Ag Growth International Inc

[Hopperbin]

AFN on the TSX. Pretty impressive dividend history in my opinion. Wonder if they will be able to hang onto the 20 cent per month dividend. That dividend works out to 8.41 percent per year not including compounding. Last financial report was not great and their outlook very conservative in my opinion. My dad travels back and forth from Arizona twice a year and he does mention the construction of these large bins on American farms some or a lot being built by AFN. Just one I think to watch, farmers have money to buy expensive land they should be able to keep building these grain storage facitlities. Shares have been on a sharp down trend since feb. 2011. At some point there must be a buying oportunity here. Nice dividend paying company.

[AllisWD45]

Interesting company. Good dividend but may not be
sustainable.
Their numbers are down and their 4th quarter
forecast is moderate. They also announced this
week that they are taking an option of buying back
10% of their shares from now to nov 20 2012. That
is up to 1.2M shares. highly improbable that they
will do it on such a thinly traded stock and with
their resources but they must feel their shares are
under priced.
Their shares closed yesterday at a 52 week low.
The other bad news for them their co founder and
CEO died October 15 of this year. The other co
founder has temporarily taken charge. Don't know
how this will affect them in the longer term.
I agree an interesting company to watch. A little
too small for my taste but if we start building bins
to beat the band things may improve but then we
may not since the CWB is gone LOL.
A serious question though where do they fit in the
bin builders ranking ie: big, small, quality etc. I see
they do have a 1400 dealer network but is that
north american or world wide?

[Hopperbin]

Can anyone explain these shares?
AFN.DB 1.2 million outstanding and valued at 102 dollars per share. Does not show a div. on my trading account, why are they worth so much more?

[AllisWD45]

Hopperbin. I am not sure what the DB means. There
are very astute traders on here that could explain it to
both of us. The other figures i got were from my
trading account. The common shares are trading
around the 29$ mark today. My Questrade account
also keeps track of news and financials about
companies. The other info came from their website.
Back to the DB that may be a quote on some preferred
shares or something else. The symbol For Ag Growth
International is AFN.TO.

[AllisWD45]

Bah never let a cowboy push buttons. To finish i got
the 12M figure from my Questrade account info as
well. Up to 10% is what the company has said they may
buy back in the next year therefore the 1.2M
figure.With the thin trading volume i would think this
would be a slow proscess to get there.

[Hopperbin]

I have seen all that info as well on my RBC trading site as well as aggrowth.com, except no explanation for the afn.db shares. True the share buyback for disposing of shares, is a big one. could support the share price or never be used at all. Also company officials are barred from selling durring a share buy back which is good. I guess the price they are willing to pay will never be advertised.

Grain guard is offering a new bin line of up to 48 foot in dia. Not sure
if going to be the same as the twister line or different.

Not sure if they are finished and into production from the new facility at Tobleford Alberta, consolidating twister grain guard and keho for increased capacity for the higher bushel storage bins, and Seems they have no problem spending money.

Earning per share of 1.87 dollars per share does not support the dividend in the short term let alone a share buy back. Unless the dividend is deducted from earnings. Something to do with eligable or non eligable, don't understand that either.

Perhaps one should phone Investor Relations Steve at 204 489 1855 I am toooo shy.
Surprised CP does not step in here.

[AllisWD45]

Apparently they just converted from a trust after the
government cut the tax incentives for this a few years
ago.But this shouldn't have anything to do with this
now. Ya maybe CP could tell us. I will get around to
phoning them this week i am pretty sure that DB thing
is some sort of preferred share or something

[AllisWD45]

Couldnt wait phoned the number out of office till
thursday. LMTC hope he gets back to me.

[Hopperbin]

Cool, I will await your reply

[cottonpicken]

It looks like a separate division,afn.db has a market
cap of 111 million

Afn has a 366 million dollar market cap

That is my guess.

[cottonpicken]

Or a different pool of shares on the same
company,which i did not know could be split up like
that.

[AllisWD45]

Did a little searching and maybe this could be the
deal. This company owns companies like Twister,
farm King West field among other shortlines plus a
belt conveyer and chain link manufacturer in the US
plus a couple of aeration equipment manufacturers.
They also do a lot of design work in grain handling
systems etc and then supply the machinery for
these designs world wide including places like
Kazakhstan and Mongolia. They specialize in unique
system design. Carry this one step farther it just so
happens that in those circles DB is short for design
and build. Maybe a separate arm of their company.
Just speculating but now i really want to know and
can't wait to talk to their investor relations guy

[AllisWD45]

BAZINGA. Found it The"DB" is a separate arm of the
company separately capitalized on the Venture
exchange of the TSE. They are the same company
but trade on both exchanges.I have never seen that
before and don't know why. The common shares
trade under the symbol AFN.TO and the separate
wing trades under AFN.DB.VN. Same company but
trading on two exchanges.
Cotten can correct me but i believe this Venture
exchange is usually very small companies looking
looking for start up money and are very high risk.
Usually when they grow up they get a seat on the
TSE. A lot of these VN companies trade for pennies
a share usually

[Hopperbin]

I found this

Definition of the DB in a stock symbal extention
•DB - debenture

Now definition of Debenture

Debenture
A long-term debt instrument issued by corporations or governments that is backed only by the integrity of the borrower, not by collateral. A debenture is unsecured and subordinate to secured debt. A debenture is unsecured in that there are no liens or pledges on specific assets

[Hopperbin]

So in essense a db stock is created to manage debt, with absolutely no security by the corporation. Do they pay some sort of interest payment, there is no dividend payment according to my trading site. What force of nature is holding their value. Perhaps my trading site is off kilter cause it shows 1.2 million shares outstanding and an average volume of 1.34 million. Meanwhile I only see 15,000 of volume for the average past few days. hmmmm something to bring up to the investor relation guy for sure, he should be able to answer those questions. Thanks for your help.