Founded: 1962, ASX code: NAM, homepage: http://www.namoicotton.com.au/

Overview:
Namoi Cotton is Australia’s leading cotton processing and marketing company. It is based in a NSW regional town of Wee Waa from where its management directs the cotton growing and ginning operations across NSW and southern Queensland. As of June 2007 Namoi ownes or co-owns a network of 12 cotton gins and 3 mid-sized to large warehouse facilities.

Analysis of latest annual report (2006 season):

• Market Cap: Depending on the daily stock price the market cap of this company is about $70mil in approx. 110mil of outstanding shares.
• Shareholders Equity: $97mil making the stock’s book value approx. $0.88 per share (3.7% growth on 2005 season). From that about $11.7mil. ($0.11 per share) is available working capital.
• Earnings per share: $0.115 making the average EPS growth in last 3 years about 21.5%
• Return on Equity: 13%, averaging around 12.2% in last 3 years
• Balance Sheet: Working capital of $11.7mil versus total debt of $52.4mil

Sharemarket’s view:
Average NAM Price to Earnings ratio of 6.5 suggests the share price around $0.75 ($0.115 EPS x 6.5 P/E).

VALUE STOCK:
Return: End of June 2007 at share price of $0.61 this company is trading at about 30% discount to its February 2007 book value.

PROS AND CONS:
+++ Long established business, leader in its “out of favour�? industry
+++ Strong balance sheet
+++ Practices regular stock buybacks at favourable prices hence increasing the value per share for other shareholders
— Exposed to volatile demand for its commodity
— Cyclical agriculture business; could face though times ahead due to changes in climate conditions

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For my future investing ventures I often draw the inspiration from various sources on the Internet. As I see it, in times to come the virtual Internet property such as quality domain names or high traffic web sites will be continuously growing in value as the demand increases and good virtual property becomes harder and harder to come by.

So recently I had, once again, attempted to capture near expiring, in my opinion potentially highly valuable domain name thef1forum.com. The plan? Developing the domain into a respectable entity amongst the already existing Formula 1 online communities.

I realized that this domain is passed its expiry date in the pending delete status only a few weeks ago. Always on the lookout for new opportunities, I made sure to keep an eye on it for the days to come and used the GoDaddy’s back order service to get the domain into my hot hands as soon as its released to the public (for the less informed, at normal circumstances, while pending delete, a domain is released to the public six dates after its last update).

Unfortunately at the end, my excitement came to an abrupt end by email from GoDaddy stating the following:

We’re sorry, but the following domain name(s) that you backordered was not captured successfully:
THEF1FORUM.COM

Obviously the plan did not work out as I expected and the domain name is now in possession of somebody with a little bit faster trigger than myself. What surprised me though, was the fact that GoDaddy, while unsuccessful in their capture, have still charged my card with the backorder fee. Admittedly, I was way too excited from the prospect of creating a quality formula 1 forum to read through the tons of strings attached to GoDaddy back ordering process. Call me naïve but my expectations were, that without delivered service no fees should be charged and more so in the process as nontransparent as the capture of expired domains.

Anyway, moving on. As it stands right now, the domain name is currently being parked with one of those parking services and I only hope that its new owner will actually make it into something worthwhile same as I was hoping to do.

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Not so long ago I came across an interesting article put to together over at Money Walks. In there the author shows a list of highly successful people who, never managed to finish the college. That got me thinking, that the success of those (and similar) individuals could be perhaps used much more often as a motivation tool to all those thinking that their own obstacles on the way to success are just too high to overcome.

So what kind of personalities have made it onto this “college dropout billionaires�? list? Let’s see:

• Bill Gates (does anything else need to be said to introduce? No, I did not think so)
• Paul Allen (Microsoft co-founder)
• Michael Dell (founder of Dell Computers)
• Kirk Kerkorian (father of the whole Las Vegas idea, many said could not be realized)
• Stanley Ho (casino mogul from Macao)
• Steve Jobs (Mr. Apple Computers)
• Ralph Lauren (creator of Polo Ralph Laure fashion brand)
• Richard Branson (founder and tireless enthusiast behind the Virgin imperium)

The list is by no means complete and I am sure, that there is many more similar high achievers who don’t feature any kind of credible educational institution on their CV. However I think that the point is very much made ie. anybody with enough will power, focus and dedication can achieve pretty much anything he puts his mind into regardless of the “well meant�? discouraging voices he may be hearing on the way.

So if you despair and keep thinking, that you simply won’t get the break you deserve, take a list from the book of above mentioned. Pick any of them as a mentor, learn the ways he became successful and try to use such rules and recipes on your own way to success.

Word of caution though to prevent potential misunderstandings: In no way am I implying that dropping out from the college increases your chances to become successful in your professional career. Quite the contrary. However what I do want to point out is, that the steps to success can be learned and success can be achieved by anyone regardless of the education, age, family or ethnic background.

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