You can also buy drinks with the vouchers. Only tobacco products are excluded.
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Metsälehti has interviewed Ilkka Hämälä regarding Metsäliitto’s purchases of Metsä Board shares, new investments, and the China challenge.
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Osuuspankki seems to have communicated yesterday that the return target for Profit Shares will increase to 5.5% for next year. I assume and expect that Tradeka will follow suit and do even slightly better.
For the current year, OP’s return target is 4.5% and Tradeka’s return target is 4.75%.
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Sounds promising. I recently opened a tiny position in Tradeka’s profit shares.
For political reasons, I have been collecting “real dividends” for years, meaning that for a €33.64 membership fee, I’ve received €20 gift cards annually and a 20% discount at Restel restaurants.
Good combo.
An email regarding the Tradeka profit share was supposed to arrive once you log into the system and the subscription is approved. A day has passed, but no confirmation has arrived. I’ll get a feel for it and see how the interest starts to accumulate, then I’ll make further subscriptions.
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Could the message have gone to your spam folder? At least for me, those messages have always arrived quite smoothly. I made my latest deposit there on Monday, and the profit-sharing contribution was registered the same day, and I also received an email about it.
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In previous years, some have criticized the interest on cooperative investment shares, claiming that the returns are “insufficient” in their opinion.
As a point of comparison: many people have seen the value of their stock portfolios cut in half this year. Unfortunately, some stock choices have been such that the value might never recover when the company’s future looks bleak. Compared to that outcome, a 4% interest yield from a cooperative investment share would have been like winning the lottery for many.
When your capital remains intact and you receive a stable interest yield, it can be a solid component of your investment portfolio. I even used Tradeka’s restaurant vouchers myself this autumn and took advantage of other discounts. I certainly can’t complain.
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On this page, you can view Tradeka’s interim reports. Personally, I have mainly been following the size of Tradeka’s portfolio.
Yield shares, however, make up a marginal amount of the investment portfolio. Of course, it would be good for the portfolio size to keep growing.
If I were to put all my cooperative holdings into my portfolio, cooperatives would make up about 70 percent of the portfolio. However, I have left out cooperatives directly related to professional practice and those under joint ownership from my portfolio reviews. For example, a forest syndicate can invest solely in Metsäliitto shares in addition to forest land.
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Regarding those Tradeka investments, it is also worth recalling the ideological reasons for the existence of the cooperatives in question and considering whether you want to capitalize those same values and ideologies.
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Yes, it is definitely worth familiarizing yourself with these forms of social influence through cooperative activities before joining as a member.
Tradeka distributes support to, for example, candidates of the SDP (Social Democratic Party) and the Left Alliance in elections under certain conditions.
Additionally, over the years, Tradeka has donated and granted scholarships for many kinds of activities:
Donations and grants | tradeka.fi
It is worth checking the annual reports. Much support is given to science and the arts, but also, for example, to the renovation of historical labor halls, TUL (Finnish Workers’ Sports Federation) sports clubs, the development of cooperative activities, and research into leftist activities and literature written about them.
Furthermore, support for charity is distributed annually through a member vote; one year, the largest support went to the SPR (Finnish Red Cross) disaster relief fund, and one year it apparently went to the Finnish Natural Heritage Foundation for the purchase of conservation forests.
In terms of employer policy, Tradeka’s companies have also appeared somewhat different compared to many limited liability companies; for example, I believe COVID-19 subsidies for restaurants were distributed directly to employees who had been furloughed, and there is also, among other things, a separate personnel fund that supports health-related purchases.
Additionally, the sustainability report of Tradeka’s companies appears longer than the section of the annual report detailing the financial statements.
Ideology plays a major role, which in my opinion is only a plus.
Furthermore, it is good to note that yield shares (tuotto-osuus) were subscribed for about 6 million euros at the end of 2022, while, for example, Tradeka-Sijoitus’s investment assets are well over 500 million euros. These have no relevant significance in terms of financing Tradeka.
And this latter point also provides strong security for these yield share investments. From quarterly reporting and annual reports, one can quickly see that the company has a quite strong balance sheet compared to, for example, the capital of the yield shares (mentioned above) and especially the cooperative interest (osuuskorko) to be paid.
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Here is the investment distribution for Tradeka-Sijoitus:
These are Q2/23 figures. After Q3, the portfolio size was 553 million euros.
Looking at the consolidated income statement, one notices that Tradeka itself has less and less debt, and after Q3 it stood at 91 million euros. In a couple of years, the amount of debt has decreased by nearly 40 million euros.
One can therefore feel reasonably secure regarding their return shares (tuotto-osuudet). If Tradeka were a public limited company (Oyj), one could certainly call for greater yield-oriented risk-taking, but in the case of a cooperative, it’s good as it is.
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Tradeka joined the Pellervo Society in 2017. This marked the end of a confrontation that had lasted for about 100 years.
Furthermore, Tradeka’s membership is decreasing by thousands every year due to its aging membership base. By joining Tradeka, one can influence the direction in which the cooperative develops in the future. If the cooperative withers away and dies, the capital will likely be transferred to foundations closely associated with left-wing parties.
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It is worth noting, however, that the cooperative owns the business operations almost entirely, but only holds 49% of the voting power, and established foundations primarily control the remaining share of votes. Apparently, these were established due to a leftist background when there was some dispute over the future direction. Someone could perhaps provide more details on this if they have the information. A clarifying organization chart can be found on the website.
https://www.tradeka.fi/osuuskunta-tradeka/organisaatio-ja-hallinto
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Each member has a share of approximately 2,800 euros from Tradeka’s portfolio alone. Membership costs just over 30 euros. If the foundations did not exist, people could join Tradeka who would want to dissolve the cooperative and sell off the businesses. The money could then be distributed among the members. You are unlikely to get any such quick profit by joining Tradeka. The foundations see to that. They reportedly feared that the Finns Party (Perussuomalaiset) would take over the cooperative. However, I think it would be interesting to see the cooperative’s ideological separation from these foundations. We are currently very far from this.
There has been no clash, just a fear of the cooperative being taken over.
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I’m just wondering if the foundations are linked to that business, but the cooperative itself is member-driven and foundations are not protecting it. Feel free to correct me if I understood incorrectly. Could the previous scenario therefore still be possible, i.e., a takeover of the cooperative and the sale of the business?
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Dissolving the cooperative and selling off the business operations is likely possible in theory. If we assume in this scenario that the foundations disagree with the cooperative, selling the business operations would be difficult if the foundations remained owners of their share and retained the majority of the decision-making power. It would likely be hard to find a buyer for a business in which they wouldn’t gain control. The fortress of Red Capital (Punapääoma) is thus constructed in such a way that assets and decision-making power are separated from each other.
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Tradeka raises the return target for its return shares to 5.75%:
“The membership has welcomed the opportunity to subscribe to return shares well. In total, return shares have been subscribed for approximately six million euros. Some have subscribed the maximum amount at once, but many members have found the return share to be a form of long-term saving and make subscriptions regularly,” says Puro.
Tradeka is joining Labore, which was originally KAMALA (Kansan Markkinatutkimuslaitos), to which Tradeka’s predecessor, the Central Union of Consumer Cooperatives (Kulutusosuuskuntien Keskusliitto), belonged:
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There was another news story as well:
The Q4 interim report has also been published:
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Tradeka’s investment and the online grocery store Kauppahalli24 are ceasing operations:
Create new - category investment
The category includes private equity fund investments in, among others, ICT, cleantech, and media funds, Seulo-palvelut Oy (Kauppahalli24), and FIFAX Ab. All investments in the category are listed here.
This was also one of the annual benefits for Tradeka members:
https://www.tradeka.fi/jasenedut/vuosietu/3-alennusta-ruokaostoksista-kauppahalli24ssa
The biggest change is likely the end of that annual benefit. The investment is probably small, and Seulo-Palvelut Oy will continue its other operations and is not going bankrupt. S Group (S-ryhmä) and Kesko cannot be challenged in Finland, even in online retail.
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The website looked really anemic, and the service didn’t even work except in a small part of the country. I don’t know what other business operations Seulo-Palvelut Oy has, but it seems to be a company ripe for bankruptcy.
“The revenue of Seulo Palvelut Oy (2231096-6) was 2.7 million euros in 2022 and it employed 20 people. Revenue decreased by 46.8%. The operating loss was -3.2 million euros and the operating margin was -119.4%. The company’s equity ratio was -563%.” (Asiakastieto)
There are many companies at Juurakkotie 6 in Vantaa, where some have even made a profit. I have to say, I don’t understand why so many companies are needed. The corporate restructurings are hard to understand.
The corporate group’s revenue has grown strongly over the past few years: from a revenue level of approximately 5 million euros in 2019 to an estimated 25 million euros in 2022. The arrangement aims to accelerate growth. The goal is to reach a revenue level of approximately 100 million euros during the strategy period.
For example, Suppilog is a digital wholesaler: