The Shares Researcher

Intro Universal Music Group (UMG) is the world's largest music company, home to labels like Interscope, Capitol, Motown, Def Jam, and EMI, and to artists ranging from Taylor Swift and Drake to The Beatles and Bob Marley. The business operates in three segments – Recorded Music, Music Publishing, and Merchandising – across more than 60 countries. Its publishing arm alone administers nearly 4.5 million titles. UMG was spun out of French conglomerate Vivendi and listed on Amsterdam's Euronext exchange in September 2021. Valuation At €15.66, UMG trades near its all-time low and roughly 47% below its May 2024 peak. The market cap sits at approximately €29 billion. On adjusted 2025 earnings per share of €1.03, the stock trades at a trailing P/E of around 15x – the lowest valuation the company has ever carried as a public entity. The dividend for 2025 totals €0.52 per share, translating into a yield of about 3.3%. Full-year 2025 revenue came in at €12.5 billion, up 8.7% in c...

Last August, there was a lot of pessimism around Vopak in the markets. Since then, the company has performed very well and the share price increased from €22.23 to around €34.12, while collecting a dividend of €1.30 in between. This leaves a performance in Euro of almost 60% incl. dividend and might be a good time to take some chips off the table. Congratulations if you have been holding Vopak in the last year!

Intro Vopak stores oil, gas as well as chemicals and operates a global network of terminals worldwide. Its end markets are from the energy, manufacturing or food and agriculture sectors. The single biggest shareholder of Vopak is Hal Trust with 48.15%, a company also listed on Amsterdam’s stock market.    Valuation From 2017 to 2021, the lowest adjusted EPS achieved by Vopak was EUR 2.25 (high at EUR 2.80) demonstrating a very robust business model. At current prices, this translates into a P/E of below 10x, which doesn’t seem expensive. The company is paying a progressive dividend, which currently stands at EUR 1.25 per share, yielding 5.6%.   What’s next? After a more than 50% drop from spring 2020, it seems the shareholders that wanted to get out of Vopak are out to a large degree. The question is, what’s in the mind of the majority shareholder Hal Trust? If they still like Vopak, they might be inclined to make an offer for the entire company. Alternati...