Aspermont, Atari, AMD - 'A' for exceptionally good investments!

Aspermont Ltd. - Digital transformation bears fruit

Based on the two longest-serving regular publications for the mining sector Mining Journal (founded in 1835) and Mining Magazine (founded in 1909), Aspermont Media recently reported further successes from its Digital Transformation strategy. The turnaround to a digital company initiated in 2015 due to a slump in the print and event business culminated in establishing a new Virtual Event & Exhibition (VEE) division in October 2020. After just five months, it is clear that Aspermont may have struck gold here. The new division has already brought in more than AUD 1 million. The three newly launched platforms Investor Outreach, Future of Mining 365 and Mining Journal Select 365, have generated strong cash flow with high-profit margins. They also turned out to be a profitable repeat business from the start with high cross-selling potential.

Aspermont has succeeded in acquiring over 100 new business customers for the VEE platforms, including high-profile companies such as Dassault, Hexagon, S&P, Olympus, SAP and Honeywell. They do not just book one or two-day events but are committed through twelve-month contracts and often purchase additional products from the product universe. This consists primarily of databases (over 7.5 million addresses of decision-makers) and XaaS (Anything-as-a-Service). Aspermont wants to follow the trend further and is currently evaluating the potential for additional VEE platforms in the energy and agriculture sectors.

For us, Aspermont's concept remains coherent. The area of virtual events was already a growth area before the global pandemic occurred, and Covid-19 has given it a significant boost. The necessary adaptation of companies and customers' infrastructure has largely already taken place. It is not expected that there will be a return to previous behavior patterns once the pandemic has subsided. Virtual events save time and costs and can be better integrated into everyday working life. We therefore expect this area to grow strongly in the future. Aspermont is on the right track. With the publication of the half-year report in May at the latest, the successes will become evident and will be reflected in the share price. Therefore, there is currently a very good opportunity to enter the market.

Atari - Attack with the blockchain

1972 was the longest year of the Gregorian calendar commonly used by us today; as a leap year, it was one day and two leap seconds longer than usual. That same year in Sunnyvale, California, a man named Nolan Bushnell founded a small company that would become the most iconic brand in video gaming: Atari. The Company's name is derived from the Japanese board game Go! Meaning "Attack!". Atari SA has nothing to do with the original Company founded in the USA but is based on Infogrames, a software company founded in 1983. The Atari name rights came into possession through many acquisitions and mergers, "Attack!" is precisely the motto the Company wants to go by today.

Having already entered the crypto business some time ago with its own Atari token, the Company is now pushing development in the blockchain field due to the manifold possibilities of a digital currency in the computer gaming environment. To emphasize this prioritization, the Company has been reorganized: all blockchain activities will be consolidated in a separate department in the future, headed by the Company's current CEO, Frederic Chesnais; he will be succeeded as CEO by Wade Rose, previously head of the Supervisory Board. All other areas will in the future be combined in a Gaming department, which will be dedicated to the growing market for retro-gaming.

The first steps towards expansion have already been taken. A few days ago, Atari announced comprehensive cooperation with Chain Games, a pioneer in blockchain gaming. Thus, a joint region in Atari-Multiverse is to be created from both companies to guarantee players a seamless gaming experience. For this purpose, the acceptance of each other's cryptocurrencies $ATRI and $CHAIN has been agreed upon. We think this alignment makes sense. The benefits of crypto and smart contracts are evident, especially in gaming. Epic Games, developer of the top-selling online game Fortnite, made about USD 700 million in revenue in 2020 from its currency, V-Bucks, in the in-house Epic Store. The Company was valued at USD 17.3 billion in its last funding round, up from around USD 8 billion in 2018. If Atari, which currently stands at a market cap of about EUR 270 million, gets it right, massive expansion should be possible. In any case, we still have a lot of confidence in the share, which has almost quadrupled in price over the last twelve months. We think that the slight price declines of the previous few days offer an excellent entry point.

Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) - The eternal rival of Intel and NVIDIA

Fun Fact: one of the first backers of the Company, founded in 1969 under the name Sanders Association and later renamed Advanced Micro Devices, was Robert Noyce, one of the founders of Intel. The first years passed in harmonious coexistence, during which AMD manufactured Intel's 8086 and 8088 processors under license. This changed only in 1986 when Intel terminated the license agreement. AMD's copies had become too good and were selling better than the original. In the following patent proceedings, AMD was forbidden to manufacture Intel chips from the 5th generation onwards (Pentium series). It was the starting signal for their own very successful developments. AMD soon succeeded in countering Intel with its equal chip architecture, which became a great success for the Company due to its lower costs. With the takeover of ATI in 2006, the Company successfully positioned itself as a graphics chips manufacturer (GPUs).

At that time, it was not yet foreseeable what significance GPUs would have in the future. It was only with the advent of cryptocurrencies that GPUs were able to show their real strengths. Unlike CPUs, which today typically comprise four or eight processing cores for complex tasks, GPUs consist of up to 5120 processing cores, known as shaders, which can perform integer calculations. The calculation of integer results is the basis for the so-called mining of cryptocurrencies, first and foremost Bitcoin. Thus, today several high-performance graphics cards are combined in so-called mining rigs, which calculate new Bitcoins in continuous operation. But not only the graphics chip sector is currently booming at AMD. AMD is also on the attack in other areas.

In October 2020, for example, the group's management had the takeover of the world's largest supplier of logic ICs Xilinx Inc. approved by the shareholders. Together, the companies want to take market share from market leader Intel, primarily in the data center segment. In our opinion, this is precisely the right way to go. AMD's success is not based on being a quiet me-too vendor but on tweaking the market leaders where it hurts. The acquisition of Xilinx is a strong statement and also makes sense because of the complementary product spectrums. The stock, which has currently entered a phase of sideways movement after a high around the turn of the year, should be able to break through the resistance at USD 100 in the longer term. For long-term oriented investors, now should be an excellent time to enter the market.