Evil Diaries: Isle of Manliness

About three years ago I hoovered up about 750,000 Manx Financial (MFX) whose executive chairman was and remains Jim Mellon. The share price was c. 8p, well under 50% of tangible net asset value and possibly on a PE of less than 4. At the time I concluded that the market was cautious since it had decided that the lending climate was severely inhibited by the onset of Covid where no one knew how the Courts would handle judgement debts due to lenders.

In the event, HMG handled the uncertainty very well and the uncertainty cleared in favour of lenders. So I put it to Jim that what was really required was a token dividend which in itself would not jeopardise MFX’s prospects.

Three years later MFX has turned in stellar figures for YE December 2022 and the outlook is extremely bullish. The dividend has been raised to 0.3764p which is a 54% uplift on the preceding rate. Clearly the management knew that there were sound ideas to develop and they have developed them. They are continuing to develop them.

The share price is now 30p offer and are still a buy on a PE of, say, 6. As to what the target price should be I do not know but it might double over the next three years. Fortunately for MFX the competition offered by the high street banks is hopelessly lazy and incompetent and there is no sign of their growing up.