De La Rue looked cheap.
It wasn’t. It was exhausted.
The share price collapsed for years.
Public investors fled.
Then, at rock-bottom prices, De La Rue was taken private.
Cue the irony:
A company that literally prints money… only became investable once the public market gave up.
This wasn’t a turnaround story for shareholders.
It was a transfer of ownership.
Public markets needed:
growth
clarity
optimism
Private equity just needed:
assets
contracts
patience
control
Same company.
Different time horizon.
Different outcome.
There’s a lesson here that goes beyond this one name:
> Cheap doesn’t mean undervalued.
Sometimes it means the upside now belongs to someone else.
Most people lose money chasing recovery stories.
Asset buyers wait for capitulation, then buy what’s left — quietly.
And yes…
Buying a banknote printer at the bottom is about as on-the-nose as capitalism gets.
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