Quick Check on Beteiligungen im Baltikum AG (DE 0005204200)

Beteiligungen im Baltikum (BiB) AG is a Munich traded holding company, which invests into companies and real estates in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania according to their purpose of company (Homepage).

Because of diversification purposes this company sounded interesting to me, additionally it might be a way to profit from GPD growth in the newer EU countries.

At the moment their 877.500 stocks are traded at 3,81 EUR, what makes up for a market capitalization of 3,34 Mio. EUR, a (very) small cap. Freefloat is close to 100%, no institutional shareholder, etc.

The latest NAV per share (30.06.2012) was at around 4,32 EUR, a discount of 13,5%. Trailing dividend yield is 5,5%.

When looking into the latest annual report for 2011 its stated that 55% of the "real total assets of the company" is invested in five companies. I suppose this real total assets are the financial assets.
Those five companies are the following:

	MaCap in Mio EUR	Dividend Yield	P/E	Country	Industry
TEO AB	511	8,8%	11,31	Litauen	Telecomm.
Tallink Grupp AS	475		6,91	Estland	Maritime Log
Gazprom ADR	189.360	5,4%	4	Russland	Gas/Oil
Lukoil ADR	52.520	7,1%	5,79	Russland	Oil
JSC MMC Norilsk Nickel ADR	22.970			Russland	Metals

Now the 55% of assets of the holding -including cash- are 1,87 Mio EUR, what is compared to the market capitalization of the companies they invest in not really much at all.

Despite the fact that 3 out of those 5 companies are Russian, one can doubt that the BiB AG has a lot of influence on its investments. Just by comparing their capital invested with the market capitalization of their investments. Since no influence on operation of the "holdings" is present i doubt the state purpose of the BiB AG.
As a active managed fund the expenses relative to income are (logically) much too high. The net margin 2011 was about 38,9%.
By comparison the UNIEM OSTEUROPA Fond has a TER of 1,87% or -put the other way- a "net margin" of (1-TER) 98,13%.
Consistently with my doubts the BiB AG is loosing substance since at least 2 years. However there is almost 1 Mio EUR cash left, so dividends can be handed out for at least 5 more years in the same height, as long as earnings from investments cover at least the expenses.

As a small individual investor i definitely would not want to buy shares here, and i cant stop to wonder who might have invested into this company.

However an interesting idea would be buying the company as whole, and liquidating it, since discount to NAV is a quite decent 13,5% and debt is almost non-existing. However for such an operation the discount would be too small, since you would have to buy all the shares on the market (moving price up). By then your margin of safety would be long gone.