TransAct Technologies 🇺🇸
NASDAQ: TACT • EV: $23M • Last Close: $3.91
TransAct Technologies has two businesses: 1) Casino printers, when players cash out at a slot machine they receive a ticket, and 2) BOHA!, a terminal for food safety technology that prints pre-prepared food labels and best by dates. BOHA! recently lost their biggest customer, 7-Eleven, which has created the buying opportunity. 7-Eleven brought their entire POS system in house, suggesting this is a one off issue as other customer relationships like McDonalds appear unaffected.
Casino Printers operates in a duopoly with tough regulatory barriers and is doing ~$9M in run-rate EBITDA, the majority of which is recurring. The food safety technology business is not profitable but doing ~$20M in revenue with ARR growing at a decent clip. ~$2.5M in overhead tied to their public listing suggests an eventual sale of the business is the most logical outcome.
What appears to be a commodity hardware business on the surface is actually better than one would expect. Modern slot machines have only two mechanical elements: the printer, and the bill acceptor. If either of these two simple devices fail, you are essentially left with a $10,000+ paper weight. As such, slot machine OEMs place a heavy emphasis on reliability and quality when it comes to their printers.
A 2025 VIC Writeup (Link).
Bel Fuse Share Class Arbitrage 🇺🇸
NASDAQ: BELFA/BELFB • EV: USD $2.7B • Last Close: $183.24/$201.17
Bel Fuse has two classes of shares, BELFA and BELFB. BELFA shares have voting rights whereas BELFB shares do not. To compensate for this, BELFB shares are entitled to at least a 5% higher dividend than BELFA shares. Historically the two share classes have traded roughly on par. In 2022 the BELFA shares traded at an all time high premium of 142% over the BELFB shares vs an all-time low premium(discount) of 72% in 2018. Today BELFA shares trade at 91% of the BELFB shares with the dividend yield at an all-time low.
Gabelli Funds and other large holders of the class A shares are pushing for a proposal to collapse the share structure. Gabelli has submitted similar proposals in the past that would have passed had it not been for a governance clause suppressing the voting rights of class A shareholders who own more than 10% of the outstanding class A shares.
The Idea Comes from Merion Road Capitals Q3 2025 Letter (Link, pg. 2).
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