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Nintendo's flywheel is not there. That is Simeon McMillan's call, and it is the one that has media longs emailing me. His case: Switch 2 is the best console launch in history and the attach rate still came in well below Switch 1, the Mario Kart bundle flattered even that number, Nintendo Switch Online accounts have been flat for years and almost nobody has noticed, and Nintendo just took its first mid-cycle price increase because memory costs are not coming down. He is not calling for a crash. He is saying you cannot put this one away for two years.

I push back hard. Ocarina of Time is going to be a top five selling game in the world and it is a remake, which is the old Buffett line about Disney being an oil well where the oil seeps back in. Simeon's answer is that Disney kept buying new IP to refill the well and Nintendo has not, and that two to three movies a year and a dozen parks would change his mind.

Then we flip to the two he is long. Spotify is his highest conviction idea and he opens with a mea culpa: he assumed the labels would hold the margin hostage forever, and missed that the 2024 and 2025 renegotiations made the royalty rate fall as Spotify grows. I read those same deals less charitably, as Spotify winning outright rather than everyone winning together, and I think the next round goes further. We get into why advertising keeps underperforming, why that might be fine, and what marketplace programs actually are once you have worked in radio. On Netflix he is bullish on a stock that has been cut hard, and I ask the obvious question: Netflix trades at half Spotify's multiple with the same growth and the same margin story, so why is Spotify still the top pick.

Also, the NFL ratings test. Netflix's Melbourne game did 18.5 million in the US this year against YouTube's 17.3 million globally for Brazil last year, and Netflix needs a login while YouTube was free.

This episode is sponsored by Fiscal.ai: https://fiscal.ai/yav. I am a customer and I pay for the API myself. Two things I actually use it for: the fund letter database wired into the API, so when I prep a podcast I get every letter thesis on the name in one pass, and audited financials where every line in the model links straight back to the source. Use my link for 15% off the AI connector.

Chapters:

(00:00) Intro

(01:02) Sponsor: Fiscal.ai

(02:35) The quarterly media check-in

(03:58) Why Simeon is bearish on Nintendo

(08:37) Remakes: is Ocarina of Time the oil well?

(11:48) Memory costs and the first mid-cycle price hike

(14:30) The attach rate and the Mario Kart bundle

(16:47) The bull rebuttals, and subscriber growth that isn't

(19:08) Nintendo margins, and whether 40% is real

(22:19) Should Nintendo have sold itself?

(24:32) IP, movies and parks, with Pokemon as the template

(28:09) Spotify: the mea culpa

(31:39) The label deals, and who actually won

(32:41) Advertising, and payola by another name

(36:16) What AI does to Spotify

(39:00) 40x earnings: priced for perfection?

(42:36) Daniel Ek steps back, and are CEOs overrated

(47:08) Netflix as a value stock

(53:13) AI generated content and the Netflix moat

(59:49) NFL on Netflix vs YouTube

(1:02:08) Gun to your head: Spotify or Netflix?

(1:05:34) Wrap, and the student tier

Simeon McMillan / Accrued Interest: https://www.accruedint.com

Links:

Yet Another Value Blog - https://www.yetanothervalueblog.com

See our legal disclaimer here: https://www.yetanothervalueblog.com/p/legal-and-disclaimer

Ian Cassel has been picking microcaps for twenty years, and his argument in Stock Picker is that the edge everyone assumes has been arbitraged away is actually coming back. Not the spreadsheet edge. The one that comes from getting on a plane, spending a full day with a CEO instead of an hour, and learning to sense when something is wrong before the numbers say so. His line is that with AI write-ups everywhere, the only place left to get an edge is the conversations that are not recorded, transcribed or scraped, and that puts the game back where it was 30 years ago.

The other half of the book is less comfortable and, for me, the reason it hit. Ian opens with his mother's death and keeps going: living off your own capital, the maturation of an investor running alongside the maturation of a person, what it costs to be the one who gets the credit and the blame. We get into why most microcaps deserve to be rented rather than owned, the junior miner curve and the 36 month rule, how he decides which company visit is worth the flight, scarcity as a reason a stock reprices, why capital allocation barely appears in a 300 page book about picking stocks, and the losing-streak instinct that kills concentrated managers: doubling down instead of diversifying. I push back on whether the microcap universe he describes still exists in the US. Fair warning, I loved this book and it shows.

Buy Stock Picker: https://amzn.to/3UPA936

This episode is sponsored by AlphaSense, and specifically my upcoming webinar with them, The AI Agent Reality Check: What They Mean for Investment Decisions, on September 22nd. It is me, Steve Clapham from Behind the Balance Sheet, and two AI leaders at AlphaSense talking about what AI agents actually do for investors, the upsides, the downsides, and how fast the landscape is moving. It is free to attend: https://www.alpha-sense.com/resources/webinars/the-ai-agent-reality-check-what-they-mean-for-investment-decisions/?utm_source=pt_YAVP&utm_medium=sponsored&utm_campaign=SWB_DG_09-22-26_IMP-GENAI_FS_BTBS-YAVP-AI-Agents

Chapters:

(0:00) Introduction

(0:57) Sponsor: AlphaSense

(1:56) Welcome, and why this book landed

(2:32) Why Ian wrote Stock Picker

(4:16) The personal book: his mother, money, and the myth of the stoic investor

(6:23) Where the chapter-opening stories come from

(7:40) John Madden, Vince Lombardi, and knowing one thing cold

(9:37) Is the microcap playbook describing a market that no longer exists?

(13:38) Why most microcaps get rented, not owned

(16:09) The hurricane pro forma, and the comp that needed two Katrinas a year

(16:59) Meeting management without getting pantsed

(20:17) How Ian decides which company visit is worth the flight

(22:43) Do not ask multi-part questions

(23:18) Consulting for the companies he wanted to own

(24:59) Over the wall, and what it cost him

(25:54) The value-added investor, and what his fund does now

(28:41) Scarcity: why the stock nobody can buy reprices

(31:05) Why capital allocation barely appears in the book

(34:07) Great investors evolve or go extinct

(36:25) Fundsmith, momentum, and shooting cannonballs

(37:19) The PM has nowhere to hide

(39:32) Building a brand, and spotting the real ones

(43:12) Buying low, then buying higher

(45:20) Journaling: every trade, what I did and why

(47:37) Imposter syndrome after the big winner

(48:28) The losing streak: diversify, do not double down

(50:59) Wishing time forward, and the secret to compounding

(53:49) Closing

Ian Cassel / MicroCapClub: https://www.microcapclub.com

Links:

Yet Another Value Blog - https://www.yetanothervalueblog.com

See our legal disclaimer here: https://www.yetanothervalueblog.com/p/legal-and-disclaimer

A quarter of the companies on the London Stock Exchange's main board have disappeared in four years. Private equity keeps paying 50 and 60 percent premiums and still walking away with a bargain, because the starting valuations are broken. Swen Lorenz of Undervalued-Shares has spent the last few months writing open letters to UK boards telling them to stop waiting to be rescued and start pulling the levers they already have.

I have been calling the UK an emerging market on this podcast for three years, and my problem with the trade is right there in the setup: if the only way you make money is owning the one company that happens to get taken out, that is not alpha. So we spend the first half on what would actually fix it. Swen puts most of the blame on the big domestic funds, in outflow for a decade, pushing companies toward dividends to fund their own redemptions. I put most of it on boards that own no stock, treat the seat as a club membership, and check the dividend box every year. Then we get concrete on two names. ZIGUP (ZIG), which I own a little of, has a plan that pays seven executives up to 69 million pounds if the share price re-rates, trades under four times EBITDA, and still has not bought back a single share. And Craneware, which turned down a 26 pound approach from Bain last year and now trades at 13.

Swen on how retail investors can unlock the UK market: https://www.undervalued-shares.com/weekly-dispatches/retail-investors-can-unlock-the-uk-market-here-is-how

His earlier write up on UK M&A and activism: https://www.undervalued-shares.com/weekly-dispatches/uk-ma-and-activism-is-the-dam-about-to-break/

This episode is sponsored by Fiscal.ai: https://fiscal.ai/yav. I am a customer and I pay for the API myself. Two things I use it for: a huge database of fund letters wired into the API, so the first thing I do when prepping a podcast is pull every recent letter on the name and see the bull and bear case, and audit-linked models where every line in the model links straight back to the source. You can get 15% off their AI connector at the link.

Chapters:

(00:00) Intro

(01:23) Sponsor: Fiscal.ai

(02:57) Swen Lorenz, Undervalued-Shares

(04:30) A quarter of the LSE has disappeared

(06:05) If the only exit is a takeout, is that alpha?

(07:52) The levers boards refuse to pull

(10:17) Boards, funds, or shareholders: who is to blame?

(15:23) Active outflows everywhere, so why is the UK uniquely cheap?

(16:57) Culture, and the case for foreign activists

(18:25) Index funds, proxy advisers, and a 95% approval vote

(21:04) The dividend trap: the board or the fund manager?

(25:33) Boards as a club, and the Gamma Communications topping bid

(28:07) You get what you pay for: UK board pay and stock ownership

(30:03) Swen's activist checklist

(32:00) The dam is about to break

(34:12) ZIGUP: the business, and the letter

(36:18) The VCP: 69 million pounds riding on the share price

(40:19) Why I am disappointed: no buybacks, still paying the dividend

(42:14) The real risk is an unsolicited bid at too low a price

(43:51) US roadshows and other non solutions

(48:27) Craneware: from a 26 pound bid to 13

(51:59) SaaSpocalypse fears and the trading update

(53:32) Closing: a golden opportunity, and whether to relist in the US

Swen Lorenz / Undervalued-Shares: https://www.undervalued-shares.com/

Links:

Yet Another Value Blog - https://www.yetanothervalueblog.com

See our legal disclaimer here: https://www.yetanothervalueblog.com/p/legal-and-disclaimer

In November 2025 Priority Technology's (PRTH, disclosure: long) chairman and CEO offered to take the company private at $6.00 to $6.15 a share, two days after a bad print knocked the stock from seven to five. Zack Buckley wrote a public letter opposing it. His sum of the parts gets to roughly $17 a share, a simpler multiple analysis gets to $19, and the June sale of a comparable payments business at 8.3x EBITDA implies $12 against a stock trading around $5.50. Ten months later the special committee still has not said a word.

Zack walks through why the consolidated company is misread: over 90% of revenue is recurring or reoccurring, and 60% of it sits in Treasury Solutions, an 80%-plus EBITDA margin business built on the Finxera acquisition and CFTPay that has tripled EBITDA in four years. I push back on the payments-pocalypse, on the leverage, and on a Q2 that came in at the high end of the revenue guide and the low end of the EBITDA guide. Then we get to the part I actually care about: the 13D that says the chairman will not sell to a third party, the January 2025 secondary priced at $7.75 that the company said undervalued it, the $3 million of special committee legal costs added back in one quarter, and three straight earnings calls where nobody on the company side would say the word "process." I own the stock, so weigh all of it accordingly.

Buckley Capital's public statement on the proposal: https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/buckley-capital-advisors-issues-statement-regarding-controlling-shareholders-take-private-proposal-for-priority-technology-holdings-inc-302620153.html

This episode is sponsored by Trata: https://www.trata.com. Two buy-siders hop on a completely anonymized call and discuss a stock they both actually own, or sometimes one is long and the other is skeptical. If you like this podcast, you will like Trata.

Chapters:

(0:00) Introduction and disclaimer

(1:22) Sponsor: Trata

(2:26) Welcome, and why I own this one

(3:19) What Priority Technology is and why Zack thinks it is mispriced

(4:50) The three segments, and why Treasury is the whole story

(7:39) Finxera, CFTPay, and the enterprise distribution model

(9:29) The payments-pocalypse: is this a melting ice cube?

(12:01) The Q2 print, the guide, and the accounting complexity

(14:14) Leverage and the balance sheet

(15:21) November 2025: the chairman bids $6.00 to $6.15

(17:31) A bad print, an illiquid stock, and a bid two days later

(19:23) Ten months in: what takes a process this long?

(21:37) The 13D that rules out a third party

(23:06) The January 2025 secondary at $7.75

(25:47) What dragged-out processes usually mean

(28:03) Would a strategic pay up?

(29:59) Three earnings calls and not one word on the process

(32:00) How the earnings decks changed after the bid

(35:31) Tuck-in M&A, cash building, and the standalone case

(36:58) What a fair number actually looks like

Links:

Yet Another Value Blog - https://www.yetanothervalueblog.com

See our legal disclaimer here: https://www.yetanothervalueblog.com/p/legal-and-disclaimer

Tiendas 3B has more than 3,700 stores in central Mexico, opens roughly 150 more every quarter, and earns its money back on a new store in about two years. It is the Aldi model, built by a founder who saw BIM work in Turkey, moved to a country where he did not speak the language, and has spent 21 years compounding it. Alberto Vadia of Fruit Tree Capital thinks it is a hundred bagger from here.

My problem is the price. The stock is approaching $50, it has run a ton, and the bulls I was reading a few months ago were underwriting it in the mid 30s. So I push Alberto on the thing that actually decides this: do the unit economics survive the move from 3,500 stores to 15,000, or does a two year payback quietly become a four year payback once they leave central Mexico? We also get into the two equity offerings from a business that self funds every store it opens, why every other hard discounter on earth stayed private, what Costco at 40 times earnings implies for a Mexican retailer, and whether adding fruits and vegetables is an expansion or a risk.

This episode is sponsored by Trata: https://www.trata.com/tbbb. Trata is two buysiders who own the stock talking about what they are actually worried about. They have two calls on TBBB that I used to prep for this one, and you can hear a sample at the link.

Chapters:

(00:00) Intro

(01:48) Sponsor: Trata

(02:50) Alberto Vadia, Fruit Tree Capital

(04:22) What is Tiendas 3B, and the Aldi playbook

(07:27) Why they own it: no debt, management, compounding

(08:45) What is the market missing?

(12:09) The chicken and egg problem in hard discount

(13:25) Private label, 900 SKUs, and beating Walmart on ibuprofen

(16:55) The stock has run: have we missed it?

(18:52) Why every other hard discounter stayed private

(21:12) Costco at 40x, and the Mexico haircut

(26:43) Do the unit economics survive stores 5,000 to 15,000?

(28:43) The self splitting distribution center model

(31:46) The equity offerings, and who was actually selling

(36:49) No loss leaders, and the missing fruits and vegetables

(41:58) Why is a Mexican category killer listed in New York?

(45:36) The bare bones deck and the HQ visit

(46:50) Long term, volatility, customer first

Alberto Vadia / Fruit Tree Capital: https://www.linkedin.com/in/albertovadia/

Links:

Yet Another Value Blog - https://www.yetanothervalueblog.com

See our legal disclaimer here: https://www.yetanothervalueblog.com/p/legal-and-disclaimer

Limbach spent three years turning itself from a general contractor into an owner direct services business, and the market loved it right up until this summer. Then organic revenue went down mid single digits, EBITDA fell 30%, guidance came down from $90m to $80m, and the stock lost half its value. Yaron Naymark of 1 Main Capital pitched me this name in June 2023, watched it 6.5x, sold most of it, and is back buying it after a 75% drawdown.

His argument is that the EBITDA decline is fixed cost deleverage on a demand air pocket, not a broken business, and that the bigger story is the one Limbach missed. While FIX and EME compounded on data centers, Limbach stayed singularly focused on owner direct work and ended up with effectively zero data center exposure. The CYMCOR acquisition announced alongside Q2 is the first real move to fix that. I push back on the bear case that management knowingly bid a pile of low margin work, on whether owner direct is just general contracting by another name, on whether wage inflation from the data center boom is quietly eating them, and on whether a 2016 de-SPAC ever escapes the gravity of $10 per share. We finish on how Yaron invests around AI without pretending to know who wins: Limbach, IWG, and why he re-initiated KKR.

Yaron's first Limbach pitch, June 2023: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m7GzW0ahswg

This episode is sponsored by Trata: https://www.trata.com/lmb. If you like this podcast, you are going to love Trata. It is two buysiders getting on the phone and talking through a stock they are both interested in, the reasons they want to get long, the reasons they are worried about it. They have a Limbach call from six months ago that holds up really well, and I asked one of its questions on this episode.

Chapters:

(00:00) Intro

(00:56) Sponsor: Trata

(01:50) Yaron Naymark, back for round six

(03:09) What Limbach is and why he is double dipping

(03:40) Enron, a SPAC, and the shift from general contracting to owner direct

(06:32) Called a data center winner when management said otherwise

(07:48) The air pocket: tariffs, Medicaid cuts, and paused projects

(09:29) Why the stock is down 50% when EBITDA is down 30%

(12:14) Organic versus headline revenue and the Pioneer Power deal

(12:40) Double dipping on a stock you already made money on

(16:57) The bear case: low margin bookings and general contracting by another name

(22:31) Why FIX and EME ran and Limbach did not

(24:42) Wage inflation, technicians, and whether owner direct contracts trap them

(27:01) Did management get caught off guard between Q1 and Q2?

(30:35) The $50m buyback nobody has touched

(31:18) Why M&A beats buying back stock at six times EBITDA

(33:55) The math behind a $200 three year price target

(35:18) Could Limbach be the seller instead of the buyer?

(38:09) Josh Horowitz, insider ownership, and the de-SPAC stigma

(40:50) CYMCOR and the data center pull through

(42:52) Investing around AI: Limbach, IWG, KKR, and the mega-alts

(50:29) Wrap

Yaron Naymark / 1 Main Capital: https://www.1maincapital.com

Links:

Yet Another Value Blog - https://www.yetanothervalueblog.com

See our legal disclaimer here: https://www.yetanothervalueblog.com/p/legal-and-disclaimer

Every new car sold in Europe now has to watch the driver's face. Two companies in the world can actually do it, Seeing Machines and Smart Eye, and they spent twenty years and hundreds of millions of dollars getting there. Hugo Navarro's argument is that the market has not repriced what happens next: a roughly 55 million dollar fixed cost base, automotive production going from 488,000 vehicles in Q4 2025 to 2.1 million in Q4 2026, and 20 to 40 million of free cash flow in fiscal 2027 against a 330 million market cap. If Japan and the US follow with their own mandates, close to every incremental dollar of revenue drops straight to free cash flow.

I push back hard in a few places. There is a 55 million dollar convertible due in October that this company has let get within two months of expiry, and my view is that no healthy business does that. Receivables are up 120% against 45% revenue growth. The fleet business, Guardian 3, is running trials that keep not converting, and "we are in a trucking recession" is the kind of management excuse I have learned to distrust. We also get into whether a new entrant can just build this now that the market is 16 million vehicles, why no tier one ever bought them, and whether full autonomy eventually kills the whole thesis.

Hugo's write-up on Seeing Machines: https://smallcaptreasures.substack.com/p/a-cheap-tech-duopoly-posts-333-growth?r=1od1d5

This episode is sponsored by Fiscal.ai: https://fiscal.ai/yav. Fiscal.ai is the modern financial data provider for global equities, and I am a customer who pays with my own money for the API. Two things I use it for constantly: a huge database of fund letters wired into the API, so the first thing I do prepping for a podcast is pull every recent letter on the company, and audit-linked financials where every line in the model clicks through to the source. Use fiscal.ai/yav for 15% off their AI connector.

Chapters:

(0:00) The setup: a duopoly Europe just made mandatory

(0:54) Sponsor: Fiscal.ai

(2:49) Why Hugo kept pitching this one

(3:56) What Seeing Machines does, and why DMS is harder than it looks

(5:13) The math: fixed opex, Europe now, Japan and the US later

(8:06) The seatbelt manufacturer analogy

(10:25) My pushback: what stops a new entrant or an in-house build?

(11:47) Naturalistic data, Mitsubishi Electric, and the accuracy gap

(14:54) The elephant in the room: a $55m convertible due in October

(17:46) Footnote 21 and the accelerated royalty payment

(20:06) Can the regulation slip or get watered down?

(22:00) Robotics: $20 of silicon versus $20,000 chips

(24:39) Smart Eye versus Seeing Machines: software only or full system

(27:38) Why no tier one ever bought them

(29:16) Fleet: Guardian 3 and trials that keep not converting

(35:04) The balance sheet: receivables up 120%

(37:37) How much operating leverage is left in Europe alone

(40:10) Does full autonomy kill the DMS story?

(42:39) Chinese OEMs selling into Europe

(44:14) Licensing the fleet software to telematics players

(46:34) CEO incentives and the overpromising track record

(48:30) My last pushback: at some point it is them, not you

(50:14) Why the stock reacts slowly, and where the risk really sits

Hugo Navarro / Undervalued and Undercovered: https://smallcaptreasures.substack.com/

Links:

Yet Another Value Blog - https://www.yetanothervalueblog.com

See our legal disclaimer here: https://www.yetanothervalueblog.com/p/legal-and-disclaimer

Rates just screamed to 20 year highs and stocks have barely blinked. That looks to me like the mirror image of the mid-2010s, when Treasuries yielded 2%, the math said stocks should trade for 25x, and they sat in the mid-teens instead because the equity risk premium quietly widened from 4% to 6%. If the premium can widen when rates fall, why would it not widen again when rates rise? That is the double whammy running in reverse: earnings that got a decade of help from the Trump tax cuts and the AI boom, multiplied by a multiple heading the wrong way.

The other thing I cannot stop chewing on is what higher rates do to the AI data center buildout. These are 15 year leases where the NPV of the payments roughly covers the build cost, which means the developer is really underwriting the terminal value 15 to 25 years out. Move rates from 4% to 5% and you have to jack the lease rate up 5% to 10% just to stand still, and you discount that terminal value harder, right as the tenant credit gets scarier. If the AI trade cracks, you get hit twice: your tenant may not be around, and the release in year 15 goes from a $100m NOI lease to whatever the next best bidder pays. I do not think we are there yet, but finance 101 says investment gets crowded out eventually.

Then two management questions. UWMC and Cogent both ran capital allocation that looked designed for the CEO's personal balance sheet rather than for shareholders, and I want a way to spot that before the blowup rather than after. And a friend's text about a CEO everyone was calling the next Mark Leonard got me wondering how you would ever know, because a real compounder and one great bet with hidden leverage look identical for the first ten years.

I wrote the rates piece up this morning: https://www.yetanothervalueblog.com/p/rates-are-screaming-and-stocks-arent

The UWMC post: https://www.yetanothervalueblog.com/p/uwmc-lost-600m-hedging-a-deal-theyd

The Cogent episode with Aaron Chan: https://www.yetanothervalueblog.com/p/recurve-capitals-aaron-chan-on-cogent

This episode is sponsored by Trata: https://trata.com. Trata is two buy siders talking to each other about a name they both follow closely. Trata records it, anonymizes it, and publishes it. It is the fastest way I know to get up to speed on something new.

Chapters:

(00:00) What is on my mind this month

(01:07) Sponsor: Trata

(01:41) Rates screamed higher and stocks did not listen

(04:39) Should the equity risk premium rise with rates?

(06:29) Rising rates meet the AI data center buildout

(09:33) What a 15 year data center lease is really betting on

(13:03) Does higher for longer start crowding out AI capex?

(14:11) UWMC, Cogent, and CEOs who run capital allocation for themselves

(18:45) How would you know if someone is the next Mark Leonard?

(23:01) One great bet, or actual genius?

(24:37) Wrapping up

Links:

Yet Another Value Blog - https://www.yetanothervalueblog.com

See our legal disclaimer here: https://www.yetanothervalueblog.com/p/legal-and-disclaimer

School is starting, which means a dozen college and MBA teams are about to email me asking how to win their stock pitch competition. So I made the answer. The core of it: a pitch is a game, and most people lose it before they open their mouth by picking an idea that does not fit the contest rules or the judges in the room.

From there it is three things. Design the pitch for the timeframe the contest actually asks for and for the people judging it, because what wins with a concentrated-book judge is not what wins with a pod shop. Lead with the one thing only you know, not a sell side price target or a multiple that has compressed. And make your bull case the base case instead of hedging yourself into a 15% price target that reads as average. Then the three traps I see every single year: burning five slides on a DCF nobody will ask about, drowning the room in risk factors, and death by background. I also walk through the La Quinta pitch that won me Ira Sohn in 2018, and why the CSL and DoorDash teams at the Pershing Square Challenge won on legwork rather than modeling.

Fair warning: I had AI build the slides, so do not hold the exact wording on any of them against me.

If you are pitching to get hired rather than to win a contest, the companion episode is here: https://www.yetanothervalueblog.com/p/how-to-get-a-job-in-investing-podcast

This episode is sponsored by Trata: https://trata.com. Trata is two buysiders swapping thoughts on a stock they are both involved in. If you are prepping a pitch, go on and say you are thinking about pitching company XYZ, and they will find you someone to talk to about it. It is a very good way to hear the other side of your idea before a judge hands it to you.

Chapters:

(00:00) Why I made this one alone, with a deck

(01:57) Disclaimer and a word from Trata

(03:02) Why this matters even if you never enter a contest

(05:20) Who am I to talk about stock pitches

(07:18) Why a pitch is a free lottery ticket

(08:51) Rule one: know the game you are playing

(10:12) Know your judges: concentrated books, event funds, pod shops

(12:19) Rule two: tell a story, and lead with something only you know

(14:14) The La Quinta pitch that won Ira Sohn

(16:07) Be bold: make your bull case the base case

(18:04) Do the legwork: hard hats, expert calls, customer checks

(21:43) What to avoid: excessive modeling

(23:17) What to avoid: drowning in risks

(25:08) What to avoid: death by background

(26:22) Formatting is table stakes

(27:48) Go win the thing

Links:

Yet Another Value Blog - https://www.yetanothervalueblog.com

See our legal disclaimer here: https://www.yetanothervalueblog.com/p/legal-and-disclaimer

El Al ($ELAL), Israel's flag carrier, has spent three years as close to a monopoly on flying in and out of Ben Gurion as an airline ever gets. Turkish and Pegasus left and aren't coming back, Ryanair lost its Terminal 1 slots, Delta and United keep pushing their return, and El Al has used the windfall to go from a levered balance sheet to net cash, buy nine planes off lease, and start returning capital. It trades at about 2x EBITDA. Adam Buckstein of ASB Partners (back after his Stride episode) thinks you're buying a hard-asset-backed airline (roughly $1.3B net cash, $1B+ of owned planes, a $700M-ish loyalty program valuation) for less than the parts, with two more quarters of gushing profits still to come.

My pushbacks: every "delevered on wartime profits" story I can remember (steel, energy after 2022) didn't work as a stock; a chunk of the cash is customer float that vanishes if flights get canceled; the $40M competition-authority fine for wartime pricing plus the state's right to make them fly uneconomically looks like the worst of both worlds; and El Al flies 24/6 (no Sabbath, no holidays), so should you haircut the EBITDA, or does that create a moat nobody else can copy? We close with a Stride ($LRN) update: the abrupt CEO exit, the Canvas LMS disaster, the lost Texas school, why fall enrollments are the fulcrum, and whether AI is a real threat to virtual public schools.

Adam's El Al write-up: https://adambuckstein.substack.com/p/el-al-israel-airlines-ltd-elal-write

This episode is sponsored by Fiscal.ai: https://fiscal.ai/yav. Fiscal.ai is the modern financial data provider for global equities, and it's what I actually use: their fund-letter database is wired into their API, so the first thing my AI does when I prep a podcast is pull every recent letter on the name, and every line in the models it builds links back to the source filing. Use fiscal.ai/yav for 15% off their AI connector.

Chapters:

(00:00) Intro and Fiscal.ai sponsor read

(02:33) Adam Buckstein / ASB Partners joins

(03:38) What is El Al: flag carrier, October 7, a monopoly on Ben Gurion

(05:52) What the market is missing: underfollowed, delevered, Turkish and Ryanair gone

(09:36) My pushback: delevering on wartime profits, and the customer-float problem

(11:48) The balance sheet: $2B liquidity, air traffic liability, 2023 as the clean year

(14:22) Valuation: net cash, owned planes, loyalty program vs a $2B EV

(16:49) Slots: the New York City analogy for Tel Aviv

(19:28) State of Israel risk: golden share, the $40M pricing fine, mandated security

(24:23) The right comps: Wizz, Jet2, United at 6x vs El Al at 2x

(26:12) Flying 24/6: should you haircut EBITDA, or is it a moat?

(30:38) Stride ($LRN) update: the CEO exit and the prelim guide

(34:01) Fall enrollments as the fulcrum, Canvas LMS, the lost Texas school

(37:47) Pearson's read-through and in-year enrollment

(40:16) The new CEO's contract and expert-call feedback on the old one

(41:32) AI risk to virtual public schools, Alpha School

(46:02) Long school choice; would Stride get taken private?

(49:29) Disclaimer

Links:

Yet Another Value Blog - https://www.yetanothervalueblog.com

See our legal disclaimer here: https://www.yetanothervalueblog.com/p/legal-and-disclaimer

Nubank ($NU) has 140 million customers, roughly 60% of Brazil's adult population, an efficiency ratio around 20% versus 40-60% at the legacy banks, and ROEs in the 30s. Evan Vanderveer of Vanshap Capital has owned it for four years and thinks the market is still treating it like a risky EM bank instead of what he thinks it is: a tech company that happens to hold deposits, with a founder (David Vélez) who controls it and a runway that runs through Brazil's $100 billion banking profit pool, Mexico, Colombia, and eventually the US.

My pushback is the Capital One question. Capital One was the smartest data-science lender in the room, IPO'd in 1994, went up 13x in 12 years, and then spent the next 20 as a mature bank that lagged the market. Nubank was built by ex-Capital One people, so is this 1994 or 2006? We also get into what the right cost of equity is for a Brazilian bank trading at high-teens earnings with a 30% ROE, whether MELI and Kaspi tell you EM fintech never gets a big multiple, the 13,000-customers-per-employee stat, Brazil NPLs at 15-year highs, the wave of senior departures, whether any banking fintech has ever expanded across borders, Vélez joining OpenAI's board, and my bigger worry that AI eventually commoditizes every financial product and competes away the 30% ROE.

This episode is sponsored by Trata: https://trata.com/nu. Trata is two sharp buy-siders hopping on an anonymized call to talk through the risks and upside of a stock, and it's the closest thing to this podcast in written form. Go to trata.com/nu for a free Trata transcript on Nubank that I read and used heavily prepping for this call.

Chapters:

(00:00) Intro and Trata sponsor read

(01:55) Evan Vanderveer / Vanshap Capital joins

(02:50) What is Nubank: 140M customers, 60% of Brazil, 20% efficiency ratio

(06:11) What the market is missing: deepening relationships, Mexico's ARPAC

(08:05) The Capital One DNA: QED, Nigel Morris, data science

(10:38) My pushback: is this Capital One in 2006, not 1994?

(13:00) Brazil's $100B profit pool, payroll loans, David Vélez's control

(15:09) Valuation: 30% ROE, high-teens P/E, and the right cost of equity for a Brazilian bank

(18:47) MELI and Kaspi: does EM fintech ever earn alpha?

(21:59) Fintech or bank? SoFi 2021, lending competition, too big to fail

(23:55) 13,000 customers per employee vs 1,300 at legacy banks

(26:15) Brazil risks: NPLs at 15-year highs, the Selic, October's election

(27:45) How much of the value is Brazil vs Mexico, Colombia, and the US

(29:42) Can a banking fintech expand across borders? The Citibank precedent

(31:03) Senior departures, the new CFO from Visa, capping US investment

(33:47) Buybacks in the low $12s and the risk of losing local expertise

(36:32) Valuation bet, business bet, or jockey bet?

(38:52) David Vélez joining OpenAI's board

(40:46) AI inside Nubank: 60% of inquiries, Devin agents, faster credit models

(42:44) Does AI commoditize banking and compete away the 30% ROE?

(46:54) The US expansion: God kings or a real niche?

(50:35) Closing thoughts

(52:07) Disclaimer

Links:

Yet Another Value Blog - https://www.yetanothervalueblog.com

See our legal disclaimer here: https://www.yetanothervalueblog.com/p/legal-and-disclaimer

Production and editing by The Podcast Consultant - https://thepodcastconsultant.com/

DNOW spun out of National Oilwell Varco at $35 in late 2014. A year later it was $13. Today it is around $16. Steve Gorelik's argument is that ten years of that chart is one long headwind rather than a broken business: 1,800 US rigs at the spin, under 600 now, global oil and gas investment 40% below 2014 in real dollars, and DNOW still grew margins and bought companies at 4 to 5x EBITDA the whole way through. Rigs have started ticking back up. The MRC Global merger brings $75m of synergies to two businesses that earned $325m of EBITDA apart in 2024. Management has soft-targeted $350m of EBITDA for 2027 against roughly a $3.5B enterprise value, which Steve gets to about $300m of free cash flow on a $3B market cap.

My pushback is that 10x is not deep value, and the double comes almost entirely from multiple expansion back to the 5 to 6% free cash flow yield the market used to pay. Why is 10x the wrong number and not 12 or 14? We also get into the acquisitive compounder paradox, whether the incremental drilling actually shows up in US shale or somewhere else, the Oracle implementation they inherited from MRC and why they are now running it alongside SAP on purpose, the $50m of stock they bought back in the middle of that mess, and whether a business private equity would happily lever to four or six turns belongs in the public market at all. Steve's 2029 case is $30 to $32 per share.

This episode is sponsored by Fiscal.ai: https://fiscal.ai/yav. I am a customer and I pay for their API with my own money. Two things I use it for constantly. First, they have a huge database of fund letters wired into the API, so when I am prepping a podcast or looking at an event my agent pulls every recent letter on the name and tells me what the bull and bear cases actually are. Second, financials with sourcing attached: I ask for a model and every line links back to the company specific KPI, segment, or ratio it came from, so I can click through and see exactly where the number is from. Use my link, fiscal.ai/yav, for 15% off their AI connector.

Chapters:

(00:00) Nobody gets excited about a distributor

(03:48) What DNOW actually sells

(05:29) The roll-up playbook, without the leverage

(07:13) Why the 2014 spin never worked

(12:47) My pushback: does the drilling come back in the US?

(14:23) Shale payback periods and rigs getting less efficient

(16:50) The MRC Global deal

(18:04) Upstream plus downstream: what the combination buys you

(21:24) The ERP implementation they inherited

(24:39) Why 2027 guidance sits below what the two did apart

(28:16) Free cash flow yield as the North Star

(32:40) Buying growth at 4 to 5x while trading at 8 or 9

(34:42) Paying down debt and buying back stock at the same time

(35:38) $50m of buybacks in the middle of the mess

(37:15) Running SAP and Oracle side by side on purpose

(39:49) 1,907 rigs at the spin, 571 today

(40:40) The 2029 case: $30 to $32 per share

(41:01) Should this company even be public?

(42:56) Would private equity lever it up?

(43:31) Water, utilities and data centers

(45:21) Why boring distributors compound

Steve Gorelik / Firebird Management: https://fbird.com

Links:

Yet Another Value Blog - https://www.yetanothervalueblog.com

See our legal disclaimer here: https://www.yetanothervalueblog.com/p/legal-and-disclaimer

Production and editing by The Podcast Consultant - https://thepodcastconsultant.com/

Paul Cerro was long Hims & Hers in 2024, short it through the compounded GLP-1 unwind, and covered when the stock broke $14 after Q1. He's long again, and his thesis has almost nothing to do with peptides, testosterone, or the international launches everyone else is excited about. Those, he says, are table stakes. Hims has never had a problem acquiring customers. It has a problem keeping them, and subscriber counts have barely moved in three quarters. His argument is that labs and patient data are what push retention and LTV up, and that is the part the market isn't paying for.

I push back in three places. The data play doesn't look unique to me: Whoop and Oura own a wearable and a daily interaction, Hims owns commoditized blood work, and if Hims does unlock it, Apple or Amazon can walk in on top of them. The 2030 targets ask you to double trust management, once on 4x-ing EBITDA and again on a very heavily adjusted EBITDA number, from a CEO Paul says he wouldn't trust to walk his dog. And when peptides go legal, I think a hundred Instagram churn-and-burn startups compete away the customer acquisition edge. Paul's answers are worth the hour, especially the balance-sheet argument for a price war and the Ro story. We close on what to watch in the August 10 print.

Paul's Hims & Hers write-up: https://www.cedargroveresearch.com/p/hims-whoever-controls-the-data-controls-the-industry

This episode is sponsored by Trata: https://trata.com/hims. Trata is two investors who hop on and talk about a stock they're both in, sometimes one long and one short, sometimes both on the same side, but always about what actually drives the stock up or down. Trata now has an MCP, so you can point your AI agent at a company and pull the transcript, which is one of the first things I do when I start looking at a name. They have four HIMS calls, all less than a year old and one about a month old, and if you follow the link you can get their most recent HIMS coverage as a free trial.

Chapters:

(00:00) Long it, shorted it, now long again

(02:57) Paul on the setup right now

(04:17) What he learned building Ro

(05:19) How cash-pay healthcare actually works

(11:54) The original 2024 Hims thesis

(13:26) The compounding loophole and its expiration date

(15:58) Covering the short and going long again

(18:54) Acquisition was never the problem, retention is

(20:35) Why the money in healthcare is chasing data

(22:33) My pushback: what is unique about Hims' data?

(26:32) Hims versus Whoop, Oura and the Apple Watch

(29:21) Valuation: 30x 2026 EBITDA, 6x 2030

(32:56) Why international makes the targets conservative

(34:12) Double trusting a heavily adjusted number

(36:16) Icarus, Napoleon and the Teflon Don

(40:05) On putting too much faith in regulators

(43:49) Peptides and the market nobody has priced

(45:36) Chinese peptides and what is in the vial

(50:12) Can a hundred Instagram startups undercut Hims?

(54:40) Why the balance sheet decides a price war

(56:13) What to watch in the August 10 print

(57:40) CVS, Walgreens, Walmart and Amazon

(1:00:49) Closing thoughts

Paul Cerro / Cedar Grove: https://www.cedargroveresearch.com

Links:

Yet Another Value Blog - https://www.yetanothervalueblog.com

See our legal disclaimer here: https://www.yetanothervalueblog.com/p/legal-and-disclaimer

Production and editing by The Podcast Consultant - https://thepodcastconsultant.com/

Strategy filed an 8K this morning: they sold $300 million of stock, sold $100 million of bitcoin, and put the proceeds into buying back roughly $80 million of their own preferred at a discount. So you have a company trading over NAV, diluting shareholders, and selling the one asset it exists to hold, and it is still trading at a premium. Management is presenting the move from "one-way capital issuer" to "multi-way capital issuer" like it is a financial engineering breakthrough. It is just normal capital allocation, and it took them five years to get there.

That is the through line for this whole ramble: selling. Strategy made a genuinely good call in 2020 and then never sold a thing. Situational Awareness made a generational call, long AI winners and short AI losers, went up something like 10x on it, never rebalanced, kept pressing a trade that naturally degrosses, and blew up when software went from 20 back to 30 and semis went from 400 back to 370. I do a miniature version of the same thing every time I decide in advance that I will start trimming at 15 a stock I bought at 10, and I am not sure that plan is as smart as it feels. I also get into why thematic trades are so hard to sell when there is no price to anchor to, whether the crossover funds actually had an AI information edge or just conviction, why I cannot make the memory valuations work under any assumption I am willing to make, and where I think the real opportunity is: the beaten-up AI power names Situational owned in size, several of which are not trading far above the DCF of the contracts they already have.

Situational Awareness, crossover funds, and the AI edge: https://www.yetanothervalueblog.com/p/crossover-funds-ai-edge-situational-awareness

This episode is sponsored by Trata: https://www.trata.com/glxy. Trata is two buysiders hopping on a call and talking through a stock they are actually working on, which is the fastest way I know to get up to speed on a name. They also have an MCP now that connects to Claude and ChatGPT, so the first thing I do on a new name is run the Trata search and see what buysiders are really saying. That link is a preview of the Galaxy call I mention on the episode.

Chapters:

(00:00) Cold open: three things on my mind

(02:11) Sponsor: Trata

(03:55) Why I am recording a bonus ramble

(04:49) Strategy's new 8K: sell stock, sell bitcoin, buy back the preferred

(06:05) "Multi-way capital issuer" is just normal capital allocation

(06:58) A great call in 2020, and then they never sold

(08:21) Investors are good at buying and bad at selling

(09:37) Is my own sell plan its own trap?

(11:37) The Situational Awareness blowup

(13:19) The trouble with thematics: there is no price

(14:44) Micro versus macro, and the software buy signal I missed

(16:22) Do the crossover funds have an AI information edge?

(18:41) Why I cannot get to the memory valuations

(19:04) The opportunity in the beaten-up AI power names

(22:05) Wrapping up

Links:

Yet Another Value Blog - https://www.yetanothervalueblog.com

See our legal disclaimer here: https://www.yetanothervalueblog.com/p/legal-and-disclaimer

Production and editing by The Podcast Consultant - https://thepodcastconsultant.com/

Disclosures: I am short $MSTR and long $GLXY. Nothing on this podcast is investment advice. Please do your own work.

Management interviews might be the most underdeveloped skill in fundamental investing. Ross O'Toole has been investing for 25 years and read over 500 investment books, and he couldn't find a single one on how to actually conduct an investor-management interview.... so he wrote Breaking the Script, a field guide to getting management teams off their rehearsed talking points. We get into why "what" questions beat "why" questions, whether you should grade a plastic surgery CEO and a coal company CEO on the same curve, the case for recording your management meetings, and why asking for examples is one of the biggest double edged swords in investing.

I push back with my standing worry: management teams are really, really good salesmen, and I always walk out of these meetings wondering if I'm the patsy at the poker table. Ross's answers (build a longitudinal baseline over repeat interviews, ask for the negative example every time you get a positive one, and save the hard questions for the crescendo) are why this book went straight to the top of my "hand it to an intern" list.

Grab Ross's book, Breaking the Script: https://amzn.to/4fLg8RO

This episode is sponsored by Fiscal.ai: https://fiscal.ai/yav. Fiscal.ai is a modern financial data platform for global equities. In addition to their web-based terminal, they offer API access to real-time fundamental data: 20+ years of financial statements, ratios, segments, and KPIs, with data updating within minutes of earnings reports, not days. I'm not just an advertiser; I signed up with my own money to plug their API into the AI tools I've been building. Use my link, fiscal.ai/yav, for 15% off.

Chapters:

(00:00:00) Introduction

(00:02:00) Why management interviews are a double edged sword

(00:03:47) Why Ross wrote Breaking the Script

(00:07:15) Are we deluding ourselves? Testing management credibility

(00:11:53) Should you grade CEOs on a curve across industries?

(00:14:44) "What" vs "why": framing contentious questions

(00:18:27) Are interviews actually an alpha source?

(00:19:39) Where management matters most: deep value vs tech

(00:22:32) Would interviewing 2008 Zuckerberg have helped?

(00:25:14) Preparation and repeat interviews

(00:29:20) Should you record management meetings?

(00:31:54) Asking for examples: conviction builder or sales pitch?

(00:34:00) Always ask for the negative example

(00:36:00) Making management grade their own execution

(00:38:20) Interviewing companies under activist pressure

(00:41:30) Buffett's silver bullet question, reframed

(00:46:02) Question order: crescendo to the hard stuff

(00:48:29) Closing thoughts

Ross O'Toole / Breaking the Script: https://amzn.to/4fLg8RO

Links:

Yet Another Value Blog - https://www.yetanothervalueblog.com

See our legal disclaimer here: https://www.yetanothervalueblog.com/p/legal-and-disclaimer

Production and editing by The Podcast Consultant - https://thepodcastconsultant.com/

Investing is a game of arrogance. The base rate when you buy any stock is that it just does the market return, so every position you hold is a bet that you know something the market doesn't. My July ramble is really one question asked five ways: when do you look in the mirror and admit you were wrong? I walk through my three-year rule on a single name (if it has gone nowhere for three years, the problem is probably you, not the market), and the harder version, a value fund that has underperformed for a decade.

I use myself as the example. I saw AI inflecting in late 2024 and didn't pull the trigger, because I'm a value and event guy and I didn't see the bet, and a lot of those names then went on a generational run. Was that discipline or a mental block? From there I get into why you're effectively short Nvidia if you don't own it and you're benchmarked to the S&P, the Fundsmith letter walking back its principles as the cautionary tale on both sides, my own April 2025 book (the net-cash biotech and the Nebius trade I sold way too early), and why London increasingly trades like an emerging market: a takeover wave, private value miles above public value, and the frustration of owning cheap names that only move if someone buys the whole company.

This episode is sponsored by Fiscal.ai: https://fiscal.ai/yav. Fiscal.ai is a modern financial data provider for global equities, with 20+ years of statements, ratios, filings, segments and KPIs, a web-based terminal, and a self-serve API that plugs real-time fundamental data straight into Claude and ChatGPT. Use fiscal.ai/yav for 15% off.

Chapters:

(0:00) Intro and episode preview

(2:50) Sponsor: fiscal.ai

(4:16) Investing is a game of arrogance: beating the base rate

(6:18) The three-year rule, and when a whole strategy has underperformed

(9:19) Missing the AI trade: discipline, mental block, and the Fundsmith letter

(14:42) If you don't own Nvidia, you're short it

(16:46) My April 2025 book: Nebius, net-cash biotech, and selling winners too early

(21:47) Why London trades like an emerging market: takeouts and dead stocks

(27:08) Wrap

Links:

Yet Another Value Blog - https://www.yetanothervalueblog.com

See our legal disclaimer here: https://www.yetanothervalueblog.com/p/legal-and-disclaimer

Production and editing by The Podcast Consultant - https://thepodcastconsultant.com/

Light & Wonder ($LNW) is one of three companies in the slot machine oligopoly, with 70%+ recurring revenue, and it trades at 7-8x EBITDA while Aristocrat, its closest peer and arguably its slower-growing twin, trades at roughly double that. Zach Buckley thinks the market is wrong on almost every count: the stock has traded like a SaaS chart on AI fears even though slot content has almost no AI exposure, the Street doesn't believe 2028 targets from a management team that already hit the last three-year guide it set, and the soft first half is a game-launch timing story (Aristocrat launched in H1, Light & Wonder's slate lands in H2), not share loss. Zach has sized this the largest he's ever sized anything, and you can hear it.

I push back where I can: whether Caesars could ever build its own boxes (Zach: Marriott doesn't build elevators), why management is paying down debt to appease Australian shareholders instead of murdering the share count at these prices, what the Dragon Train settlement really cost them, and SciPlay's genuine AI risk. We also cover the move to a sole Australian listing, the Grover charitable-gaming acquisition at ~7.5x EBITDA, and what would actually break the thesis.

This episode is sponsored by AlphaSense: https://alpha-sense.com/yavp. Most AI tools are very good at sounding right, but can you trace the answer back to the filing, the transcript, the exact passage that drove it? AlphaSense's AI platform is built for exactly that: over 500 million curated documents, from broker research and expert transcripts to filings and earnings calls, with every answer linked back to an exact, verifiable source. See it for yourself with a free trial at https://alpha-sense.com/yavp.

Chapters:

(00:00:05) Introducing Light & Wonder

(00:03:09) Light & Wonder's transformation

(00:05:57) Australian listing creates opportunity

(00:08:36) Recurring revenue business model

(00:09:39) Why game quality matters

(00:11:45) Business quality meets valuation

(00:13:31) Explaining Aristocrat's valuation premium

(00:17:15) AI offers productivity upside

(00:19:08) SciPlay faces greater AI risk

(00:21:20) Barriers protect game development

(00:23:56) Casinos avoid vertical integration

(00:29:05) Why Australia made sense

(00:30:25) Dragon Train litigation explained

(00:32:14) Assessing lingering litigation impact

(00:34:11) Why investors doubt targets

(00:36:04) Short-termism drives investor skepticism

(00:39:41) Balancing buybacks and deleveraging

(00:42:39) Grover acquisition adds growth

(00:43:55) Electronic pull tabs explained

(00:47:14) What could break thesis

(00:50:41) AI fears create opportunities

(00:52:32) Zach summarizes investment thesis

Zach Buckley / Buckley Capital Partners: https://www.buckleycapitalpartners.com/

Links:

Yet Another Value Blog - https://www.yetanothervalueblog.com

See our legal disclaimer here: https://www.yetanothervalueblog.com/p/legal-and-disclaimer

Production and editing by The Podcast Consultant - https://thepodcastconsultant.com/

United Parks ($PRKS) owns SeaWorld and Busch Gardens, trades around 8x EBITDA with an 8%+ unlevered cash yield, and is plowing basically 100% of free cash flow into buybacks while Hill Path sits on roughly 60% of the stock. Adjust for passive holders and effective short interest lands somewhere near 80% of float; Bloomberg's short squeeze score is 93 out of 100. Hawkins Entrekin (Valyte, and the guy who pitched Vornado on this podcast right at the bottom of New York real estate) thinks you're buying irreplaceable hard assets below replacement cost, with a squeeze as the cherry on top. His fair value: low $80s against a stock in the high $40s.

It's catnip to me, which is exactly why I push back. EBITDA fell from roughly $700 million to $600 million in an inflationary environment; is that Epic Universe's one-time supply hit, or a sign SeaWorld is the industry's swing capacity? Management has blamed weather in 15 of the last 16 quarters (I counted). And when a 60% owner is pushing every dollar into buybacks while attendance sits 20% below the 2008 peak, you have to ask whether this is being run for long-term operations or just for the spreadsheet.

Hawkins' United Parks write-up: https://valyteresearch.substack.com/p/united-parks-and-resorts

The Trata call I used to prep: https://www.trata.com/prks

This episode is sponsored by AlphaSense: https://alpha-sense.com/yavp. Most AI tools are very good at sounding right, but can you trace the answer back to the filing, the transcript, the exact passage that drove it? AlphaSense is the AI platform built for that: over 500 million curated documents, from broker research and expert transcripts to filings and earnings calls, with every answer linked back to an exact, verifiable source. Try a free trial at https://alpha-sense.com/yavp.

Chapters:

(00:00) Intro: everything I love in a stock, and why that scares me

(01:34) AlphaSense (sponsor)

(02:49) Welcome back Hawkins Entrekin

(03:41) What is United Parks?

(04:44) The short squeeze setup: ~80% of effective float

(05:50) A real estate lens on theme parks

(08:36) What are the shorts seeing?

(10:32) EBITDA went from $700M to $600M; why?

(12:01) Epic Universe and the new-supply explanation

(17:27) Weather excuses: 15 of the last 16 quarters

(19:44) Capex and the asset-stripping check

(24:08) The real estate angles (and OpCo/PropCo cold water)

(28:19) What's the excess land worth?

(30:34) Can you comp a theme park on NOI?

(32:13) Valuation: low-$80s fair value vs a high-$40s stock

(34:33) Why 8x when Blackstone paid 12-14x? Plus replacement cost

(40:45) Hill Path at 60%: squeeze, take-private, or sale?

(46:05) Attendance is down 20% from the 2008 peak

(48:47) The bulls have been early for three years

(56:58) What is Valyte?

(58:28) Seritage, Elme, and a hard stop

Hawkins Entrekin / Valyte: https://www.valytedata.com/

Links:

Yet Another Value Blog - https://www.yetanothervalueblog.com

See our legal disclaimer here: https://www.yetanothervalueblog.com/p/legal-and-disclaimer

Production and editing by The Podcast Consultant - https://thepodcastconsultant.com/

Ryan Bunn (Reference Equity) has a public proposal for CBIZ ($CBZ): stop buying back stock at 9x earnings and restart the M&A flywheel that compounded revenue at 13%/year and took EBIT margins from 9% to 14% over the last decade. For someone like me who has always been a sucker for share buybacks, "stop the buybacks and issue equity" lands like a knife right in the gut, so I make him defend every piece of it.

We get into whether the $2.3B Marcum deal (the largest accounting acquisition ever, with the stock down ~70% since) deserves a mulligan, whether the multiple got crushed by 3.4x leverage or by AI headline fear, whether AI lets the Big Four come downmarket and eat CBIZ's middle-market lunch (or lets superstar producers hang their own flag), and whether long-term investors would really put primary equity onto the balance sheet at no discount. Ryan's math: the market prices credit risk, small 6-9x EBITDA bolt-ons restart the compounding machine, and a delevered, re-rated CBIZ has 100%+ upside.

Ryan's Restarting the Flywheel site (proposal + deck): https://cbizflywheel.com/

This episode is sponsored by AlphaSense. Most AI tools are very good at sounding right; the summary is clean, but can you trace it back to the filing, the transcript, the exact passage that drove the answer? AlphaSense owns the content (over 500 million curated documents, from broker research and expert transcripts to filings and earnings calls) and the retrieval layer on top of it, so every answer links back to an exact, verifiable source. Try a free trial at https://alpha-sense.com/yavp

Chapters:

(0:00) Intro: an activist pitch to STOP the buybacks

(1:15) AlphaSense

(2:31) What is CBIZ ($CBZ)?

(5:01) Ryan's proposal: restart the M&A flywheel

(7:44) Buybacks at 9x earnings vs. getting back to M&A

(10:38) Post-Marcum, are there even deals left to do?

(12:52) The AI risk: offshoring and the Big Four coming downmarket

(19:24) Does AI let superstar accountants hang their own flag?

(23:41) The Marcum deal: mulligan or strategic masterstroke?

(28:59) Private equity competition and winner's curse

(31:38) Valuation: 9x free cash flow at 3.4x leverage

(40:00) Does delevering actually re-rate the stock?

(45:47) Management, the board, and alignment

(49:58) Why issue equity now? The FMC example

(56:57) Ryan's real ask: end the muddled capital allocation

(57:38) Wrap

Ryan Bunn / Reference Equity: https://cbizflywheel.com/

Links:

Yet Another Value Blog - https://www.yetanothervalueblog.com

See our legal disclaimer here: https://www.yetanothervalueblog.com/p/legal-and-disclaimer

Production and editing by The Podcast Consultant - https://thepodcastconsultant.com/

Adam Wyden runs one of the most concentrated books I know, and he came on to make the case for two stocks the market has basically left for dead: Stagwell ($STGW) and Driven Brands ($DRVN). On Stagwell, his pitch is that this is not a dying ad agency but a marketing-services and data business compounding toward $700M of EBITDA by 2028, sitting at a 20%+ free cash flow yield because it came public through a no-fanfare reverse merger and carried a dual-class and TRA overhang that kept institutions out. On Driven, he thinks the sum of the parts (Collision, Autoglass, and a 50-year-old franchise stub around Take Five) is worth far more than a low-teens stock, and he has been loud enough about it that the company started disclosing numbers within 48 hours of one of his letters.

I push back on both. On Stagwell I keep coming back to the agency model itself: WPP, IPG and the rest have trailed the S&P for 20 years because the human capital walks out the door every night and takes the economics with it, and AI arguably makes that worse. On Driven I press him on why a business this cheap has stayed cheap for four years running, and whether the corporate cost and the leverage ever get fixed without a private-equity owner. Adam's answer, more or less: the market doesn't care until it cares, and the best money he has ever made is buying someone else's five-year pain right before the aha moment.

This episode is sponsored by fiscal.ai: https://fiscal.ai/yav. Fiscal.ai is a modern financial data provider for global equities and one of the leading data connectors for Claude and ChatGPT, so you can pipe real-time fundamental data straight into your LLM. I signed up with my own money to plug it into my Claude cowork setup: more than 20 years of statements, ratios, segments and KPIs, updated within minutes of earnings, not days. Use my link fiscal.ai/yav for 15% off.

Chapters:

(00:00) Intro: Adam Wyden and two names, Stagwell and Driven

(02:44) Stagwell $STGW: the bull case on a marketing-services roll-up

(05:00) Mark Penn and how modern Stagwell came together

(08:40) Does AI break the ad agency model?

(12:50) The data moat and Stagwell's agentic operating system

(19:00) Is Stagwell a jockey bet on Mark Penn?

(24:20) Free cash flow, buybacks, and a stock priced to die

(28:20) Undervalued for four years: what is the market missing?

(32:15) Adam's activist stake and the August 14th tease

(37:00) Driven Brands $DRVN: the auto aftermarket bull case

(41:30) EVs vs ICE and why the aftermarket keeps compounding

(45:20) Sum-of-the-parts: Collision, Autoglass, and the franchise stub

(51:30) Activism at Driven, Roark, and where this business belongs

(58:30) Closing: the AI losers that become AI winners

Links:

Yet Another Value Blog - https://www.yetanothervalueblog.com

See our legal disclaimer here: https://www.yetanothervalueblog.com/p/legal-and-disclaimer

Production and editing by The Podcast Consultant - https://thepodcastconsultant.com/

$VEON trades like a busted emerging-markets telecom, but it owns 84% of Ukraine's Kyivstar and a Pakistani fintech, JazzCash, that already moves 15% of the country's GDP. Samit Umatiya of UIG Funds lays out the sum-of-the-parts case for why the holdco could be worth roughly 4x today's price, and Andrew pushes back hard the whole way: a not-so-storied history of value destruction, a sanctioned 45% shareholder, capital controls, and a long graveyard of telecoms that bungled every growth opportunity they ever had. The result is one long push and pull on whether the upside is real this time.

This episode is sponsored by Fiscal.ai. Fiscal.ai is a modern financial data provider for global equities, with a web terminal plus a self-serve API that plugs real-time fundamentals straight into Claude and ChatGPT. Andrew uses it himself. Get 15% off at https://fiscal.ai/yav

Chapters:

00:00 The setup: a sum-of-the-parts EM telecom nobody talks about

01:31 Sponsor: Fiscal.ai

02:35 Who is Samit Umatiya and what is VEON

04:19 Vimpelcom to VEON: the history and the Russia exit

08:14 Why is the market asleep on this name?

11:31 The sum of the parts: Kyivstar plus four frontier markets

13:59 Bridging the EV gap: Andrew's $8B vs the bull's $3B holdco

16:36 Valuing a telecom on revenue: the "it's a tech company" case

17:54 JazzCash: 15% of Pakistan's GDP, never independently valued

21:00 The bridge to ~$1B of free cash flow and a 4x

23:40 Organic vs. bolt-on digital growth

24:34 Capital controls and getting cash out of the op-cos

27:11 What the market is missing: demographics and under-penetration

31:09 Starlink: competitor or partner in Ukraine's rebuild?

35:31 Digital stickiness and retention

37:42 The Kaspi problem: a dominant super app that never re-rated

39:25 The AI 1440 strategy and a sovereign-AI moat

42:31 Is telecom just structurally bad at capturing growth?

45:11 Capital allocation and the next catalyst: a JazzCash spin

49:38 The elephant in the room: LetterOne's sanctioned 45% stake

54:05 Geopolitical turmoil as a feature, not a flaw

55:24 Is that 45% block actually an opportunity?

57:09 Founder DNA, CEO Kaan Terzioglu, and the spin-off playbook

1:01:56 Wrap

UIG Funds (Samit Umatiya) - https://uigfunds.com

Links:

Yet Another Value Blog - https://www.yetanothervalueblog.com

See our legal disclaimer here: https://www.yetanothervalueblog.com/p/legal-and-disclaimer

Production and editing by The Podcast Consultant - https://thepodcastconsultant.com/

MSA Safety ($MSA) is the "OG pick and shovel" of worker safety: a century-old, pure-play maker of gas detection and firefighter equipment that the Pershing Square Challenge 2026 finalist team argues is a quality compounder the market is underrating. The bull case has three legs. Portable gas detection is shifting to a recurring, higher-margin subscription model, the "canary" that now sings to the whole worksite instead of just the worker wearing it. A legally mandated SCBA replacement cycle is coming that consensus barely credits. And a 2023 divestiture of product liabilities freed up the roughly 17% of EBIT that used to leave the building every year at a zero return. Base case: a double to about $350 by 2030 from roughly $160 today.

EJ Karobath, Craig Larkin and Bob McGrane walk through why MSA's owned-sensor hardware is hard to copy (Blackline got taken private, and its devices break if you drop them), how winning a tier-one fire department like LA or Memphis pulls the surrounding towns along on interoperability, and why 50-plus years of dividend growth and a record $500 million buyback point to real capital-allocation discipline. I push back on the obvious tension: this is a roughly 20x compounder that does not scream alpha, the CFO is guiding mid-single-digit growth, and most of the thesis only pays off in 2028 to 2030. Is the market that inefficient, or is this just a very good business priced about right?

Team MSA's pitch deck is linked here: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/gv1oj18pawqrmeq7lai4j/MSA-Pershing-Square-Challenge-vYAVP.pdf?rlkey=8l5vkpkr7r26oi0k7wx5fcf0h&st=g4ow2fxo&dl=0

This episode is sponsored by Trata: trata.com. Trata is recorded, anonymized conversations between two buysiders who actually follow the same company, about an hour each, with a full transcript. When you are getting up to speed on a name, there is nothing like hearing two people who research it talk it through. Check them out at trata.com.

Chapters:

00:00 A quality compounder hiding at a market multiple

01:24 Sponsor: Trata

02:47 Meet Team MSA: EJ, Craig and Bob

05:50 Why they picked MSA: an underfollowed, simple business

07:50 What MSA is: the "OG pick and shovel" of worker safety

10:24 The three segments, and why detection leads

11:51 Fixed vs portable gas detection

13:15 The subscription shift: the canary that sings to the whole worksite

16:40 The moat: durability, owned sensors and a long replacement runway

17:21 Market share, and why Blackline got taken private

21:32 Fire safety: the G1 and the mandated SCBA replacement cycle

23:38 Valuation: a double to ~$350 by 2030, and the reverse DCF

25:43 My pushback: a 20x compounder that doesn't scream alpha

27:00 Why management sandbags the connected and SCBA upside

28:46 A stock for the patient: the J-curve and the long horizon

31:47 Primary research: site visits, IR access and r/firefighting

36:18 Becoming a tech company: 40% of engineers now in software

38:10 The tier-one halo: win LA or Memphis, win the region

42:08 Capital allocation: the liability divestiture, dividends and a $500M buyback

44:13 Wrap: where to find the team and the deck

Team MSA (Columbia Business School): pitch deck linked above

Links:

Yet Another Value Blog - https://www.yetanothervalueblog.com

See our legal disclaimer here: https://www.yetanothervalueblog.com/p/legal-and-disclaimer

Production and editing by The Podcast Consultant - https://thepodcastconsultant.com/

Fox's stock is down about 25% since it agreed to buy Roku for $22 billion, and the market has decided the deal is a blunder. Simeon McMillan of Accrued Interest thinks the market is wrong. His case: Roku controls roughly 44% of how Americans reach streaming on the big screen, about 3x the next platform, so Fox just bought the "front door" to streaming and around 100 million connected TVs in North America. Look under the surface and the deal is closer to 16-17x free cash flow once you account for Roku's barely-tapped ad levers and synergies.

We get into the homepage that became the new "Netflix homepage," why Fox keeps making the smartest M&A bets in media, the Tubi sleeper Simeon is most bullish on, why he loves Roku but is bearish on Spotify, and why Google and Meta look like "true value stocks" to him. I push back hard on whether Fox plus Roku is really better than Roku staying neutral Switzerland for every bidder.

See Simeon's post on Fox / Roku here: https://www.accruedint.com/p/the-strait-of-roku-how-fox-seized

This episode is sponsored by my upcoming AI webinar with AlphaSense.

The AI landscape has never been more crowded or more confusing. Everyone's telling you to adopt AI, but almost nobody's telling you which tools actually give you an edge. I'm sitting down with Dave Wang of Wall Street Prompt and Ben Collins of AlphaSense to break down the modern AI stack for investors, from horizontal platforms like OpenAI and Claude to agentic workflows and finance-specific intelligence tools, and where each one actually fits in a real research process.

Register here: https://www.alpha-sense.com/resources/webinars/choosing-your-ai-stack-a-framework-for-institutional-investors/?utm_source=pt_YAVP&utm_medium=sponsored&utm_campaign=SWB_DG_06-25-26_IMP-GENAI_CORPFS_YAVP-AI-Solutions

Chapters:

00:00 What's coming: Fox-Roku, plus Spotify, Google and Meta

01:08 Sponsor: my AI webinar with AlphaSense

02:24 Guest intro: Simeon McMillan, Accrued Interest

03:05 The Fox-Roku deal and why Simeon thinks it makes sense

05:30 Roku as the "Strait of Hormuz" of streaming (44% of viewing)

06:25 Why Fox has the smartest M&A team in media

07:55 Buying the "front door": ~100M connected TVs

10:03 The Roku homepage as the new "Netflix homepage"

13:44 The ad-sales levers hiding under the multiple

16:31 Valuation: 22x EBITDA, ~16-17x free cash flow with synergies

18:01 My pushback: Fox down 25%, winner's curse, thin synergies

19:35 The real risk of staying pure-play (Viacom, Paramount)

24:51 Rebundling and why everyone's partnered up by 2028

26:08 Is Fox+Roku actually better, or could anyone have bought this?

28:01 Cord-cutting, YouTube TV, and the Disney bloody nose

32:07 The Fox bet Simeon likes most: Tubi

38:30 Why now? The 50% streaming inflection and a shrinking buyer pool

42:21 Does AI slop break or boost the distribution thesis?

48:06 The gotcha: bullish Roku, bearish Spotify (the Pokemon theory of media)

52:22 Google and Meta as "true value stocks"

56:55 The complexity discount, Meta's enterprise tools, and founder control

59:13 Wrap and where to find Accrued Interest

Simeon McMillan / Accrued Interest: https://accruedinterest.substack.com

Links:

Yet Another Value Blog - https://www.yetanothervalueblog.com

See our legal disclaimer here: https://www.yetanothervalueblog.com/p/legal-and-disclaimer

Production and editing by The Podcast Consultant - https://thepodcastconsultant.com/

SpaceX is buying Cursor for ~$60B, and one of the early backers was SBF. So was a convicted fraudster also the greatest VC of all time? That's where June's random ramblings start. From there: why I've flipped from AI doom toward AI as a force multiplier, whether deep subject-matter expertise gets MORE valuable as the world fills with AI slop, why legacy brands (KPMG, CBS, People) might actually gain power in an AI world, why "my edge is a long time horizon" is usually a tell for underperformance, and the cracks showing up in Polymarket and prediction markets.

This episode is sponsored by my upcoming AI webinar with AlphaSense. The AI landscape has never been more crowded or more confusing. Everyone's telling you to adopt AI, but almost nobody's asking the harder question: which tools actually give you an edge?

I'm sitting down with Dave Wang of Wall Street Prompt and Ben Collins of AlphaSense to break down the modern AI stack for investors, from horizontal platforms like OpenAI and Claude to agentic workflows and finance-specific intelligence tools, and where each one actually fits in a real research process. If you're trying to build an AI-enabled workflow that sharpens your judgment rather than replacing it, you won't want to miss this.

Join us on June 25th - register now: https://www.alpha-sense.com/resources/webinars/choosing-your-ai-stack-a-framework-for-institutional-investors/?utm_source=pt_YAVP&utm_medium=sponsored&utm_campaign=SWB_DG_06-25-26_IMP-GENAI_CORPFS_YAVP-AI-Solutions

Chapters:

00:00 What's on the menu this month

02:05 Sponsor: my AI webinar with AlphaSense

03:22 Was SBF the greatest VC of all time? (Cursor, SpaceX, Anthropic)

09:48 Do any frauds or blowups hide assets this valuable? (GGP, Enron, EOG)

11:42 Why I flipped from AI doom toward AI as a force multiplier

13:41 Why AI rewards the creative, and the top 0.1% problem

16:18 AI slop and the rising return on deep expertise (Knicks, ABVX)

20:12 KPMG's hallucinated AI report and secondhand hallucinations

21:57 Does brand get MORE valuable in an AI world? (CBS, People, TMZ, ChatGPT licensing)

25:14 Why "my edge is a long time horizon" is usually a lie

28:50 Forced selling, diamond hands, and the seven-years-of-underperformance letter

32:02 My three-year rule

32:53 Polymarket, MicroStrategy, and the limits of the rulebook

35:00 Prediction markets are reflexive: why nobody's waging "Polymarket wars" yet

37:36 Wrap

Links:

Yet Another Value Blog - https://www.yetanothervalueblog.com

See our legal disclaimer here: https://www.yetanothervalueblog.com/p/legal-and-disclaimer

Production and editing by The Podcast Consultant - https://thepodcastconsultant.com/

The market has decided YouGov ($YOU.L) is an AI loser and cut it ~50% in a year. Jonathan Cohen of Zipperline Capital thinks it's an AI winner trading at 6-7x EBITDA, with a 20-year proprietary dataset AI makes more valuable, not less. We spend the first half on the UK as an "emerging market" (corporate governance discounts, why buybacks are finally happening, and why you can never compare UK and US multiples), then go deep on YouGov: the panel, the moat, synthetic data, and why the company is cancelling its dividend to buy back stock.

This episode is sponsored by my upcoming AI webinar with AlphaSense.

The AI landscape has never been more crowded — or more confusing. Everyone's telling you to adopt AI, but almost nobody's asking the harder question: which tools actually give you an edge?

I'm sitting down with Dave Wang of Wall Street Prompt and Ben Collins of AlphaSense to break down the modern AI stack for investors — from horizontal platforms like OpenAI and Claude to agentic workflows and finance-specific intelligence tools — and where each one actually fits in a real research process. If you're trying to build an AI-enabled workflow that sharpens your judgment rather than replacing it, you won't want to miss this.

Join us on June 25th - register now: https://www.alpha-sense.com/resources/webinars/choosing-your-ai-stack-a-framework-for-institutional-investors/?utm_source=pt_YAVP&utm_medium=sponsored&utm_campaign=SWB_DG_06-25-26_IMP-GENAI_CORPFS_YAVP-AI-Solutions

Chapters:

00:00 Why YouGov could be the AI winner the market is misreading

02:56 Why Jonathan Cohen runs a UK and Europe small/mid-cap book

08:01 Why you can never compare UK and US multiples

13:08 What UK analyst coverage actually tells you

17:37 The shift toward UK buybacks and capital allocation

22:00 The "buybacks kill liquidity" myth

25:11 What YouGov really is: a proprietary data business

31:19 Inside the panel: why people answer, and why retention is the moat

36:52 Why the market thinks YouGov is an AI loser

38:19 The bull case: why AI makes YouGov more valuable

40:55 Synthetic data, and why it breaks

46:28 Trust as a moat in a world of AI slop

52:27 Pushback: Chegg, Wix, and the real AI losers

56:51 Content businesses vs distribution businesses

01:00:14 Music, media, and what compounds through disruption

01:05:38 Closing

Links:

Yet Another Value Blog - https://www.yetanothervalueblog.com

See our legal disclaimer here: https://www.yetanothervalueblog.com/p/legal-and-disclaimer

Production and editing by The Podcast Consultant - https://thepodcastconsultant.com/

Alex Roepers of Atlantic Investment Management lays out two deeply cheap special situations: Dauch (DCH) and Nomad Foods (NOMD). In both, management is sending "dark arts" signals (an aggressive CEO payout struck well above the current price, heavy insider buying) that point to an inflection the market hasn't paid for yet. We dig into the $300M merger synergies at Dauch, the auto-cycle and leverage risk, the governance red flags, the private-label threat to Nomad's frozen-food brands, and whether the European discount on both is real or just doldrums.

This episode is sponsored by AlphaSense. Join Andrew, Dave Wang of Wall Street Prompts, and Ben Collins of AlphaSense for a webinar breaking down the modern AI stack for investors: where horizontal platforms, agentic workflows, and finance-specific tools each actually fit in a real research process. Recording June 16, live June 25. Register here: https://www.alpha-sense.com/resources/webinars/choosing-your-ai-stack-a-framework-for-institutional-investors/?utm_source=pt_YAVP&utm_medium=sponsored&utm_campaign=SWB_DG_06-25-26_IMP-GENAI_CORPFS_YAVP-AI-Solutions

Disclosure: long DCH and NOMD

Chapters:

0:00 Two cheap special situations and the "dark arts" setup

1:10 Sponsor: AlphaSense and the AI-stack-for-investors webinar

2:29 Alex Roepers, Atlantic Investment Management

3:04 Dauch ($DCH): the GKN, Melrose and Dowlais backstory

7:05 Why Atlantic made $DCH a core position at ~$6

9:03 The governance knock: a company named after a sub-1% CEO

13:42 Dark arts: the PSU grant that only pays above $12

15:11 Underwriting the $300M merger synergies

18:13 Leverage, capital allocation and the path to buybacks

24:42 The auto cycle and why 5x free cash flow caps the downside

29:12 Nomad Foods ($NOMD): the frozen-food bull case

33:14 Nomad by the numbers: 5.5x earnings, 7% yield

35:39 The bear case: private label, Aldi and a new CEO

39:21 Would Martin Franklin ever sell?

41:22 Dividend or buyback at these levels?

43:00 Is Franklin distracted by APi Group?

45:27 The kitchen-sink reset and a fall investor day

47:37 "Addback city": cleaning up the earnings number

50:02 The European discount: real or imagined?

Links:

Yet Another Value Blog - https://www.yetanothervalueblog.com

See our legal disclaimer here: https://www.yetanothervalueblog.com/p/legal-and-disclaimer

Production and editing by The Podcast Consultant - https://thepodcastconsultant.com/

Abivax posted maybe the best ulcerative colitis data anyone's seen, then crashed 60% on a cancer signal Adam May argues is statistical noise. We dig into whether $ABVX is now a mispriced takeout: the maintenance efficacy that beat Rinvoq, how the scary "seven cancer cases" collapse to two, the blackbox question, the Crohn's skew, and the part two safety data due within weeks. Then a quick look at Nectar (NKTR), its alopecia areata data, and the Eli Lilly lawsuit.

This episode is sponsored by AlphaSense, and specifically Andrew's upcoming AI webinar with them: breaking down the modern AI stack for investors with Dave Wang (Wall Street Prompts) and Ben Collins (AlphaSense). Goes live June 25. Register here.

Chapters:

00:00 Intro and disclosure (long ABVX and NKTR)

01:03 Sponsor: AlphaSense AI webinar for investors

02:33 The biotech "GOAT" returns

03:33 Abivax setup: induction vs maintenance, the stakes

06:38 The bar: clinical remission and Rinvoq

10:14 Blowout maintenance data, and endoscopic remission that doubles Rinvoq

14:23 The data drops, then a 60% crash

16:31 The cancer scare, taken apart case by case

24:45 Why it's statistical noise: mechanism, clustering, base rates

28:50 Adverse-event capture and the phase 2 safety database

33:57 Bear case: hasn't the market had time to digest this?

38:00 Blackbox or no blackbox, and does it matter at $100

40:32 The Crohn's readout and the skew

45:36 M&A: timing, the new CCO, what Adam wants them to do

47:38 Part two safety data due within weeks

54:46 The cash question: secondary vs sale

57:49 Nectar: strong data, then an unexplained selloff

59:54 The Eli Lilly lawsuit and the jury-trial angle

01:03:26 Ox40 read-through and the Q32 Bio overhang

01:06:07 Most mispriced pick, targets, and the CEO's Cincor parallel

01:12:10 Wrap

Links:

Yet Another Value Blog - https://www.yetanothervalueblog.com

See our legal disclaimer here: https://www.yetanothervalueblog.com/p/legal-and-disclaimer

Production and editing by The Podcast Consultant - https://thepodcastconsultant.com/

Disclosure: Long ABVX and NKTR

Amadeus $AMS is down roughly 25% because the market lumped it in with the SaaS names AI is supposed to gut. Team Amadeus, Pershing Square Challenge finalists, argue it's the opposite: a deterministic, mission-critical monopoly that AI makes more valuable, not less. We dig into the 50-year-old systems that planes literally can't take off without, why the GDS is the wrong job for an LLM, the Sabre and Constellation Software angle, and what the stock is actually worth.

Full pitch deck (~75 pages): https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/5bwef8mz2kplx2sub598w/PSC_AMS_LONG_vSent.pdf?rlkey=x5g0v7t1qk8hpg00ewix95hn3&st=rq9nzl4h&dl=0

This episode is brought to you by Trata. Trata is two investors who get on an anonymized call and talk through the real issues in a stock, bull-to-bull, bear-to-bear, or just getting up to speed. If you like this podcast, you'll like Trata. Check it out at trata.com

Chapters:

00:00 Why Amadeus landed on my radar

01:00 Sponsor: Trata

02:39 Meet Team Amadeus (Pershing Square Challenge finalists)

05:20 What Amadeus actually does: the toll booth on global travel

09:07 The AI fear that broke the stock

11:13 Is it actually cheap? Valuation and stock comp

15:26 Why Amadeus tops the AI-risk matrix

16:32 Air IT Solutions: the SAP of airlines

22:59 The Microsoft AI director who bet against AI eating this

24:15 Tech-debt pushback and the JFK field trip

29:09 Sabre, Constellation Software, and the monopoly complaint

33:16 How Amadeus won share during COVID

34:21 The air-distribution network effect

35:22 Why LLMs are the wrong tool for the GDS

39:50 The $1B biometrics acquisition

43:03 Google, Gemini, and the uptime math

45:47 Fair value and the bull case nobody's pricing

49:01 Amadeus as an AI beneficiary

51:02 Closing thoughts

Links:

Yet Another Value Blog - https://www.yetanothervalueblog.com

See our legal disclaimer here: https://www.yetanothervalueblog.com/p/legal-and-disclaimer

Production and editing by The Podcast Consultant - https://thepodcastconsultant.com/

A market that refuses to go down, AI coming for the investor's job, and MicroStrategy quietly becoming the entire preferred-equity market. Andrew's monthly ramble across five things he can't stop thinking about: stretched memory valuations, a hyper-concentrated tape, mental flexibility, and the cycle nobody believes can break.

This episode is sponsored by Fiscal.ai. Modern financial data for global equities, with a self-serve API that plugs fundamentals and prices straight into your LLM and updates within minutes of earnings, not days. Get 15% off at https://fiscal.ai/yav

Chapters:

00:00 Five things I'm rambling on this month

01:58 Sponsor: Fiscal.ai

03:16 "We'll never have problems again": a market that won't quit

04:56 Energy and oil: the worries the market keeps shrugging off

06:00 AI, space plays, and stretched memory valuations

09:54 Five stocks, half the S&P's gains

10:51 Is AI coming for the investor's job?

13:08 The counterpoint: 200-IQ machines and more fragile markets

16:10 Mental flexibility: why your old letters predicted your AI take

20:04 Why "the cycle is dead" always worries me

21:42 MicroStrategy is the preferred-equity market now

24:45 The CFO signal: leaving a big company for a small one

Links:

Yet Another Value Blog - https://www.yetanothervalueblog.com

See our legal disclaimer here: https://www.yetanothervalueblog.com/p/legal-and-disclaimer

Production and editing by The Podcast Consultant - https://thepodcastconsultant.com/

Celsius trades at ~20x earnings while growing ~18% a year, cheaper than Monster (~34x) and even Coke (~25x) despite faster growth. The Pershing Square Challenge third-place team makes the long case for $CELH: the market is sleeping on the Alani Nu acquisition, and their 500-person proprietary survey says the brand loyalty is real. Andrew pushes back hard on the Costco/Kirkland private-label threat, the heavy reliance on Pepsi distribution, and whether energy drinks are just the next "protein" fad waiting to be disrupted.

CELH pitch deck: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/rsyotzf7g2efkj9rfmg23/AHHk4_h_6CU12R-dTrAOtH4?rlkey=664lkpggv77rwkzh3rh78826q&e=2&st=0s4tiwjy&dl=0

This episode is sponsored by Trata. Trata is buy-siders interviewing each other; it is the fastest way I know to ramp up on a name. See a sample here: https://www.trata.com/celh

Chapters:

0:00 Why energy drinks (and Celsius) are a passion

1:13 Sponsor: Trata

2:46 Meet team Celsius, third place at the Pershing Square Challenge

4:23 Why they picked Celsius for the pitch

7:19 The setup: ~20x earnings, ~18% growth, an underpriced Alani

8:47 Why the market is discounting Celsius

10:09 The Costco/Kirkland private-label crash, and the rebuttal

12:26 Andrew's pushback: don't loyal buyers just order in bulk?

16:14 The proprietary 500-person survey

18:48 Distribution vs. brand: is the survey actually a bear case?

22:31 The Pepsi relationship: Rockstar, the 11% stake, and the risk

26:08 The Alani acquisition: sugar high or smart capital allocation?

31:24 Are energy drinks the next protein? The fad debate

38:40 Valuation: the Coke and Monster arbitrage

43:38 Wrap-up

Links:

Yet Another Value Blog - https://www.yetanothervalueblog.com

See our legal disclaimer here: https://www.yetanothervalueblog.com/p/legal-and-disclaimer

Production and editing by The Podcast Consultant - https://thepodcastconsultant.com/

Team Baker Hughes, the second-place finishers in the 2026 Pershing Square Challenge, discuss their Baker Hughes thesis and why they believe the market hasn't fully appreciated the company's evolution from a cyclical oil field services business. They discuss how the long runway for the IET business, and they back their thesis up with 30+ expert calls, a trip to the Western Turbine Users conference, and a sum-of-the-parts case that leans on growth, not multiple expansion.

See the team's full pitch deck here

This episode is sponsored by Trata. Check them out at https://www.trata.com

Chapters

0:00 Intro and sponsor

2:21 Meet Team Baker Hughes

4:39 Why they backed into Baker Hughes

6:56 Watching the stock run from $45 to $65 mid-pitch

7:21 The differentiated work: 30+ expert calls and the turbine conference

8:27 The two businesses: oil field services vs. industrial energy technology

10:10 What the market is missing on the IET transformation

12:56 Is this just another cycle? The chart hit $65 three times

13:59 Why this gas turbine cycle is structurally different

17:01 AI as a distraction: onshoring and electrification

17:51 The installed base flywheel and recurring service revenue

21:13 The three turbine segments and the supply chain squeeze

23:34 Honoring 70-year customers vs. mercenary pricing

27:44 Valuation: a sum-of-the-parts story, not a multiple story

29:36 The Chart acquisition: can they really double their money?

34:56 The GE merger history and the GE Aero Alliance today

38:27 Management, alignment, and insider ownership

42:41 The C3 AI anecdote and wrap-up

Links:

Yet Another Value Blog - https://www.yetanothervalueblog.com

See our legal disclaimer here: https://www.yetanothervalueblog.com/p/legal-and-disclaimer

Production and editing by The Podcast Consultant - https://thepodcastconsultant.com/

The winners of the Pershing Square Challenge 2026 discuss their Doordash pitch, including why the growth story still has room to run (and the 90 primary research calls they made to back up that call). We get into durable US restaurant growth, why new verticals and international could inflect to profitability earlier than the street models, the underappreciated opex leverage, their proprietary Wolt case study, the Tony Xu bet, and why they think the Citrini AI-agent thesis on DoorDash is overblown.

This episode is sponsored by Trata. Check out their DASH transcript at https://www.trata.com/dash

Team DASH presentation:

ZK's LinkedIn

Aaron's LinkedIn

Elliot's LinkedIn

Chapters

00:00 The Pershing Square Challenge and team DoorDash

01:14 Sponsor: Trata

02:50 Meet the team: ZK, Elliot, and Aaron

05:40 Why they picked DoorDash out of the screen

10:10 The bull case in three parts

11:20 US restaurant growth: still the middle innings?

13:20 Demographics as a tailwind

17:50 Order frequency and the China comp

21:00 Valuation: $70B cap, adjusted EBITDA, and the path to $320

25:35 The real downside: competition, Amazon, bundled memberships

29:50 The ~90 primary research calls

33:35 New verticals and the grocery economics

38:10 A DoorDash bet or a Tony Xu bet?

41:40 Management comp and alignment

43:45 International: the Wolt case study and Deliveroo

47:00 The tech-stack reinvestment cycle

51:00 Sylvie makes her podcast debut

51:20 Citrini and the AI-agent threat

56:20 Wrap

Links:

Yet Another Value Blog - https://www.yetanothervalueblog.com

See our legal disclaimer here: https://www.yetanothervalueblog.com/p/legal-and-disclaimer

Production and editing by The Podcast Consultant - https://thepodcastconsultant.com/

James Elbaor of Marlton makes the case that $PSUS will trade at a premium to NAV instead of the typical closed-end fund discount and that $PS will ultimately trade at a premium multiple to peers like Blackstone, KKR, Apollo and Carlyle given its lean team and advantaged fee structure. We push on every part of that, including whether Ackman's portfolio is just an expensive S&P hug, why London still doesn't fully credit him, and whether Spark gives Pershing a real path into Universal Music Group.

Sponsor: Fiscal.ai. Real-time fundamental data for global equities, plus one of the leading data connectors for Claude and ChatGPT. Get 15% off at fiscal.ai/yav

Chapters:

0:00 Intro and the divergent thesis

1:05 Sponsor: Fiscal.ai

2:20 Marlton's lens on closed-end funds and UK trusts

5:00 $PSUS: scale, structure, why it's already the largest US equity CEF

7:30 The case for a premium to NAV instead of a 15 to 20% discount

12:30 $PSUS vs $PSH London: who can own what, and why it matters

15:20 The 40-Act book and Ackman's macro hedging history

17:50 Track record with and without the COVID hedge

22:00 Why London still does not fully credit Bill

23:50 "But isn't it just Google, Amazon, Meta?" — the index-hug pushback

26:00 Can Pershing get private assets (Spark, HHH-style deals) into $PSUS

29:00 $PSCM valuation: 30x FRE and the bridge from $300M to $550 to $590M

36:00 Why $PSCM should deserve a premium multiple to KKR, Apollo, Carlyle, Blue Owl

42:30 Preferred performance fees and why the income statement is cleaner

45:30 Alignment: insiders own 85%+

48:00 Permanent capital vs six-year "permanent" capital at the alts

49:40 50 employees at $PSCM vs 2,200 at Carlyle

52:00 Keyman risk on Bill and Ryan Israel's role

58:30 What's next: $UMG, Vincent Bolloré, and Spark as the vehicle

1:02:00 Wrap

Links:Yet Another Value Blog - https://www.yetanothervalueblog.com

See our legal disclaimer here: https://www.yetanothervalueblog.com/p/legal-and-disclaimer

Production and editing by The Podcast Consultant - https://thepodcastconsultant.com/

Driven Brands ($DRVN) puked on a February accounting restatement. Kyle Mowery (GrizzlyRock Capital) walks through why Take 5 remains a crown jewel and could be worth the entire EV of the company (making the franchise and autoglass businesses a free option). We also dig into how the April and May 8-Ks took the scary left-tail risks off the table, why Roark Capital (65% owner) might run a sale process later this year, and the bear case (corporate cost bloat, weakness in the non-Take-5 brands).

disclaimer: Andrew is long DRVN

Kyle's late 2024 DRVN podcast: https://www.yetanothervalueblog.com/p/grizzlyrock-capitals-kyle-mowery?utm_source=publication-search

[00:00:00] Intro and disclosures

[00:03:23] What is Driven Brands today

[00:05:14] Why the car wash divestiture sold so cheap

[00:09:19] Why Take 5 is the crown jewel

[00:11:15] EV risk and the US ICE car park

[00:13:21] Franchisee demand and unit growth

[00:15:31] Take 5 vs. Valvoline[00:18:13] The addbacks problem

[00:20:57] Inside the accounting restatement

[00:23:22] The cash adjustment

[00:28:50] The ATI revenue recognition issue

[00:30:12] Reading the April and May 8-Ks

[00:32:40] Debating adjusted EBITDA

[00:34:55] Corporate cost bloat

[00:37:54] Is this fraud? No

[00:39:49] Weakness in the non-Take-5 brands

[00:43:45] Sum-of-the-parts: Take 5 covers the debt

[00:46:30] Why public markets misprice the franchise brands

[00:48:04] Durability of franchise cash flows[00:50:14] Timing the resolution

[00:53:26] Roark Capital's strategic options

[00:57:40] Labor Day or Halloween?

[01:00:00] Capital cycle stories Kyle's watching

[01:03:02] Chinese supply pressure on industrials

Links:

Yet Another Value Blog - https://www.yetanothervalueblog.com

See our legal disclaimer here: https://www.yetanothervalueblog.com/p/legal-and-disclaimer

Production and editing by The Podcast Consultant - https://thepodcastconsultant.com/

Rich Howe of Stock Spin-Off Investing makes the bull case for Liberty Global ($LBTYK): cheap on a sum-of-the-parts, an upcoming Ziggo spin to crystallize value, and a hidden ventures portfolio. Andrew pushes back hard on Malone, Fries, and Liberty's long history of value that never quite shows up.

Chapters:

00:00 Introduction and Liberty Global thesis

01:44 Sponsor: AlphaSense earnings season

04:49 Rich's bull case for $LBTYK

07:46 Andrew on management credibility

09:05 Why a spin can unlock value

11:57 Buybacks: are they actually working?

15:19 Debt structure and the deleveraging path

17:14 Operational deterioration risk

19:52 Ziggo's subscriber losses

24:09 Malone and Fries: the track record

27:46 The Liberty Global board problem

31:22 The growth investment portfolio

32:59 Why Rich haircuts the portfolio

36:43 Formula E and venture exposure

38:35 The empire-building risk

40:55 Virgin Media O2 restructuring

42:11 Other spin-off setups worth a look

43:40 Ziff Davis sum-of-the-parts

46:52 Andrew on distressed SaaS ideas

48:22 Lionsgate and media consolidation

51:53 Lionsgate as an acquisition target

Links:

Yet Another Value Blog: https://www.yetanothervalueblog.com

Stock Spin-Off Investing (Rich Howe): https://www.stockspinoffinvesting.com

Legal disclaimer: https://www.yetanothervalueblog.com/p/legal-and-disclaimer

Production and editing by The Podcast Consultant: https://thepodcastconsultant.com/

Stevanato (STVN) makes the glass vials and pre-filled syringes that GLP-1 drugs ship in. The stock has sold off on fears that oral GLP-1s replace injectables, but Aurelian Research's Leo Trudel argues that's a misread: biologics demand keeps growing, the mix is shifting toward higher-margin "high-value solutions," and switching costs in regulated drug delivery are real. We dig into the bull case, the oral-vs-injectable debate, capacity and oversupply risk, capital allocation, regulatory lock-in, and what would change Leo's view.

[00:00:00] Podcast intro and guest welcome

[00:03:08] Stevanato's business model: vials, syringes, high-value solutions[

00:03:51] COVID boom and the destocking cycle

[00:06:39] Why the stock sold off and what it implies

[00:07:34] Market expectations vs. reality

[00:11:55] Margin expansion from mix shift

[00:14:40] Oral vs. injectable GLP-1s: the real debate

[00:17:30] Why oral and injectable aren't interchangeable

[00:19:44] Capacity additions and oversupply risk

[00:21:00] Biologics demand beyond GLP-1

[00:23:04] Management trust and capital allocation

[00:26:52] Regulatory lock-in: the real moat

[00:29:42] What could break the bull case

[00:30:53] Future capex and where it goes

[00:32:41] Industry structure and M&A outlook

[00:34:37] AI tools in investment research

[00:38:09] Closing thoughts and Leo's stance

Links:

Yet Another Value Blog - https://www.yetanothervalueblog.com

See our legal disclaimer here: https://www.yetanothervalueblog.com/p...

Production and editing by The Podcast Consultant - https://thepodcastconsultant.com/

In this episode of Yet Another Value Podcast, host Andrew Walker speaks with Deiya Pernas of Pernas Research about Sprout Social (SPT) and the broader SaaS selloff. They examine the company’s platform, competitive positioning, and whether the market is mispricing its long-term potential. The discussion covers API complexity, integrations, AI risks, and shifting perceptions across SaaS. They also address valuation, stock-based compensation concerns, and possible catalysts including governance changes or acquisition interest. The conversation closes with a wider look at the so-called SaaS apocalypse and where opportunities may exist.

____________________________________________________________

[00:00:00] Introduction and guest overview

[00:03:59] Sprout Social business model explained

[00:05:38] Market mispricing and SaaS selloff

[00:09:53] Fundamentals versus market perception debate

[00:12:05] SaaS valuation reset discussion

[00:13:45] Platform capabilities and customer usage[00:15:16] API complexity and competitive advantage

[00:18:58] Compliance risks and AI concerns

[00:21:48] Platform competition from social networks

[00:23:50] AI disruption and company adaptation

[00:27:07] Systems of record skepticism discussed

[00:30:00] Integrations and switching costs impact

[00:31:01] Stock-based compensation concerns raised

[00:32:01] Dilution risks and sustainability issues

[00:33:48] Governance changes as potential catalyst

[00:35:49] Management turnover and uncertainty

[00:36:46] Acquisition potential discussed

[00:38:59] Broader SaaS opportunities and risks

[00:42:11] SaaS durability versus AI disruption

[00:45:36] Lack of insider buying observations

[00:46:55] Criticism of board incentives

Links:

Yet Another Value Blog - https://www.yetanothervalueblog.com

See our legal disclaimer here: https://www.yetanothervalueblog.com/p/legal-and-disclaimer

Production and editing by The Podcast Consultant - https://thepodcastconsultant.com/

In this episode of Yet Another Value Podcast, host Andrew Walker is joined by returning guest Chad Garcia to discuss LandBridge and the broader Permian Basin ecosystem. Chad outlines how land-based royalty models differ from traditional energy investments, highlighting surface rights, produced water, and infrastructure as key drivers. The conversation covers LandBridge’s growth through pore space expansion, strategic land acquisitions, and its relationship with WaterBridge. They also examine valuation differences versus peers like TPL, the role of data centers in West Texas, and why the market may be underestimating future cash flow. The episode concludes with an update on Secure Energy’s acquisition and its implications for the waste infrastructure thesis.

____________________________________________________________

[00:00:00] Introduction and Chad Garcia returns

[00:04:07] LandBridge overview and investment thesis

[00:05:26] History of land royalty businesses

[00:08:57] TPL business model breakdown

[00:13:21] LandBridge business and revenue streams

[00:16:11] Valuation comparison versus TPL

[00:17:21] Market skepticism and short thesis

[00:20:59] Incremental pore space growth potential

[00:24:27] Sponsor ownership and insider alignment

[00:26:50] Structure and related party concerns

[00:29:12] Acquisition strategy and value creation

[00:31:30] Strategic land positioning explained

[00:36:01] Competitive advantages in pore space

[00:39:37] Data center opportunity in Permian

[00:43:38] Challenges to data center deployment

[00:46:42] Valuation framework and growth outlook

[00:48:36] LandBridge versus WaterBridge comparison

[00:49:31] Secure Energy acquisition overview

[00:51:06] Waste thesis validation discussion

[00:55:35] Reaction to acquisition valuation

[00:58:16] Market education still ongoing

[01:01:12] Closing thoughts and disclaimer

Links:

Yet Another Value Blog - https://www.yetanothervalueblog.com

See our legal disclaimer here: https://www.yetanothervalueblog.com/p/legal-and-disclaimer

Production and editing by The Podcast Consultant - https://thepodcastconsultant.com/

In this episode of Yet Another Value Podcast, host Andrew Walker speaks with Marcelo Lima of Heller House Capital about the "SaaSpocalypse". Marcelo shares his perspective from years of following software companies, arguing that fears around AI disrupting SaaS are overblown. They examine whether AI tools threaten incumbents like Salesforce or instead strengthen them through faster product development. The discussion covers valuation compression, enterprise software moats, customer behavior shifts, and the role of AI as infrastructure. Andrew also raises concerns about disruption risks, insider signals, and workforce changes, leading to a debate on whether this moment represents risk or opportunity.

Marcelo's memos on software

Memo 1: https://mailchi.mp/hellerhs/opportunities-in-software

Memo 2: https://mailchi.mp/hellerhs/opportunities-in-software-part-ii

_________________________________________________________

[00:00:00] Introduction and SaaS apocalypse topic

[00:02:24] Disclaimer and setup discussion

[00:03:26] SaaS selloff and market reaction

[00:07:58] AI disruption concerns raised

[00:10:09] Valuation compression and risk pricing

[00:14:24] Salesforce adoption timing shifts

[00:16:09] Incumbents’ advantage and feedback loops

[00:20:57] Headless software and interface changes

[00:22:29] Backend value versus frontend control

[00:27:02] Historical analogy with Slack usage

[00:29:22] Insider buying skepticism discussion

[00:34:36] Power law dynamics in SaaS

[00:35:53] Company earnings and AI impact

[00:36:36] Adobe Lightroom AI example

[00:40:11] Bloomberg replacement with AI tools

[00:42:25] AI tooling limitations and costs

[00:46:02] Bugs and reliability challenges

[00:47:24] Preferred SaaS companies discussed

[00:51:28] Stock compensation and dilution concerns

[00:55:59] AI productivity and hiring dynamics

[00:56:27] Opposing view on engineer demand

[00:59:16] AI increasing work intensity

[01:00:23] Enterprise software reliability moat

[01:04:49] AI as infrastructure layer

Links:

Yet Another Value Blog - https://www.yetanothervalueblog.com See our legal disclaimer here: https://www.yetanothervalueblog.com/p/legal-and-disclaimer

Production and editing by The Podcast Consultant - https://thepodcastconsultant.com/

In this episode of Yet Another Value Podcast, host Andrew Walker speaks with Tolu Bukola from Aganju Capital about DraftKings and the growing threat from prediction markets. Tolu explains DraftKings’ business model, highlighting both sports betting and the expanding iGaming segment. The discussion focuses heavily on regulatory risks, including how prediction markets operate and why they may face legal challenges. They examine potential outcomes if regulation changes, how market share could shift, and what that means for DraftKings’ long-term economics. The episode also covers valuation perspectives and the role of government intervention in shaping the industry’s future.

You can see Tolu's DKNG write up here

___________________________________________________

[00:00:00] Podcast introduction and guest overview

[00:00:33] DraftKings and prediction markets focus

[00:03:21] DraftKings business and history explained

[00:05:26] Prediction markets model and mechanics

[00:07:33] Market reaction and investor behavior

[00:09:14] iGaming growth and profitability discussion

[00:11:09] iGaming competition and market structure

[00:14:55] DraftKings execution and product strengths

[00:16:02] Prediction markets as key risk

[00:17:34] Product appeal and investor bias

[00:18:57] Betfair comparison and market share

[00:20:20] Cultural shifts and trading behavior

[00:22:12] Early impact on sportsbook data

[00:23:12] Market share uncertainty discussion

[00:24:38] Government incentives and regulation

[00:26:25] Why Betfair remained small

[00:29:31] Pricing differences and fee structure

[00:31:32] Complexity of sportsbook operations

[00:32:38] Regulatory advantages of prediction markets

[00:34:43] Insider trading and integrity concerns

[00:37:04] Legal paths and regulatory outcomes

[00:39:17] CFTC role and enforcement issues

[00:41:37] Timing risks and market share shift

[00:42:56] Long-term investment thesis

[00:44:23] Valuation framework and upside case

[00:48:40] DraftKings competing in prediction markets

[00:49:55] Parlay economics and profitability

[00:51:24] Regulatory risks beyond prediction markets

[00:53:30] Government incentives and taxation

[00:54:24] Supreme Court outlook and legal stance

[00:55:56] Native American tribes involvement

Links:

Yet Another Value Blog - https://www.yetanothervalueblog.com

See our legal disclaimer here: https://www.yetanothervalueblog.com/p/legal-and-disclaimer

Production and editing by The Podcast Consultant - https://thepodcastconsultant.com/

In this episode of Yet Another Value Podcast, host Andrew Walker shares his April monthly ramblings, covering a range of investing topics top of mind. He examines the recent selloff in SaaS companies and why they may not be as attractive as they appear. Andrew explores the idea of hedging against AI disruption using large-cap tech options, while also questioning how AI and pattern recognition could reshape investing. He reflects on the balance between experience and laziness in decision-making and closes with a personal discussion on the mental challenges of missing major investment opportunities.

Check out fiscal.ai here: fiscal.ai/?via=yav

______________________________________________________________________

[00:00:00] Podcast introduction and monthly ramblings

[00:01:02] Call for ratings and subscriptions

[00:01:37] Sponsor discussion and product usage

[00:02:40] Overview of April discussion topics

[00:04:35] SaaS selloff and valuation concerns

[00:07:10] AI impact on SaaS demand

[00:08:03] Software terminal value concerns

[00:08:54] SaaS as difficult investment category

[00:10:16] Importance of differentiated investment edge

[00:12:09] AI risks to investing careers

[00:13:32] Idea of hedging AI exposure

[00:14:29] Meta stock option implications

[00:15:54] Rationale for big tech hedges

[00:17:18] Thoughts on leap options strategy

[00:18:33] Pattern recognition in investing

[00:20:09] When pattern recognition becomes harmful

[00:21:35] Balancing experience versus laziness

[00:22:21] AI and pattern recognition limitations

[00:23:33] Market adaptation to investor behavior

[00:25:08] Potential AI investing weaknesses

[00:26:48] Using AI tools in research

[00:28:36] Emotional challenges in investing

[00:29:18] Missed Avis investment opportunity

[00:30:24] Frustration from missed gains

[00:31:08] Balancing emotions and discipline

[00:32:28] Closing remarks and sign-off

Links:

Yet Another Value Blog - https://www.yetanothervalueblog.com

See our legal disclaimer here: https://www.yetanothervalueblog.com/p/legal-and-disclaimer

Production and editing by The Podcast Consultant - https://thepodcastconsultant.com/

In this episode of Yet Another Value Podcast, host Andrew Walker speaks with Jingshu Zhang from Guinea Value about Fiserv (FISV) and the broader payments sector. They examine the recent drawdown across payment companies, addressing concerns around AI disruption, regulation, and macro pressures. Jingshu outlines Fiserv’s business structure across financial institutions and merchant solutions, while detailing the impact of leadership changes and operational missteps under prior management. The discussion highlights the ongoing strategic reset, new executive hires from JPMorgan, and extensive on-the-ground research into Clover’s positioning. They also debate capital allocation, insider alignment, activist involvement, and valuation, exploring whether Fiserv represents a turnaround opportunity or a declining legacy asset.

See Shu's substack here: https://jingshu.substack.com/

See Trata's FISV transcript here: https://www.trata.com/fisv

___________________________________________________________

[00:00:00] Podcast intro and guest background

[00:03:56] Payments sector under broad pressure

[00:05:32] Market fears impacting payment companies[00:06:51] AI risks debated in payments

[00:11:38] Structural advantages protect payment networks

[00:12:49] Capital allocation concerns across peers

[00:17:19] Fiserv business segments overview

[00:18:59] Leadership change and prior mismanagement

[00:24:23] Strategic reset and growth normalization

[00:27:49] Variant perception and investment thesis

[00:28:50] New executive team and talent inflow

[00:34:55] Clover positioning versus competitors

[00:36:20] Field research from restaurant interviews

[00:42:01] Valuation framework and earnings outlook

[00:46:14] Insider alignment and incentives discussion

[00:53:34] Organizational culture and employee sentiment

[00:58:30] Activist involvement and strategic options

Links:

Yet Another Value Blog - https://www.yetanothervalueblog.com

See our legal disclaimer here: https://www.yetanothervalueblog.com/p/legal-and-disclaimer

Production and editing by The Podcast Consultant - https://thepodcastconsultant.com/

Sean Emory of Avory & Co analyzes Clear Security, a biometric identity platform operating in airports nationwide. They examine the company’s subscription model, competitive positioning against TSA and airlines, and the impact of recent TSA disruptions on demand. The discussion covers Clear’s pricing power, partnerships with credit card providers like Amex, and the durability of its airport footprint. Sean also outlines a developing enterprise identity segment and its potential role in future growth. The conversation addresses valuation, risks, and whether Clear’s moat can sustain long-term returns. ___________________________________________________________________

[00:00:00] Andrew introduces Clear Security debate

[00:03:54] Clear explained: biometric airport platform

[00:07:11] Growth limits and line congestion[

00:10:00] TSA PreCheck economics and strategy

[00:14:04] Competition from TSA and airlines

[00:18:15] Airport partnerships and revenue sharing

[00:23:12] Market missing enterprise identity opportunity

[00:28:48] Debate on enterprise business significance

[00:34:11] TSA disruption impact on stock

[00:39:36] Valuation and growth assumptions

[00:43:24] Pricing power and customer behavior

[00:49:21] Amex partnership risks and dynamics

[00:56:12] Capital allocation and cash usage

[01:00:56] Long-term identity and AI implications

Links:

Yet Another Value Blog - https://www.yetanothervalueblog.com

See our legal disclaimer here: https://www.yetanothervalueblog.com/p/legal-and-disclaimer

Production and editing by The Podcast Consultant - https://thepodcastconsultant.com/

In this episode of Yet Another Value Podcast, host Andrew Walker is joined by Andy Summers, CIO of Summers Value, to discuss Theravance (TBPH; disclosure: long). Both share their perspectives as shareholders while examining the company’s setup following a failed Phase 3 trial. They break down Theravance’s remaining asset, the COPD drug Yupelri, and its long-term royalty potential. The discussion covers the company’s balance sheet strength, cost reductions, and ongoing strategic review process. Andy outlines valuation assumptions, including U.S. royalties, China opportunity, and tax attributes, while also assessing potential buyers and deal dynamics. They also explore downside scenarios if a sale does not occur and why the situation presents an asymmetric risk-reward profile.

___________________________________________________

[00:00:00] Podcast introduction and sponsor mention

[00:02:41] Overview of Theravance business model

[00:05:02] Phase three failure stock decline

[00:06:56] Activist involvement and ownership concentration

[00:09:01] Strategic review process and acceleration

[00:09:49] Breakdown of balance sheet and cash

[00:12:49] Discussion on downside protection and sizing

[00:14:11] Yupelri drug positioning and growth

[00:15:59] Patent protection timeline through 2039

[00:17:13] Valuation of royalty stream

[00:18:08] Sum-of-parts valuation discussion

[00:18:49] China opportunity and royalty upside

[00:24:22] Strategic buyers and acquisition dynamics

[00:28:22] Concerns about limited bidding competition

[00:30:57] Potential alternative buyers and synergies

[00:35:08] What market may be missing

[00:35:57] Ireland tax asset potential value

[00:38:03] Scenario if company not sold

[00:41:30] Potential management change outcomes

[00:43:22] Asymmetric risk reward summary

[00:44:24] Timing expectations for potential deal

Links:

Yet Another Value Blog - https://www.yetanothervalueblog.com

See our legal disclaimer here: https://www.yetanothervalueblog.com/p/legal-and-disclaimer

Production and editing by The Podcast Consultant - https://thepodcastconsultant.com/

In this episode of Yet Another Value Podcast, host Andrew Walker is joined by Roderick van Zuylen of Nightwatch to analyze Marex (MRX), a futures commission merchant operating in a consolidated financial infrastructure space. Roderick explains how Marex facilitates derivatives trading for clients like airlines and hedge funds, while benefiting from rising trading volumes and industry consolidation. The discussion covers Marex’s strong returns on equity, acquisition-driven growth strategy, and competitive positioning versus peers like StoneX. They also address risks, including credit exposure, interest rate sensitivity, and a recent short report. The episode highlights why Marex may continue compounding earnings through both organic and inorganic growth.

Roderick's twitter: roojoo3

Night Watch's website: NightWatchIM.com

______________________________________________

[00:00:00] Podcast introduction and guest overview

[00:03:56] What Marex actually does

[00:05:05] Industry consolidation and competitors

[00:07:43] Credit risk and downside scenarios

[00:10:06] FCM role explained simply

[00:11:49] Why ROEs are high

[00:13:57] Acquisition-driven growth strategy

[00:15:12] Market mispricing and valuation

[00:17:24] Private equity overhang concerns

[00:19:21] M&A execution and integration

[00:22:28] Switching costs and customer stickiness

[00:24:24] Why acquisitions are cheap

[00:26:31] Industry structure and limited buyers

[00:28:19] Volatility and revenue dynamics

[00:29:46] Goldilocks volatility discussion

[00:32:59] Buybacks and capital allocation

[00:34:32] Short report overview

[00:35:11] Key allegations addressed

[00:38:29] Cash flow concerns explained

[00:41:10] Company response to short report

[00:42:28] Real-world business validation

[00:43:41] Valuation and upside potential

[00:45:43] Key risks and interest rates

Links:

Yet Another Value Blog - https://www.yetanothervalueblog.com

See our legal disclaimer here: https://www.yetanothervalueblog.com/p/legal-and-disclaimer

Production and editing by The Podcast Consultant - https://thepodcastconsultant.com/

In this episode of Yet Another Value Podcast, host Andrew Walker returns with his monthly solo ramblings covering several themes shaping current markets. He starts by discussing recent volatility and why markets feel inconsistent despite relatively modest index declines. Andrew then explores how long-term tailwinds in software and growth investing may have influenced investor track records over the past decade. He also revisits his three-year rule for evaluating stagnant investments, examining its limitations in cyclical sectors. The episode closes with a discussion on position sizing, emphasizing the need to re-underwrite positions after large price moves and avoid inertia when fundamentals change.

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[00:00:00] Introduction and volatile market overview

[00:00:47] Software investing and track record concerns

[00:01:40] Three-year rule and exceptions

[00:01:56] Position sizing after major moves

[00:05:08] Markets feel inconsistent and strange

[00:08:04] SaaS and growth investing tailwinds

[00:09:43] Track records shaped by favorable cycles

[00:13:49] Revisiting and questioning three-year rule

[00:15:58] Cyclical tailwinds impacting outcomes

[00:17:00] Value creation versus timing importance

[00:19:49] Position sizing mistakes and inertia

[00:22:52] Re-underwriting after losses

[00:24:15] Risk management and cost limits

Links:

Yet Another Value Blog - https://www.yetanothervalueblog.com

See our legal disclaimer here: https://www.yetanothervalueblog.com/p/legal-and-disclaimer

Production and editing by The Podcast Consultant - https://thepodcastconsultant.com/

In this episode of Yet Another Value Podcast, host Andrew Walker speaks with Adam May, a physician, dermatologist, and biotech investor, about how he built an edge in small- and mid-cap biotech. Adam walks through his path from medical school investing to launching a small biotech fund during the 2021 peak, then explains how he sources ideas, studies trial data, and looks for situations where the market is missing something important. The conversation focuses on NKTR and ABVX, including trial design, maintenance data, market skepticism, buyout setups, and how Adam thinks about risk, beta, and asymmetric upside in biotech.

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[00:00:00] Andrew introduces Adam

[00:02:44] Adam’s biotech investing background

[00:07:16] Alpha versus biotech beta

[00:09:51] Finding edge in biotech

[00:17:01] How Adam sources ideas

[00:20:49] Handling concentrated biotech positions

[00:22:59] Biotech drawdown created opportunities

[00:24:49] NKTR thesis and setup

[00:27:53] Lilly data analysis mistake

[00:29:34] Why drugs miss patients

[00:30:34] Eczema need remains large

[00:33:55] Trial nuance drove conviction

[00:36:11] Reverse split scared investors

[00:37:14] NKTR rerating after data

[00:41:21] Why maintenance data mattered

[00:43:32] Buyout versus commercialization path

[00:45:17] Alopecia setup in NKTR

[00:52:25] ABVX background and skepticism

[00:55:00] Maintenance data built conviction

[00:58:54] The killer ABVX slide

[01:01:50] Why ABVX looks acquirable

[01:08:11] ABVX maintenance data ahead

[01:11:27] Andrew closes the episode

Links:

Yet Another Value Blog - https://www.yetanothervalueblog.com

See our legal disclaimer here: https://www.yetanothervalueblog.com/p/legal-and-disclaimer

Production and editing by The Podcast Consultant - https://thepodcastconsultant.com/

Chris Paryse breaks down Ferrellgas (FGPR), a propane distributor emerging from a complex post-bankruptcy structure. The conversation focuses on the recently completed Class B to Class A unit conversion, which significantly increases free float and simplifies the capital structure. Chris explains how the company generated cash flow to eliminate legacy obligations and outlines a potential path toward reinstating dividends. They also discuss leverage, preferred securities, and the opportunity for valuation re-rating through relisting and improved liquidity. The episode highlights both the financial engineering aspects and the operational realities of a stable but low-growth propane business.

Chris's twitter: https://x.com/CParyse86296

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[00:00:00] Ferrellgas situation overview

[00:03:47] Business model explained simply

[00:06:31] Class B conversion mechanics

[00:08:38] Dilution and free float impact

[00:10:49] Capital returns outlook discussed

[00:11:26] Free cash flow breakdown

[00:15:08] Preferred structure and leverage

[00:17:41] Valuation and leverage debate

[00:18:59] Relisting catalyst potential

[00:20:07] Ownership and alignment concerns

[00:23:24] M&A and consolidation strategy

[00:30:02] Business segment deep dive

[00:35:45] Commodity risk explained

[00:37:54] Key catalysts summary

[00:42:10] Private equity possibility discussed

[00:45:03] Closing thoughts and contact

Links:

Yet Another Value Blog - https://www.yetanothervalueblog.com

See our legal disclaimer here: https://www.yetanothervalueblog.com/p/legal-and-disclaimer

Production and editing by The Podcast Consultant - https://thepodcastconsultant.com/

Simeon McMillan of Accrued Interest about the shifting media landscape and recent industry restructurings. Simeon brings experience from inside major media companies, offering a perspective on how traditional networks, streaming platforms, and sports rights are shaping valuations across the sector. The conversation examines Comcast’s Versant spin-off, the positioning of assets like Bravo and other entertainment channels, and how investors should think about cable decline versus streaming economics. Andrew and Simeon also discuss incentives behind corporate restructurings, the quality of assets being separated, and what could drive value creation or destruction. Throughout the discussion they analyze media strategy, market narratives, and how investors can interpret these evolving industry dynamics.

See a replay of my AlphaSense media webinar here: https://www.alpha-sense.com/resources/webinars/paramounts-acquisition-of-wbd-and-the-reshaping-of-the-streaming-market/?utm_source=pt_YAVP&utm_medium=sponsored&utm_campaign=SWB_DG_03-10-26_IMP-GENAI_CORPFS_YAVP-Netflix-WarnerBros

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[00:00:00] Podcast and guest introduction

[00:02:14] Simeon McMillan joins discussion

[00:03:25] Guest media industry background

[00:15:40] Hidden value in the golf assets

[00:25:25] Future of CNBC

[00:37:50] What happens in 2028

[00:44:00] The future of sports rights

Links:

Yet Another Value Blog - https://www.yetanothervalueblog.com

See our legal disclaimer here: https://www.yetanothervalueblog.com/p/legal-and-disclaimer

Production and editing by The Podcast Consultant - https://thepodcastconsultant.com/

Host Andrew Walker speaks with Alex Morris of The Science of Hitting about the rapidly shifting media landscape. They examine the failed Netflix bid for Warner Bros. Discovery and Paramount’s winning acquisition, along with the strategic implications for streaming competition. The conversation analyzes Netflix’s long-term positioning, the importance of intellectual property in a streaming ecosystem, and how artificial intelligence could influence media consumption. They also assess the financial pressures facing traditional media companies, challenges around integrating large media platforms, and the evolving economics of sports rights. Finally, they explore Disney’s strategic transition and the broader outlook for streaming platforms and legacy television networks.

You can check out the upcoming AlphaSense webinar here:

[00:00] Introduction and webinar announcement

[00:04:06] Alex Morris investing background

[00:06:55] Netflix Warner Brothers bid debate

[00:11:19] Netflix strategy and screen time

[00:13:18] AI impact on media IP

[00:18:54] Netflix content release strategy discussion

[00:26:18] Regulatory pushback on Netflix deal

[00:28:17] Netflix strategy after losing bid

[00:31:13] Paramount acquisition outlook analysis

[00:33:09] Linear television financial dependence

[00:37:34] Risks integrating Paramount and Warner

[00:41:12] Distribution complexity across platforms

[00:46:21] Comcast Versant spinoff strategy critique

[00:53:20] Disney position in streaming landscape

[00:57:28] Sports rights competitive dynamics

Links:

Yet Another Value Blog - https://www.yetanothervalueblog.com

See our legal disclaimer here: https://www.yetanothervalueblog.com/p/legal-and-disclaimer

Production and editing by The Podcast Consultant - https://thepodcastconsultant.com/