts, peanut butter crackers, horseradish, and its principle product — crispy, delicious potato chips. Birmingham, the “Magic City” for which the company was named immediately loved the company’s snack foods, as did the surrounding area.
The Company after several years of acquisition and selling, Golden Flake went public in 1968. It diversified into insurance, real estate, fasteners and advertising. Golden Flake Snack Foods became a wholly owned subsidiary of Golden Enterprises, Incorporated.
Golden Enterprises, Inc. (NASDAQ: GLDC) 52 week: 2.91 – 3.90 Mkt cap: 39.31M Shares: 11.73M
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Stocks to Watch – Globus Maritime Ltd. (NASDAQ: GLBS)
Globus Maritime Limited (Globus) serves as an integrated dry bulk shipping company. It offers marine transportation services worldwide. Globus owns, operates and manages a fleet of dry bulk vessels that transport iron ore, coal, grain, steel products, cement, alumina and other dry bulk cargoes internationally.
Globus Shipmanagement Corp., a fully owned subsidiary manages its operations providing an in-house commercial and technical management for Globus vessels composed of the following:
- One Panamax
- Three Supramaxes
- One Kamsarmax
These have a weighted average age of approximately four years and a total carrying capacity of 319,913 deadweight tonnages.
By the year 2010, it acquired a total of three vessels namely:
- Motor vessel (m/v) Sky Globe
- M/v Star Globe
- M/v Jin Star.
During that year, Globus sold its both Handymax vessels, the m/v Sea Globe and the m/v Coral Globe. By December 31, 2010, the Company’s vessels consisted of m/v Tiara Globe, m/v River Globe, m/v Sky Globe, m/v Star Globe and m/v Jin Star.
The Company provides marine transportation services on a worldwide basis. It was established on July 26, 2006 in Jersey. The incorporation of the Company was for the purpose of consolidating its founder’s ship-owning and ship-management interests. The Company has executive offices in Athens, Greece. On November 24, 2010, Globus Maritime Limited was transferred into the Republic of the Marshall Islands.
It is a vertically integrated shipping company which owns, operates and manages a fleet of dry bulk vessels which transport iron ore, coal, grain, steel products, cement, alumina and other dry bulk cargoes worldwide.
The Company’s in-house commercial and technical management teams focuses exclusively on its vessels. Its primary objective is to grow the fleet through timely and selective acquisitions of modern vessels in a manner that will provide an attractive return on equity and will be accretive to the earnings and cash flow based on anticipated market rates at the time of purchase.
It is listed on the Nasdaq Global Market under the ticker symbol “GLBS”.
Globus Maritime Ltd. (NASDAQ: GLBS) 52 week: 2.50 – 10.92 Mkt cap: 46.51M Shares: 10.04M
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Stocks to Watch – Glen Burnie Bancorp (NASDAQ: GLBZ)
Glen Burnie Bancorp owns all the outstanding shares of capital stock of The Bank of Glen Burnie (the Bank). It is a commercial bank which offers services to northern Anne Arundel County and surrounding areas. It has offices and branches in Glen Burnie, Maryland; Odenton, Riviera Beach, Crownsville, Severn (two locations), Linthicum and Severna Park, Maryland. It also has two remote automated teller machine (ATM) located in Ferndale and Pasadena, Maryland.
The Bank is involved in the retail and commercial banking business which includes the following activities:
- Acceptance of demand and time deposits
- Origination of loans to individuals, associations, partnerships and corporations
It is also engaged in real estate financing which is composed of residential first and second mortgage loans, home equity lines of credit and commercial mortgage loans. The Bank’s commercial lending consists of both secured and unsecured loans. It also originates automobile loans through arrangements with local automobile dealers.
Lending Activities
The Bank provides several consumer and commercial loans. These include residential and commercial real estate loans, construction loans, land acquisition and development loans, commercial loans and consumer installment lending, including indirect automobile lending.
Its consumer lending is made up of indirect automobile loans originated through arrangements with local dealers. It also provides long-term mortgage financing for residential and commercial real estate, as well as shorter term construction and land development loans. On the other hand, residential mortgage and residential construction loans are created with fixed rates.
Investment Activities
It maintains a portfolio of investment securities in order to provide liquidity and source of earnings. It primarily consists of securities issued by United States Government agencies, including mortgage-backed securities, securities issued by certain states and their political subdivisions, and corporate trust preferred securities.
Sources of Funds
The Bank had total deposits of $294,357,837 as of December 31, 2009. It uses borrowing from the Federal Home Loan Bank (FHLB) of Atlanta to supplement funding from deposits. In fact, it was allowed to borrow up to $70.85 million under a line of credit from the FHLB of Atlanta as of December 31, 2009.
Its deposit products include regular savings accounts (statements), money market deposit accounts, demand deposit accounts, negotiable order of withdrawal (NOW) checking accounts, individual retirement account (IRA) and simplified employee pension (SEP) accounts, Christmas club accounts and certificates of deposit.
Glen Burnie Bancorp (NASDAQ: GLBZ) 52 week: 7.02 – 10.90 Mkt cap: 26.74M Shares: 2.72M
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