Better Investing Ask Mr. NAIC by Kenneth S. Janke, Sr.
Opportunities can arise from situations that, at one time, appeared to be all doom and gloom.
James Fraser and other contrarians have used an approach for years of seeking out stocks of companies, or industries where there have been problems in the past, but where there is a possibility of their fortunes turning around. This can't happen without management being aware of the problems and taking steps to correct them as well as admitting that a mistake has been made. Such turnarounds don't occur overnight. That resulted in a loss of 93 cents per share that year, but it gave the company incentive to move forward in areas management felt would be more profitable rather than committing more financial and managerial resources to the operation. It was sold to DynCorp in 1994.