Hello,
I spent last week touring Italian micro-caps with my friend David Diranko. I was pretty pretty familiar with all the companies we visited — except one. And, of course, the one I knew the least about ended up being the one that impressed me the most.
I’m talking about Comer Industries. With a market cap in the €800M range, it’s one of the few non-micro cap companies I’ll probably ever write up here. But the stock does trade like a micro, with just 11% free float, and only about 5,000 shares changing hands on an average day.
After the plant visit — which honestly blew me away — I went back and did what I always do: read filings and tried to poke holes in what I’d just seen. I was looking for red flags, anything that might stop me from investing. I found none.
What I did realize, though, is why most investors overlook this hidden champion. You can’t really “get” Comer without seeing how things work at the plant level, how the culture starts from the CEO and trickles down, and how this whole industry is structured.
That one day at the factory, plus a conversation with the CEO, probably saved me weeks of research — if I’d ever even come to the same conclusions at all. (I wouldn’t)
So in this research report, I’ll try my best here to lay out, from a first-person point of view, how I see Comer Industries as a business, Matteo Storchi as a leader, and $COM.MI as a risk/reward.