Midas, Inc. (NYSE:MDS)

mchilando (23.62) Submitted: 2/3/2007 6:25:05 PM : Start Price: $22.92 MDS Score: -46.72

Midas is not a widely understood company by the average investor. I'm a franchisee, and I have more insight than most. Midas Auto Service Experts is what we knew as Midas Muffler from 1956 to 1997. When it went public on the NY, it flew , then faultered. The CEO was a disaster: But when Alan Feldman ( Ex McDonald's President) took over in 02 lots of things changed. The company unloaded all of it's high capitilized baggage such as manufacturing, and is now postured to focus on the consumer again. the ratio of service bays to vehicles is down up to 242 vehicles for every service bay in America from 190 vehicles per bay in 1997 . Midas has two stronf alliance partners in AutoZone , and Firestone Brigestone . Midas has NO alliance with Cooper tires as I have read here in the past. 13% of stock is held by insiders, and the PE ratio is now 37 . In 03 it had no earnings. Keeley Sm. Cap Value fund owns 5.7 % as of Dec 06. Since 2005 Midas has gone from a <600M > Cash Flow to a + 100M . Net income went from $600.000.00 to $2.4M in 24 months- That's not impressive until you learn that it was flirting with Chapter 11 in early 02 , when the board made significant changes. 52 week range is 16-24. I predict a 16%-20% growth for the next five years.