The Business Brew: Recent Episodes
Bill Brewster
Welcome to The Business Brew
This podcast’s mission is to dig deep into the thought patterns and analysis of investors and business people. The podcast stemmed from Bill Brewster consistently feeling like he was listening to prepackaged material while listening to podcasts. Instead, he wanted long form, in depth, discussions about finance, capital allocation, and the psychology of investing/business.
Bill is a private investor. He cohosts the podcast Value: After Hours with Tobias Carlisle and Jake Taylor. Tobias, Jake and Bill met at a Berkshire Hathaway meeting and formed a lasting friendship. And, as it turns out, people really like the podcast.
While Bill tries to replicate Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger’s thought processes, he is heavily influenced by Bill Miller III, Stan Druckenmiller, and others. This podcast is his attempt to dig deeper into other investing/business philosophies and share the knowledge with the world.
We are interested in interviewing portfolio managers, Wall Street sell side analysts, buy side analysts, private investors, owner operators, and anyone that is willing to go in depth about running a company/division. So, if you are interested in participating please email us with the subject “Guest Appearance.”
Disclaimer: Bill manages a portfolio under the name of Sullimar Capital Group. This podcast is for informational and educational purposes only. Nothing in this podcast or on SullimarCapital.Group is investment advice. All information in this is opinion based, potentially biased, and requires verification.
Bill and his guests make no representation, warranty or undertaking, express or implied, as to the accuracy, reliability, completeness or reasonableness of the information contained in these podcasts. Any assumptions, opinions and estimates expressed constitute the participant’s judgment as of the date thereof and are subject to change without notice. Any projections contained in the information are based on a number of assumptions as to market conditions and there can be no guarantee that any projected outcomes will be achieved. This podcast does not accept any liability for any direct, consequential or other loss arising from reliance on the contents of this presentation.
This podcast series DOES NOT CONSTITUTE AN OFFER TO SELL OR THE SOLICIATION OF AN OFFER TO BUY ANY SECURITIES MENTIONED OR DISCUSSED. Seek the your financial, tax, legal, accounting, or other advisor’s advice before making any investment decisions. We are not your fiduciary or advisor.
In this episode of The Business Brew, host Bill Brewsterinterviews John Buckingham, editor of the Prudent Speculator newsletter. John shares his investing expertise, strategies for managing a diversified portfolio, and provides data-driven insights on how stock markets perform under different tax regimes, political administrations, and election cycles.
They discuss how to stay disciplined and focused on long-term investment objectives amidst market noise and uncertainty. John's commentary is complemented with historical data, illustrating that despite economic and political turbulence, sticking to a disciplined investment strategy can be rewarding.
00:00 Welcome to the Business Brew
01:52 Introducing John Buckingham
04:01 Navigating Market Uncertainty
06:32 The Value of Value Investing
11:11 The Origin of the Prudent Speculator
24:13 The Importance of Dividends
35:56 Navigating Market Volatility
36:12 Apple's Investment Strategy
37:43 The Role of Volatility in Investing
38:18 Market Reactions and Investor Behavior
39:39 Historical Market Trends and Predictions
46:39 Investment Strategies and Stock Selection
51:28 Tax Rates and Market Performance
57:00 Election Impact on Markets
01:04:04 Long-Term Investment Philosophy
01:07:31 Concluding Thoughts
Mike Alkin of Sachem Cove Partners stops by The Business Brew to share his journey in uncovering the uranium investment thesis. Bill found out about Mike when he began listening to Mike's podcast in 2018/19. At that time, Mike was telling everyone that would listen about how asymmetric the opportunity was. Mike interviewed industry insiders, other investors, and laid out his thesis in public. Bill found it inspiring.
This conversation dives deep into the complexities of the uranium market. The discussion includes a detailed analysis of nuclear power, supply-demand dynamics, and the industry’s challenges. Mike also provides valuable advice for young analysts and highlights the significance of contrarian investing. Additionally, they explore recent advancements in nuclear energy and the evolving markets of EVs, wind, and solar energy.
As always, this episode is for educational and entertainment purposes only, not financial advice.
Michael (Mike) Alkin is a principal of Sachem Cove Partners, LLC, the general partner of Sachem Cove Special Opportunities Fund, LP. He is also the Chief Investment Officer of Public Equities of Lloyd Harbor Capital Management, LLC, the investment manager of the Fund, and in that role is responsible for the Fund’s investment process. He has nearly 30 years of hedge fund experience with extensive investing experience across many cyclical industries. Prior to Sachem Cove and Lloyd Harbor, he was an analyst and partner for 7 years at Knott Partners. Prior to Knott, amongst the firms where held similar roles were Walker Smith Capital, Zweig-DiMenna, and Windsor Partners.Detailed Show Notes
00:00 Welcome to the Business Brew
00:08 Introducing Mike Alkin and the Uranium Thesis
00:48 The Inspiration Behind the Podcast
01:21 Disclaimer and Acknowledgements
02:32 Deep Dive into the Uranium Market
05:26 Challenges and Insights in the Uranium Industry
09:13 Understanding Market Dynamics and Investor Behavior
12:50 The Journey to Conviction in Uranium Investment
17:40 The Role of Nuclear Power in the Energy Market
42:39 The Impact of Geopolitical Risks on Uranium Supply
44:32 The Fuel Cycle and U.S. Fuel Buyers
45:23 Challenges with Industry Forecasts
46:11 Presenting at the NEI Conference
47:09 Confrontations and Convictions
48:56 Expert Networks and Market Misconceptions
52:10 Global Nuclear Power Dynamics
01:01:24 Kazakhstan's Uranium Production
01:10:42 The Future of Nuclear and Renewables
01:18:01 Investment Strategies and Advice
01:22:26 Conclusion and Final Thoughts
Dylan is a former attorney turned private investor focused on small/microcap stocks and overlooked pockets of the market. He publishes a free newsletter on Substack called Raging Bull Investments, which provides deep-dive investment write-ups and occasional market commentary, and is active on Twitter as raging bull cap/Jake LaMotta.
Richard Cook, Co-Founder of Cook and Bynum, stops by The Business Brew to discuss his approach to global investing. Richard discusses his concentrated investment strategies, focusing on emerging markets, government dynamics, consumer behavior, and intrinsic value.
Highlighting key investments in markets like Mexico, Turkey, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, Richard discusses operational execution, investor relations, and long-term strategic planning. The episode also covers strategic investments during the Greek financial crisis, the role of conservative management, and the importance of understanding market dynamics.
With reflections on experiences in South Africa, Costa Rica, and Turkey, this conversation offers invaluable insights into global investment strategies and the essential qualities of successful business leaders.
Tune in to gain expert knowledge on navigating global investments and building a successful investment firm.
00:00 Welcome to The Business Brew
00:07 Introducing Richard Cook
00:45 Investment Philosophy and Strategy
01:09 Shoutout to the Editing Team
02:30 Starting the Interview with Richard Cook
03:02 Emerging Markets and Government Influence
04:15 Investment Holdings and Long-Term Strategy
07:47 The Power of Buybacks and Controlling
Shareholders
14:44 Avoiding Bias in Investment Decisions
19:08 Lessons from Past Investments
24:54 Navigating Market Cycles
34:18 Insights on Bottling Businesses
46:58 Premiumization in the Beverage Industry
48:15 Global Consumption Patterns
49:53 Investment Strategies and Intrinsic Value
51:29 Challenges in Forecasting Business Durability
53:32 Insights on Company Valuation
55:15 Case Study: Kraft and Mondelez
59:01 AB InBev and Craft Beer Market
01:09:59 Investment in Jumbo During Greek Crisis
01:20:39 Evaluating Emerging Markets
01:25:55 Building an Investment Firm
01:28:34 Conclusion and Final Thoughts
In this episode of the Business Brew, host Bill Brewster sits down with the esteemed investor Bruce Berkowitz. They delve deep into Berkowitz's illustrious career, from his strategies during the financial crisis to his current outlook on various investment opportunities, including midstream energy and Florida real estate.
Berkowitz shares anecdotes, personal reflections, and valuable lessons learned over decades in finance. Additionally, Berkowitz emphasizes the importance of due diligence and remaining rational amidst market fluctuations.
Don't miss this enlightening conversation that offers unique insights into the minds of one of the most successful investors in the industry.
00:00 Welcome to The Business Brew
00:07 Introducing Bruce Berkowitz
01:12 Disclaimer and Due Diligence
02:01 Shoutout to the Editing Team
Dope music
03:23 Starting the Interview with Bruce Berkowitz
04:19 Bruce's Investment Philosophy
05:06 Insights on Wells Fargo
09:01 The Importance of Management and Culture
10:11 Challenges in the Banking Sector
12:46 Bruce's Focus on U.S. Investments
14:25 Research and Concentration in Investments
20:28 Fairholme's Unique Approach
27:01 Reflections on Sears and Real Estate
30:43 Lessons from St. Joe
32:38 Discussion on St. Joe's Elevated Properties
33:27 Hurricane Resilience and Modern Building Codes
35:07 Investment Strategies and Market Perspectives
35:54 Interest Rates and Duration Risk
39:14 Corporate Spreads and Reinvestment Risk
41:43 Societal Changes and Financial Perspectives
46:17 Enterprise Products and Midstream Energy
48:30 Energy Logistics and Environmental Impact
57:17 Technological Evolution in Energy
01:00:40 Mutual Funds vs. ETFs
01:02:04 Concluding Thoughts and Media Engagement
Blake Haxton, analyst at Brandywine Global Asset Management's High Yield and Corporate Strategies Group, joins the Business Brew. This discussion focuses on the companies Blake covers as well as his views on markets generally. Blake tends to focus on "old economy" industries so prepare yourself for plenty of energy discussion. Bill and Blake also discuss industrials and homebuilders. The conversation also touches on the merits of high yield as an asset class.
Blake was recently featured in Barron's. You can find the article here: https://www.barrons.com/articles/paralympian-blake-haxton-high-yield-brandywine-global-6305e6e5
We hope you enjoy the conversation.
Detailed Show Notes:
4:00 - What Blake covers
5:10 - commodities are fairly tight from a supply demand pespective
8:00 - airline discussion
13:00 - energy as an example of how Brandywine looks to take advantage of capital cycles
16:00 - the prospective outlook for high yield
19:00 - how the high yield benchmark is different from the equity benchmark
24:00 - how the improvement in counterparty risk changed the risk/reward of lending to pipeline companies
28:25 - how to think about decline curves in the US vs. Canadian oil companies
30:25 - how differentials impact Canadian energy economics
38:30 - does it make sense to have an allocation to energy?
42:10 - a discussion about how assets generally are priced
52:00 - the pitch for debt vs. equities
54:45 - where is the US housing market in the cycle?
1:06:00 - trading down in credit quality for yield
1:13:00 - how ETFs can provide opportunities when they sell
1:21:00 - how was covering energy in COVID?
1:29:00 - what’s different today with shale as a key producer
Bill Chen returns to The Business Brew to explore the current landscape of Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs). Delve into Chen's comprehensive due diligence process, investment strategies, and the future of multifamily and office REITs. Discover key insights on market conditions, cap rates, capital allocation, and the impact of interest rates on investment returns.
The discussion also highlights strategic decisions by large-cap public REITs, dealing with distressed assets, and the potential risks and opportunities in today's real estate market.
A must-watch for anyone looking to understand the intricacies of real estate investing in uncertain times.
Note: This episode was recorded on July 9, 2024.
00:00 - Welcome to The Business Brew
00:05 - Introducing Bill Chen and REITs Discussion
00:35 - A Walk-Through Manhattan with Bill Chen
03:28 - The Future of Office Spaces
09:48 - Bank Balance Sheets and Office Exposure
19:24 - Analyzing REIT Investments
38:12 - Analyzing Cap Rates in Real Estate Investments
41:45 - The Impact of Public Company Costs on Returns
49:30 - Liquidity and Market Dynamics in Real Estate
53:11 - Challenges and Opportunities in the Current Market
1:00:10 - Grocery-Anchored Shopping Centers: A Resilient Asset Class
1:06:17 - Interest Rates and Their Influence on Real Estate Returns
1:15:02 - Understanding Real Estate Multiples and Leverage
1:15:41 - Market Fears and Multifamily Capitalization Rates
1:16:32 - Challenges in Real Estate Development
1:16:56 - Opportunities in a Down Market
1:17:20 - Connecting with the Speaker
1:18:25 - Investment Strategies and Market Timing
1:19:51 - Balancing Market Humility and Aggression
1:21:23 - Psychological Approaches to Real Estate Investment
1:23:24 - Resilience of Multifamily Assets
1:24:48 - The Future of Home Ownership and Renting
1:27:54 - Personal Experiences with Real Estate
1:30:56 - The REIT Mafia and Investment Benchmarks
1:35:16 - Long-Term Investment Perspectives
1:42:22 - Final Thoughts and Farewell
Al Goldstein, Co-Founder, CEO, and Chairman of Stoic Lane stops by The Business Brew to discuss what his firm is doing in the private markets. Stoic lane is focused on acquiring controlling positions primarily in short term rental management and back office solutions for entrepreneurs. The entity is structured as a corporation with shares rather than as a partnership. As of now, Al's long term goal is to go public.
3:00 - Background and first exit
6:00 - Entering real estate in 2008
8:00 - Al's perspective as an immigrant
10:00 - Starting a private REIT
13:50 - Al's next venture in consumer lending
18:30 - What is Stoic Lane
26:15 - Capital light model with regional brands
30:00 - Creating the right incentives
34:00 - Focusing on the long term
40:00 - Execution is the hard part
Bill dops in to give a podcast status update and let the listeners know what is going on.
Come see him at The CFA Society of New York on June 25th.
If you are interested in the golf events please send your information to businessbrewgolf@gmail.com.
Thank you as always for listening!
Charles Lemonides, founder and CIO of ValueWorks LLC, stops by The Business Brew to discuss his investment philosophy. Charles started his career as a high yield bond analyst. Over time, he gravitated towards equity. In this episode he says "I find the best investment opportunities are where you can find something that is a real growth opportunity but it is selling for a value price."
Today, ValueWorks LLC, tends to run portfolios with 25-30 long securities in them. Charles tries to have 15 "very, very different" bets in each portfolio.
We hope you enjoy this conversation.
John Hempton on "When do you average down?"
Detailed Show Notes:
5:15 - Best investment setups/opportunities
7:30 - Conceptual position sizing
9:40 - ValueWorks different vehicles and philosophy
17:45 - How Charles built his firm around a philosophy
20:00 - Why Rivian may be a value investment
28:20 - Comcast
31:00 - How Charles manages different types of theses?
35:00 - Where are we in a market cycle?
39:30 - What stocks do you want into a top?
44:40 - What makes Charles tick
Consuelo Mack stops by The Business Brew to discuss her career in financial media. Consuelo hosts the show WealthTrack, a show Bill has watched and/or listened to for years. This conversation will help Consuelo's fans understand more about her early career and how she developed WealthTrack.
Bill was very happy Consuelo said yes to coming on the show. His only regret is messing up Ed Hyman and Ed Yardeni in the conversation. He hopes both Eds forgive him.
We hope you enjoy the conversation!
Hunter Hopcroft, Managing Director, Portfolio Solutions at Armada ETF Advisors, stops by The Business Brew to primarily discuss REITs. Hunter is quite a thinker and the conversation veers into other parts of markets such as AI, how the economy is changing and more. You can find Hunter's writing here: https://www.lewisenterprises.blog/
Bill pinged Hunter after someone (on the Twitter machine, so you know it's factual) made a comment that REITs are inherently bad investment vehicles. We hope this episode is informative and realistic about the investment vehicles. You may learn:
- The vast difference between market cap weighted public REIT allocations and private sector real estate allocations
- Why public market REITs have less leverage than their private peers
- A theory about why Blackstone bought $AIRC and what the true cap rate was
- Whether dividends are better than academia believes
As always, we hope you enjoy the show. Thank you for your time!
PS. Reach out if you are interested in sponsoring the show. You can contact Bill at bill@thebusinessbrew.com.
Detailed Show Notes:
3:00 - Hunter transitioned his career around an interest in REITs
7:00 - Private and public markets own basically the same assets
10:00 - How private markets create a lock in for RIAs that may help the RIAs' multiple when they sell the business
11:00 - Negative features of REITs
17:00 - The downside scenarios for multifamily housing
20:30 - What can dividend growth do for a portfolio?
27:30 - How Hunter thinks about the different REIT asset classes.
30:00 - The difference between private real estate allocations and public market market cap weighted allocations
41:00 - The different valuation methodologies to analyze $AIRC
48:00 - Why are private market cap rates still healthy relative to public markets?
52:00 - Hunter's view on markets and where they are right now
56:00 - Some riffing on AI
1:04:00 - In defense of Marty Whitman!
Elliot Turner, Managing Partner and CIO of RGIA Investment Advisors, returns to The Business Brew for a great conversation. To start, Bill and Elliot discuss what Elliot learned from the period of 2021 to now. They then discuss some specific stock ideas, thoughts on portfolio management, and much more. We hope you enjoy.
Note: This episode was recorded on April 3, 2024. Bill owns a small position in Fevertree (established after recording) and a basket of positions in some smaller life science companies.
Detailed Show Notes:
3:00 - Learnings
10:30 - Prioritizing health to lead to success
14:00 - Was it an everything bubble?
22:15 - Fevertree discussion
37:40 - Thoughts on position sizing
44:30 - Incentives in finance papers
49:00 - A great NVDA story
55:00 - Is life sciences similar to tech after 2000
58:50 - The 3 forces that make life sciences and biotech interesting for humanity
1:08:00 - Is The Street focused on the wrong things?
1:16:20 - Maravai
1:25:00 - Thinking about patent cliffs
1:29:00 - High costs of failure and why that may be a good opportunity for existing suppliers
Darren Fisk, Founder and CEO of Forum Investment Group, LLC, stops by The Business Brew to discuss his real estate investment firm, strategy, and thoughts. Darren focuses on multifamily real estate. His background is in lending and he added an equity focus during the GFC. This conversation covers lending, insurance, how to think about development, and more.
Darren's father in law taught him that "Cash may be king, but cash flow is queen." Thus, in the beginning of Forum they were focused on cash flow. Today they are willing to develop real estate as well.
Forum's investment structures are through LLCs as opposed to an LP/GP structure, which is interesting. We hope you find this conversation enjoyable.
Matthew Sweeney, CFA, Managing Partner & Portfolio Manager of Laughing Water Capital stops by The Business Brew for a laid back conversation about how he approaching investing. Laughing Water Capital tends to focus on smaller companies in an effort to find overlooked opportunities. In the episode, Matt talks about his idea of "value," how he got started in the business, and why he prefers stocks with smaller ($500mm-$3Bn) market capitalizations.
We hope you enjoy the episode.
Sponsor Info:
Daloopa is founded by a former hedge fund analyst to bring simplicity into the investment process. Daloopa offers an AI driven single source for all company reported data, and allows for investment teams to make the most informed decisions in the shortest amount of time.
Daloopa scales the velocity of an investment team’s idea gen. Analysts spend less time locating and manually inputting meaningful disclosures into Excel and more time synthesizing in the minutes after the print. Daloopa captures data from all company reported sources, including from footnotes, MD&As, and investor presentations.
Daloopa's data sheets include GAAP to non-GAAP adjustments, guidance, and all company specific KPIs. Each datapoint is auditable to the source for easy verification and accuracy. Daloopa’s Excel plugin can also update your existing models for the latest quarter in just a single click.
Bulge-bracket banks and major multi-managers are trusting Daloopa for use in initiating coverage, building and maintaining industry dashboards, and keeping their models up to date.
Visit Daloopa.com/BusinessBrew to create a free account and learn more about how Daloopa can help increase your team’s speed to differentiated insight.
Hedda Nadler, co-founder of Mount & Nadler, stops by The Business Brew to discuss her career as one of the leading marketing practitioners serving professional money managers. Mount & Nadler represents a broad range of clientele in the financial and investment spheres, with an emphasis on investment companies and money managers. This conversation gives the perspective of one of the people behind the scenes of finance.
Under Hedda's direction, Mount & Nadler is known among mutual funds, money managers and the media as a firm that provides excellent and responsive services whether the news is positive or negative. During her 40+ year career, Hedda also has ably handled PR for shareholder activists and lift-outs, as well as crisis counseling. Throughout, she has advised clients sensibly and effectively when dealing with the media.
Sponsor Info:
Daloopa is founded by a former hedge fund analyst to bring simplicity into the investment process. Daloopa offers an AI driven single source for all company reported data, and allows for investment teams to make the most informed decisions in the shortest amount of time.
Daloopa scales the velocity of an investment team’s idea gen. Analysts spend less time locating and manually inputting meaningful disclosures into Excel and more time synthesizing in the minutes after the print. Daloopa captures data from all company reported sources, including from footnotes, MD&As, and investor presentations.
Daloopa's data sheets include GAAP to non-GAAP adjustments, guidance, and all company specific KPIs. Each datapoint is auditable to the source for easy verification and accuracy. Daloopa’s Excel plugin can also update your existing models for the latest quarter in just a single click.
Bulge-bracket banks and major multi-managers are trusting Daloopa for use in initiating coverage, building and maintaining industry dashboards, and keeping their models up to date.
Visit Daloopa.com/BusinessBrew to create a free account and learn more about how Daloopa can help increase your team’s speed to differentiated insight.
Wes Gray, the Alpha Architect himself, stops by the Business Brew to discuss how he (a) created the ETF $BOXX, (b) helps people start their own ETFs, (c) why value and momentum work as factors, and much more.
This episode is a quick release after Corey Hoffstein's. It may or may not be the only episode we release for the next 13 days or so.
The release cadence is influenced by the amount of press BOXX has been getting. We hope to add to your understanding. As always, do your due diligence!
Sponsor Info:
Daloopa is founded by a former hedge fund analyst to bring simplicity into the investment process. Daloopa offers an AI driven single source for all company reported data, and allows for investment teams to make the most informed decisions in the shortest amount of time.
Daloopa scales the velocity of an investment team’s idea gen. Analysts spend less time locating and manually inputting meaningful disclosures into Excel and more time synthesizing in the minutes after the print. Daloopa captures data from all company reported sources, including from footnotes, MD&As, and investor presentations.
Daloopa's data sheets include GAAP to non-GAAP adjustments, guidance, and all company specific KPIs. Each datapoint is auditable to the source for easy verification and accuracy. Daloopa’s Excel plugin can also update your existing models for the latest quarter in just a single click.
Bulge-bracket banks and major multi-managers are trusting Daloopa for use in initiating coverage, building and maintaining industry dashboards, and keeping their models up to date.
Visit Daloopa.com/BusinessBrew to create a free account and learn more about how Daloopa can help increase your team’s speed to differentiated insight.
Corey Hoffstein, Founder and CEO of Returned Stacked Portfolio Solutions, stops by to discuss how he uses ETFs to leverage his investing assets. Corey and Bill discuss a concept that is not novel to institutional investors, but may benefit individuals today because of ETF innovations. Bill wanted to discuss how Corey came up with his idea, how he executes his idea, and what risks his strategy might have.
You can find more information at Return Stacked Portfolio Solutions.
Sponsor Info:
Daloopa is founded by a former hedge fund analyst to bring simplicity into the investment process. Daloopa offers an AI driven single source for all company reported data, and allows for investment teams to make the most informed decisions in the shortest amount of time.
Daloopa scales the velocity of an investment team’s idea gen. Analysts spend less time locating and manually inputting meaningful disclosures into Excel and more time synthesizing in the minutes after the print. Daloopa captures data from all company reported sources, including from footnotes, MD&As, and investor presentations.
Daloopa's data sheets include GAAP to non-GAAP adjustments, guidance, and all company specific KPIs. Each datapoint is auditable to the source for easy verification and accuracy. Daloopa’s Excel plugin can also update your existing models for the latest quarter in just a single click.
Bulge-bracket banks and major multi-managers are trusting Daloopa for use in initiating coverage, building and maintaining industry dashboards, and keeping their models up to date.
Visit Daloopa.com/BusinessBrew to create a free account and learn more about how Daloopa can help increase your team’s speed to differentiated insight.
Will Thomson of Massif Capital returns for his annual appearance. In this episode he teaches about the lithium and copper markets. The end of the episode is more general and worth hanging around for.
You can find Massif Cap's letters here. The Q4 letter discusses lithium on Page 7. Whole letter is worth a read.
Sponsor Info:
Daloopa is founded by a former hedge fund analyst to bring simplicity into the investment process. Daloopa offers an AI driven single source for all company reported data, and allows for investment teams to make the most informed decisions in the shortest amount of time.
Daloopa scales the velocity of an investment team’s idea gen. Analysts spend less time locating and manually inputting meaningful disclosures into Excel and more time synthesizing in the minutes after the print. Daloopa captures data from all company reported sources, including from footnotes, MD&As, and investor presentations.
Daloopa's data sheets include GAAP to non-GAAP adjustments, guidance, and all company specific KPIs. Each datapoint is auditable to the source for easy verification and accuracy. Daloopa’s Excel plugin can also update your existing models for the latest quarter in just a single click.
Bulge-bracket banks and major multi-managers are trusting Daloopa for use in initiating coverage, building and maintaining industry dashboards, and keeping their models up to date.
Visit Daloopa.com/BusinessBrew to create a free account and learn more about how Daloopa can help increase your team’s speed to differentiated insight.
Devin Martin, recommended by the one and only Tom Morgan, stops by the show to discuss how he helps high performing individuals hone in on what they truly want out of life. Devin primarily works with successful people who want to achieve something more/different.
In this episode we discuss his methodology. There is some discussion of ayahuasca and psychedelics so be prepared (shout out to one of the best songs in The Lion King).
As always, we hope you enjoy the show! Big shoutout to Daloopa for sponsoring the show.
Sponsor Info:
Daloopa is founded by a former hedge fund analyst to bring simplicity into the investment process. Daloopa offers an AI driven single source for all company reported data, and allows for investment teams to make the most informed decisions in the shortest amount of time.
Daloopa scales the velocity of an investment team’s idea gen. Analysts spend less time locating and manually inputting meaningful disclosures into Excel and more time synthesizing in the minutes after the print. Daloopa captures data from all company reported sources, including from footnotes, MD&As, and investor presentations.
Daloopa's data sheets include GAAP to non-GAAP adjustments, guidance, and all company specific KPIs. Each datapoint is auditable to the source for easy verification and accuracy. Daloopa’s Excel plugin can also update your existing models for the latest quarter in just a single click.
Bulge-bracket banks and major multi-managers are trusting Daloopa for use in initiating coverage, building and maintaining industry dashboards, and keeping their models up to date.
Visit Daloopa.com/BusinessBrew to create a free account and learn more about how Daloopa can help increase your team’s speed to differentiated insight.
Andrew Walker, friend of the pod, returns to discuss some of his reflections following the Spirit merger ruling going against him. Bill pinged Andrew following the ruling and asked whether he would want to come back on the podcast to discuss the pros and cons of publicly liking a stock idea that does not work out. For those that listened to the episode a few weeks ago, or remember Bill's Qurate days, you may glean a little more insight into why the Spirit merger caused Bill to think so much.
The episode then goes on to discuss Calumet Specialty Products Partners. You can go back to last week's episode for a SAF primer. And you can also subscribe to https://yetanothervaluepodcast.substack.com/ to find Andrew's research on that company.
As always, we hope you enjoy the show.
Sponsor Info:
Daloopa is founded by a former hedge fund analyst to bring simplicity into the investment process. Daloopa offers an AI driven single source for all company reported data, and allows for investment teams to make the most informed decisions in the shortest amount of time. Daloopa scales the velocity of an investment team’s idea gen. Analysts spend less time locating and manually inputting meaningful disclosures into Excel and more time synthesizing in the minutes after the print. Daloopa captures data from all company reported sources, including from footnotes, MD&As, and investor presentations. Our data sheets include GAAP to non-GAAP adjustments, guidance, and all company specific KPIs. Each datapoint is auditable to the source for easy verification and accuracy. Daloopa’s Excel plugin can also update your existing models for the latest quarter in just a single click.
Bulge-bracket banks and major multi-managers are trusting Daloopa for use in initiating coverage, building and maintaining industry dashboards, and keeping their models up to date.
Visit Daloopa.com/BusinessBrew to create a free account and learn more about how Daloopa can help increase your team’s speed to differentiated insight.
Detailed Show Notes
2:16 - That hot hot song
3:00 - Andrew's reflections on Spirit
15:40 - Bill's Qurate experience
18:00 - The double edged sword of being public
22:00 - What is the duty to vet guests?
24:50 - Binary bets vs. slow bleed bets
29:45 Being aware of being on tilt
32:00 - Calumet Specialty Products discussion
Kyle Mowery, Founder and Portfolio Manager at Grizzly Rock Captial, LLC, stops by the Business Brew to teach the audience about sustainable air fuel. Bill deviates the conversation a bit to renewable diesel at times, but SAF is the primary topic.
SAF is a potentially interesting investment topic because it is the only known way to decarbonize air travel. Importantly, there appears to be a shortage in the near term.
Companies discussed include Darling (DAR), Calumet (CLMT), LanzaJet (LNZA) and more. Here is a link to one of Darling's early investor presentations about Diamond Green Diesel: https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/916540/000119312511081529/dex991.htm
Sponsor Info:
Daloopa is founded by a former hedge fund analyst to bring simplicity into the investment process. Daloopa offers an AI driven single source for all company reported data, and allows for investment teams to make the most informed decisions in the shortest amount of time. Daloopa scales the velocity of an investment team’s idea gen. Analysts spend less time locating and manually inputting meaningful disclosures into Excel and more time synthesizing in the minutes after the print. Daloopa captures data from all company reported sources, including from footnotes, MD&As, and investor presentations. Our data sheets include GAAP to non-GAAP adjustments, guidance, and all company specific KPIs. Each datapoint is auditable to the source for easy verification and accuracy. Daloopa’s Excel plugin can also update your existing models for the latest quarter in just a single click.
Bulge-bracket banks and major multi-managers are trusting Daloopa for use in initiating coverage, building and maintaining industry dashboards, and keeping their models up to date.
Visit Daloopa.com/BusinessBrew to create a free account and learn more about how Daloopa can help increase your team’s speed to differentiated insight.
This is a brief message from Bill. Sent in the spirit of communication with the fans. After listening to it, it's about 85-90% accurate with some incomplete thoughts and some things that could have been said differently. But, the overall message and general feeling is accurate-ish.
Looking forward to dropping an episode next week.
Like, subscribe and rate. Please and thank you!
Todd Schwartz, Founder, CEO and Executive Chairman of OppFi, stops by The Business Brew to discuss how he expands credit access. OppFi was featured on this program when it was going public via SPAC. The company did not perform to expectations once it was public and Todd reengaged in order to right the ship.
This episode is about OppFi and Todd, but it is also about usury laws and policy. It is a company that has made Bill think a lot. We hope you find the conversation interesting.
Disclaimers: Bill owns an immaterial amount of warrants in the company. But, better to err on the side of disclosure.
Sponsor Info: Daloopa is founded by a former hedge fund analyst to bring simplicity into the investment process. Daloopa offers an AI driven single source for all company reported data, and allows for investment teams tomake the most informed decisions in the shortest amount of time. Daloopa scales the velocity of an investment team’s idea gen. Analysts spend less time locating and manually inputting meaningful disclosures into Excel and more time synthesizingin the minutes after the print.
Daloopa captures data from all company reported sources, including from footnotes, MD&As, and investor presentations. Our data sheets include GAAP to non-GAAP adjustments, guidance, and all company specific KPIs. Each datapoint is auditable to the source for easy verification and accuracy.
Daloopa’s Excel plugin can also update your existing models for the latest quarter in just a single click. Bulge-bracket banks and major multi-managers are trusting Daloopa for use in initiating coverage, building and maintaining industry dashboards, and keeping their models up to date.
Visit Daloopa to create a free account and learn more about how Daloopa can help increase your team’s speed to differentiated insight.
Ben Jenkins, President and Chief Investment Officer at Digital Bridge Group Inc, stops by The Business Brew to have a discussion about professional development, mentorship, and investing in digital infrastructure. Digital Bridge (NYSE: DBRG) is a leading global alternative asset manager dedicated to investing in digital infrastructure. The firm has $75Bn of assets under management, 30+ portfolio companies, and over 100 digital infrastructure professionals (see https://ir.digitalbridge.com/static-files/0a038853-b7a3-43c0-93d3-c509ef638005).
Ben's official bio reads as follows:
Ben Jenkins is President and Chief Investment Officer at DigitalBridge. Mr. Jenkins is also the Co-Founder of Digital Bridge Holdings and the former Chairman of Global Tower Partners.
Prior to forming Digital Bridge Holdings, Mr. Jenkins was a Senior Managing Director and head of the Hong Kong office for The Blackstone Group. During his 12 years at Blackstone, Mr. Jenkins led over a dozen private equity investments (including Global Tower Partners) across a range of industries and geographies, including telecommunications deals in developed and emerging markets.
Prior to joining Blackstone, Mr. Jenkins was an associate at Saunders, Karp and Megrue (now Apax) and a financial analyst at Morgan Stanley.
Mr. Jenkins received a Bachelor of Arts with honors from Stanford University and an MBA with distinction from Harvard Business School.
Disclaimer: Bill is long Digital Bridge and has been since 2020. This is a long term hold for him.
Sponsor Info: Daloopa is founded by a former hedge fund analyst to bring simplicity into the investment process. Daloopa offers an AI driven single source for all company reported data, and allows for investment teams tomake the most informed decisions in the shortest amount of time. Daloopa scales the velocity of an investment team’s idea gen. Analysts spend less time locating and manually inputting meaningful disclosures into Excel and more time synthesizingin the minutes after the print.
Daloopa captures data from all company reported sources, including from footnotes, MD&As, and investor presentations. Our data sheets include GAAP to non-GAAP adjustments, guidance, and all company specific KPIs. Each datapoint is auditable to the source for easy verification and accuracy.
Daloopa’s Excel plugin can also update your existing models for the latest quarter in just a single click. Bulge-bracket banks and major multi-managers are trusting Daloopa for use in initiating coverage, building and maintaining industry dashboards, and keeping their models up to date.
Visit Daloopa to create a free account and learn more about how Daloopa can help increase your team’s speed to differentiated insight.
Craig Moffett has covered the telecommunications industry – first as a management consultant and later as a Wall Street analyst – for more than thirty years. He has been elected to Institutional Investor Magazine’s All-American Research Team in the U.S. Telecom and/or Cable & Satellite sectors on seventeen separate occasions, including nine separate appearances as the #1 analyst in America in either U.S. Telecom and/or Cable & Satellite.
Craig returns to The Business Brew to give an update on his analysis of the US telecommunications ecosystem. Craig is Co-Founder of MoffettNathanson (see https://www.moffettnathanson.com/), a research driven firm that focuses on sound analysis as opposed to the incentives that drive much of Wall Street Sell Side coverage. Craig’s most divergent view is that cable companies may end up with an cost advantaged wireless business when compared Verzion, AT&T, and T Mobile’s business. This is in large part because of postalized rates, which you will learn about in this episode. We hope you enjoy this conversation.
Please see https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/william-brewster1/episodes/Craig-Moffett---A-True-Expert-e1qqks6/a-a8sd2uv for our conversation in November 2022.
For disclaimers - Bill held both Charter and Liberty Broadbandshares until recently. He sold after Charter’s most recent earnings report. Bill has talked a lot about cable and felt like he needed to sell in order to be rational about the cable thesis. We hope this conversation is as unbiased as possible.
A request from The Business Brew – PLEASE fill out the survey on Spotify (assuming you listen there) to indicate whether you arean institutional or retail investor. The survey results will help this podcast immensely in sponsorship negotiations.
Sponsor Info: Daloopa is founded by a former hedge fund analyst to bring simplicity into the investment process. Daloopa offers an AI driven single source for all company reported data, and allows for investment teams tomake the most informed decisions in the shortest amount of time. Daloopa scales the velocity of an investment team’s idea gen. Analysts spend less time locating and manually inputting meaningful disclosures into Excel and more time synthesizingin the minutes after the print.
Daloopa captures data from all company reported sources, including from footnotes, MD&As, and investor presentations. Our data sheets include GAAP to non-GAAP adjustments, guidance, and all company specific KPIs. Each datapoint is auditable to the source for easy verification and accuracy.
Daloopa’s Excel plugin can also update your existing models for the latest quarter in just a single click. Bulge-bracket banks and major multi-managers are trusting Daloopa for use in initiating coverage, building and maintaining industry dashboards, and keeping their models up to date.
Visit Daloopa to create a free account and learn more about how Daloopa can help increase your team’s speed to differentiated insight.
Bill Chen, Managing Director at Rhizome Partners, stops by The Business Brew to share his thoughts on why publicly traded REITs are an attractive opportunity. Rhizome Partners is a private partnership targeting deep-value investments with a large margin of safety. In this episode Bill lays out his argument for why publicly traded REITs qualify for consideration now.
We hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving with your family. Hopefully this provides some less controversial dinner table discussion!
As always, nothing in this show is investment advice. This show is for entertainment and educational purposes only. Please consult your financial advisor before making investment decisions. And do your own due diligence!!
Andrew McAfee (@amcafee) stops by The Business Brew to discuss his new book The Geek Wayhttps://www.amazon.com/Geek-Way-Radical-Mindset-Extraordinary/dp/B0C1DQW5FC/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=Andrew+McAfee&qid=1700075448&s=audible&sr=1-1
Andrew is a Principal Research Scientist at the MIT Sloan School of Management, co-founder and co-director of MIT’s Initiative on the Digital Economy, and the inaugural Visiting Fellow at the Technology and Society organization at Google. He studies how technological progress changes the world. His previous books includeMore from Less and, with Erik Brynjolfsson, The Second Machine Age.
McAfee has written for publications including Foreign Affairs, Harvard Business Review, The Economist, The Wall Street Journal, and The New York Times. He's talked about his work on CNN and 60 Minutes, at the World Economic Forum, TED, and the Aspen Ideas Festival, with Tom Friedman and Fareed Zakaria, and in front of many international and domestic audiences. He’s also advised many of the world’s largest corporations and organizations ranging from the IMF to the Boston Red Sox to the US Intelligence Community.
McAfee and his frequent coauthor Erik Brynjolfsson are only people named to both the Thinkers50 list of the world’s top management thinkers and the Politico 50 group of people transforming American politics.
Jeremy Raper returns to The Business Brew to discuss what he has been up to lately. Jeremy is currently focused on smaller situations and being the catalyst for value realization. We hope this episode is entertaining and informative. We also implore you to do your own research and due diligence.
His bio can be found at https://rapercapital.com. He describes himself as follows:
Australian born and raised, I majored in History at Harvard University (Class of ’08). I have 12+ years of buy- and sell-side experience in a variety of roles, and currently manage my personal account full-time. I tend to view the equity markets through a credit analyst’s lens (‘thinking like a creditor rather than an owner’); I try to consider the whole capital structure of an enterprise when I invest; and I believe sustainable free cash flow is the primary foundation of business value. I have little interest in purported growth stocks (unless on the short side if there is a balance sheet/restructuring angle).
Keith Smith stops by The Business Brew to discuss BDCs, auto dealers, and other ideas he has been looking at. Keith has been looking in areas that are less well covered. Keith has over 20 years of business valuation experience as well as being trained as an engineer. In addition to managing the Bonhoeffer Fund’s portfolio, Keith serves as an advisor to Willow Oak Asset Management. He is a CFA charterholder and received his MBA from UCLA. He has held positions with Empire Valuation Consultants, PwC, Management Consulting & Research, and served as a captain in the U.S. Air Force.We hope the episode expands your thinking a bit.
Ryan O'Connor of Crossroads Capital stops by The Business Brew to discuss Nintendo, inflection investing, and much more.
You can find his piece on Google's potential antitrust risk here: https://assets.website-files.com/5fdcb736a43f592037fbd4b4/64f927a7f3a8d64b1a40ac64_21st%20Century%20Trust%20Busting%20and%20Tail%20Risks.pdf
Check this out as well! https://twitter.com/aboveavgodds/status/1701620751210607072?s=46
Sponsor Info:
Daloopa is founded by a former hedge fund analyst to bring simplicity into the investment process. Daloopa offers an AI driven single source for all company reported data, and allows for investment teams to ake the most informed decisions in the shortest amount of time. Daloopa scales the velocity of an investment team’s idea gen. Analysts spend less time locating and manually inputting meaningful disclosures into Excel and more time synthesizing in the minutes after the print. Daloopa captures data from all company reported sources, including from footnotes, MD&As, and investor presentations. Our data sheets include GAAP to non-GAAP adjustments, guidance, and all company specific KPIs. Each datapoint is auditable to the source for easy verification and accuracy. Daloopa’s Excel plugin can also update your existing models for the latest quarter in just a single click.
Bulge-bracket banks and major multi-managers are trusting Daloopa for use in initiating coverage, building and maintaining industry dashboards, and keeping their models up to date.
Visit Daloopa.com/BusinessBrew to create a free account and learn more about how Daloopa can help increase your team’s speed to differentiated insight.
This isn't a typical episode, but it's an important one. We hope it leads to some important discussions.
Peter Mantas of Logos LP, https://www.logoslp.com/, stops by The Business Brew to discuss the state of the life sciences industry. Life sciences is an industry that has produced many stocks that generated abnormal returns. We hope to unpack some of the reasons behind those returns in this discussion. For more information on how Peter invests, please see https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/peter-mantas-logos-lp-portfolio-construction-biotechs/id1492171651?i=1000537962817 on Apple or https://open.spotify.com/episode/6r003LhN4REFSxYxogPWXH?si=7ApTcSdmRzepl5oW44friw on Spotify.
Sponsor Info:
Daloopa is founded by a former hedge fund analyst to bring simplicity into the investment process. Daloopa offers an AI driven single source for all company reported data, and allows for investment teams to ake the most informed decisions in the shortest amount of time. Daloopa scales the velocity of an investment team’s idea gen. Analysts spend less time locating and manually inputting meaningful disclosures into Excel and more time synthesizing in the minutes after the print. Daloopa captures data from all company reported sources, including from footnotes, MD&As, and investor presentations. Our data sheets include GAAP to non-GAAP adjustments, guidance, and all company specific KPIs. Each datapoint is auditable to the source for easy verification and accuracy. Daloopa’s Excel plugin can also update your existing models for the latest quarter in just a single click.
Bulge-bracket banks and major multi-managers are trusting Daloopa for use in initiating coverage, building and maintaining industry dashboards, and keeping their models up to date.
Visit Daloopa.com/BusinessBrew to create a free account and learn more about how Daloopa can help increase your team’s speed to differentiated insight.
Thank you to all the fans. Looking forward to being back and putting some good content in your ears.
Andrew Walker, author of Yet Another Value Blog, host of Yet Another Value Podcast, stops by The Business Brew to chat. Andrew hosts one of the best financial podcasts out there, and is a great writer. We both hope you enjoy this conversation!
Sponsor Info:
Daloopa is founded by a former hedge fund analyst to bring simplicity into the investment process. Daloopa offers an AI driven single source for all company reported data, and allows for investment teams to ake the most informed decisions in the shortest amount of time. Daloopa scales the velocity of an investment team’s idea gen. Analysts spend less time locating and manually inputting meaningful disclosures into Excel and more time synthesizing in the minutes after the print. Daloopa captures data from all company reported sources, including from footnotes, MD&As, and investor presentations. Our data sheets include GAAP to non-GAAP adjustments, guidance, and all company specific KPIs. Each datapoint is auditable to the source for easy verification and accuracy. Daloopa’s Excel plugin can also update your existing models for the latest quarter in just a single click.
Bulge-bracket banks and major multi-managers are trusting Daloopa for use in initiating coverage, building and maintaining industry dashboards, and keeping their models up to date.
Visit Daloopa.com/BusinessBrew to create a free account and learn more about how Daloopa can help increase your team’s speed to differentiated insight.
Detailed Show Notes Forthcoming
Charles Frischer and Asheef Lalani stop by The Business Brew to discuss why they like Fairfax as an investment. Quick reminder to do your own work!!!
Asheef Lalani as an independent director to the board of Sailfish Royalty Corp. Mr. Lalani graduated from the University of Waterloo with a Bachelor of Mathematics and Masters of Accounting, earned the CA/CPA designation in 2002 and is a CFA charterholder since 2003. Asheef first started his career with PricewaterhouseCoopers in 1998 and went on to become a portfolio manager at UBS Securities. Currently, Mr. Lalani is the Chief Investment Officer at Berczy Park Capital – a private family office in Toronto, Canada.
Charles Frischer is General Partner of LFF Partners, a family office based in Seattle. Mr. Frischer was a multi-family loan underwriter and originator at Capri Capital for 10 years. As a Principal at Zephyr for 4 years, he was responsible for the asset management of more than 5,000 multi-family units and all related financings of the portfolio. Frischer sits on the Board of Kingsway Financial and Altisource Asset Management. He attended his first Berkshire annual meeting in 1998, his first Market annual meeting in 1999 and his first Fairfax annual meeting in 2010. He holds an B.A. in Government from the College of Arts and Sciences from Cornell University.
Sponsor Info:
Daloopa is founded by a former hedge fund analyst to bring simplicity into the investment process. Daloopa offers an AI driven single source for all company reported data, and allows for investment teams to ake the most informed decisions in the shortest amount of time. Daloopa scales the velocity of an investment team’s idea gen. Analysts spend less time locating and manually inputting meaningful disclosures into Excel and more time synthesizing in the minutes after the print. Daloopa captures data from all company reported sources, including from footnotes, MD&As, and investor presentations. Our data sheets include GAAP to non-GAAP adjustments, guidance, and all company specific KPIs. Each datapoint is auditable to the source for easy verification and accuracy. Daloopa’s Excel plugin can also update your existing models for the latest quarter in just a single click.
Bulge-bracket banks and major multi-managers are trusting Daloopa for use in initiating coverage, building and maintaining industry dashboards, and keeping their models up to date.
Visit Daloopa.com/BusinessBrew to create a free account and learn more about how Daloopa can help increase your team’s speed to differentiated insight.
Detailed Show Notes
4:24 - Backgrounds
9:01 - Fairfax gets interesting in Asheef's mind
11:43 - Pushback to the thesis
13:00 - Does Fairfax underwrite well?
17:00 - Why insurance companies shouldn't under reserve
25:00 - How good is Fairfax at investing in equities?
30:00 - The potential upside India brings to Fairfax
34:20 - Fairfax India background
42:55 - What people might not like about Fairfax India
45:40 - Fairfax's advantages
56:40 - What is the catalyst here?
62:00 - Does this pitch even need a catalyst?
64:00 - What does a bad outcome look like?
Arvind Sanger stops by The Business Brew to discuss his views on the world's sustainable energy transition. Mr. Sanger has a ton of experience and is a wealth of knowledge. He is the founder of Geosphere Capital, a global long-short fund manager currently investing in natural resources, new energy and Indian equities. Prior to that, between 2002 and 2007, Mr. Sanger was a Portfolio Manager at SAC Capital (his portfolio grew very quickly), running one of the largest equity portfolios and managing a global team based in New York and Singapore. Prior to his tenure at SAC, Mr. Sanger had a 15-year career as a top-ranked sell-side oil services & equipment analyst at a number of firms, including Deutsche Bank, DLJ and Kidder Peabody among others. Mr. Sanger graduated from the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, with a B.Tech in 1984 and received his MBA from Tulane University in 1987. Mr. Sanger is on the board of the Alexander Hamilton Society, Pratham USA and Pratham Educational Foundation in India.
Sponsor Info:
Daloopa is founded by a former hedge fund analyst to bring simplicity into the investment process. Daloopa offers an AI driven single source for all company reported data, and allows for investment teams to ake the most informed decisions in the shortest amount of time. Daloopa scales the velocity of an investment team’s idea gen. Analysts spend less time locating and manually inputting meaningful disclosures into Excel and more time synthesizing in the minutes after the print. Daloopa captures data from all company reported sources, including from footnotes, MD&As, and investor presentations. Our data sheets include GAAP to non-GAAP adjustments, guidance, and all company specific KPIs. Each datapoint is auditable to the source for easy verification and accuracy. Daloopa’s Excel plugin can also update your existing models for the latest quarter in just a single click.
Bulge-bracket banks and major multi-managers are trusting Daloopa for use in initiating coverage, building and maintaining industry dashboards, and keeping their models up to date.
Visit Daloopa.com/BusinessBrew to create a free account and learn more about how Daloopa can help increase your team’s speed to differentiated insight.
Detailed Show Notes forthcoming.
Derek Pilecki stops by The Business Brew to discuss Financials. Derek is a Financials specialist with a track record that speaks for itself. See https://gatorcapital.com/ for more information.
Derek currently manages a long/short financials strategy, long-only financials strategy, and various other individual portfolios. He has managed a private fund for 11 years. He also launched one mutual fund and took over management of another mutual fund.
From 2002 through 2008, Derek was a member of the Goldman Sachs Asset Management (GSAM) Growth Equity Team (Co-Chair of the Investment Committee for the Growth Team and a Portfolio Manager).
Prior to GSAM, Derek was an Analyst at Clover Capital Management in Rochester, NY and Burridge Growth Partners in Chicago, IL. He covered the Financials sector at both firms. Before entering graduate school, Derek worked at Fannie Mae providing interest rate risk analysis for the company’s mortgage investment portfolio.
Derek holds an MBA with honors in Finance and Accounting from the University of Chicago and a BA in Economics from Duke University. He is also a CFA® charterholder.
Sponsor Info:
Daloopa is founded by a former hedge fund analyst to bring simplicity into the investment process. Daloopa offers an AI driven single source for all company reported data, and allows for investment teams to ake the most informed decisions in the shortest amount of time. Daloopa scales the velocity of an investment team’s idea gen. Analysts spend less time locating and manually inputting meaningful disclosures into Excel and more time synthesizing in the minutes after the print. Daloopa captures data from all company reported sources, including from footnotes, MD&As, and investor presentations. Our data sheets include GAAP to non-GAAP adjustments, guidance, and all company specific KPIs. Each datapoint is auditable to the source for easy verification and accuracy. Daloopa’s Excel plugin can also update your existing models for the latest quarter in just a single click.
Bulge-bracket banks and major multi-managers are trusting Daloopa for use in initiating coverage, building and maintaining industry dashboards, and keeping their models up to date.
Visit Daloopa.com/BusinessBrew to create a free account and learn more about how Daloopa can help increase your team’s speed to differentiated insight.
Detailed Show Notes:
3:38 – Derek’s background
6:54: - How Derek defines Financials
7:12 – Thoughts about Silicon Valley Bank
13:08 – Was it rational for regulators to ignore mark to market losses?
21:03 – What is going on with office and how big of a deal is this going to be?
25:08 – Is there an opportunity in regional banks?
29:45 – Mortgage REIT preferreds
33:15 – How much of a Financials analyst’s job is focusing on the consumer and macro?
36:35 – A discussion about First Republic’s failure
41:45 – Thinking about constructing a long/short portfolio within a sector
44:45 – Why Genworth, why now?
50:55 – Puerto Rican banks and the potential for regional oligopolies
54:10 – How building a business can impact investment outcomes
57:30 – Why does Derek run a mutual fund today?
1:05:10 – How to think about Banking as a Service and have traditional banks given up too much contact with the customer?
1:09:35 – Outlook for alt managers
ValueStockGeek (“VSG”) stops by The Business Brew to discuss his evolution as an investor. VSG can be found on Twitter at @valuestockgeek, his portfolio can be found at https://portfoliocharts.com/portfolio/weird-portfolio/, and his blog is at https://www.securityanalysis.org/
We hope you enjoy the conversation.
The Business Brew will be off for a few weeks after this episode. We shall return.
Sponsor Info:
Daloopa is founded by a former hedge fund analyst to bring simplicity into the investment process. Daloopa offers an AI driven single source for all company reported data, and allows for investment teams to make the most informed decisions in the shortest amount of time. Daloopa scales the velocity of an investment team’s idea gen. Analysts spend less time locating and manually inputting meaningful disclosures into Excel and more time synthesizing in the minutes after the print. Daloopa captures data from all company reported sources, including from footnotes, MD&As, and investor presentations. Our data sheets include GAAP to non-GAAP adjustments, guidance, and all company specific KPIs. Each datapoint is auditable to the source for easy verification and accuracy. Daloopa’s Excel plugin can also update your existing models for the latest quarter in just a single click. Bulge-bracket banks and major multi-managers are trusting Daloopa for use in initiating coverage, building and maintaining industry dashboards, and keeping their models up to date.
Visit Daloopa.com/BusinessBrew to create a free account and learn more about how Daloopa can help increase your team’s speed to differentiated insight.
Detailed Show Notes
4:40 – VSG’s Background
12:00 – Is value a macro bet?
17:00 – Are computers better suited to exploit the value factor than humans?
24:30 – Thoughts on dividends and whether they mitigate some bad management incentives
30:00 – Are quants bound to win and will computers take over the world?
32:22 – What VSG’s goals are for his substack
40:00 – The realization that “high multiple” doesn’t necessarily mean overpriced
43:45 – A potential blindspot that “value” might create
47:00 – Asset allocation discussion
54:00 – How Bill and VSG got into investing and some thoughts on trading
1:00:00 – The types of companies VSG owns
1:09:00 – Shareholder base characteristics
Ian Bezek stops by The Business Brew to discuss his thesis on why emerging markets, specifically Colombia and Mexico, might be extraordinary value today. Ian is best known for his investment writing, which supports his day to day life.
His primary focus is Latin America. So much so that he moved from New York to Guatemala. He now resides in Colombia, which gives him unique perspective on the political landscape in that country.
Mentioned in the episode:
John Hempton on “averaging down” - http://brontecapital.blogspot.com/2017/01/when-do-you-average-down.html
Ian’s Twitter account - @irbezek
Ian’s Seeking Alpha Page - https://seekingalpha.com/author/ian-bezek
Sponsor Info:
Daloopa is founded by a former hedge fund analyst to bring simplicity into the investment process. Daloopa offers an AI driven single source for all company reported data, and allows for investment teams to make the most informed decisions in the shortest amount of time. Daloopa scales the velocity of an investment team’s idea gen. Analysts spend less time locating and manually inputting meaningful disclosures into Excel and more time synthesizing in the minutes after the print. Daloopa captures data from all company reported sources, including from footnotes, MD&As, and investor presentations. Our data sheets include GAAP to non-GAAP adjustments, guidance, and all company specific KPIs. Each datapoint is auditable to the source for easy verification and accuracy. Daloopa’s Excel plugin can also update your existing models for the latest quarter in just a single click. Bulge-bracket banks and major multi-managers are trusting Daloopa for use in initiating coverage, building and maintaining industry dashboards, and keeping their models up to date.
Visit Daloopa.com/BusinessBrew to create a free account and learn more about how Daloopa can help increase your team’s speed to differentiated insight.
Detailed Show Notes
4:40 – Ian’s background
5:23 – Why Ian moved to South America (specifically Guatemala)
11:30 – Are emerging markets inherently lower quality than the US?
13:40 – Why Colombia, why now?
25:40 – How Ian is thinking about specific companies in Colombia
30:30 – What is the Colombian banking market structure?
36:50 – Memories of March 2020
40:20 – Why Ian prefers the airports to the rest of aerospace
46:50 – Thoughts about Mexico as a market
51:50 – Home country bias
58:05 – What Ian’s writing enables for his investments
1:05:50 – In many ways Latin America might be what the US was after WW2
1:10:35 – More discussion on Zoom vs. Qurate
1:16:20 – How Ian and Bill have evolved as investors and then chit chat
Ian Bezek stops by The Business Brew to discuss his thesis on why emerging markets, specifically Colombia and Mexico, might beextraordinary value today. Ian is best known for his investment writing, which supports his day to day life.
His primary focus is Latin America. So much so that he moved from New York to Guatemala. He now resides in Colombia, which gives him unique perspective on the political landscape in that country.
Mentioned in the episode:
John Hempton on “averaging down” - http://brontecapital.blogspot.com/2017/01/when-do-you-average-down.html
Ian’s Twitter account - @irbezek
Ian’s Seeking Alpha Page - https://seekingalpha.com/author/ian-bezek
Sponsor Info:
Daloopa is founded by a former hedge fund analyst to bring simplicity into the investment process. Daloopa offers an AI driven single source for all company reported data, and allows for investment teams to make the most informed decisions in the shortest amount of time. Daloopa scales the velocity of an investment team’s idea gen. Analysts spend less time locating and manually inputting meaningful disclosures into Excel and more time synthesizing in the minutes after the print. Daloopa captures data from all company reported sources, including from footnotes, MD&As, and investor presentations. Our data sheets include GAAP to non-GAAP adjustments, guidance, and all company specific KPIs. Each datapoint is auditable to the source for easy verification and accuracy. Daloopa’s Excel plugin can also update your existing models for the latest quarter in just a single click. Bulge-bracket banks and major multi-managers are trusting Daloopa for use in initiating coverage, building and maintaining industry dashboards, and keeping their models up to date.
Visit Daloopa.com/BusinessBrew to create a free account and learn more about how Daloopa can help increase your team’s speed to differentiated insight.
Detailed Show Notes
4:40 – Ian’s background
5:23 – Why Ian moved to South America (specifically Guatemala)
11:30 – Are emerging markets inherently lower quality than the US?
13:40 – Why Colombia, why now?
25:40 – How Ian is thinking about specific companies in Colombia
30:30 – What is the Colombian banking market structure?
36:50 – Memories of March 2020
40:20 – Why Ian prefers the airports to the rest of aerospace
46:50 – Thoughts about Mexico as a market
51:50 – Home country bias
58:05 – What Ian’s writing enables for his investments
1:05:50 – In many ways Latin America might be what the US was after WW2
1:10:35 – More discussion on Zoom vs. Qurate
1:16:20 – How Ian and Bill have evolved as investors and then chit chat
Braden Dennis, founder of Stratosphere.io, stops by The Business Brew to discuss how he developed the product, running a startup, sales, investing, and much more. The Business Brew is grateful for Stratosphere.io's sponsorship and can unequivocally state that this episode would run regardless of the sponsorship. Bill has enjoyed getting to know Braden and the team and wishes them the best.
Detailed Show Notes:
-
5:20 - Braden's background
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8:50 - Your product is useless if you wouldnt actually use it if you weren't the founder
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12:20 - How Braden is using AI in finance
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19:00 - Building FinChat.io
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25:20 - Working through entrepreneurial issues
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33:20 - How Braden invests
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38:30 - Have we learned the wrong lessons over the past 12 lessons?
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45:10 - Some lessons from Bill's losses
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51:10 - The costs of discussing ideas publicly
-
53:20 - Some chit chat about Bill
Meb Faber, CIO and CEO of Cambira Investments returns to The Business Brew. Bill wanted to chat with Meb about the global diversified portfolio and Meb agreed to come on. The conversation also discusses drawdown emotions, the merits of ETS vs mutual funs, Meb's thoughts on marketing, and much more. Meb is a great thinker, entrepreneur, and podcast host. He's also one cool dude.
You can find Meb's writing here.
You can find his podcast on Apple here and on Spotify here.
Other links mentioned:
Ray Dalio Book: Principles for Dealing with a Changing World Order
Bridgewater All Weather Paper.
A Tweet of Meb's about Global stocks ex-US
Recent Jesse Livermore tweet RE: P/Es CAPE, etc
Sponsor Info:
Daloopa is founded by a former hedge fund analyst to bring simplicity into the investment process. Daloopa offers an AI driven single source for all company reported data, and allows for investment teams to make the most informed decisions in the shortest amount of time. Daloopa scales the velocity of an investment team’s idea gen. Analysts spend less time locating and manually inputting meaningful disclosures into Excel and more time synthesizing in the minutes after the print. Daloopa captures data from all company reported sources, including from footnotes, MD&As, and investor presentations. Our data sheets include GAAP to non-GAAP adjustments, guidance, and all company specific KPIs. Each datapoint is auditable to the source for easy verification and accuracy. Daloopa’s Excel plugin can also update your existing models for the latest quarter in just a single click. Bulge-bracket banks and major multi-managers are trusting Daloopa for use in initiating coverage, building and maintaining industry dashboards, and keeping their models up to date.
Visit Daloopa.com/BusinessBrew to create a free account and learn more about how Daloopa can help increase your team’s speed to differentiated insight.
Detailed Show Notes
Conversation starts with Berkshire weekend and Buffett discussion
4:55 – Meb’s take on global diversification
7:50 – The best compliment you can give someone
10:05 – Drawdowns are like a Ricther Scale
14:00 – The single biggest investing myth right now
39:30 – Meb’s thoughts on marketing
45:00 - Sell criteria
47:50 - What you need to launch an ETF
52:00 - Mutual Fund to ETF conversions
55:00 - Tax minimization
58:00 - More cases for foreign stocks
1:03:00 - The merits of private/angel investing
1:07:50 - Why Russia might not be "a zero"
Dave Waters of Alluvial Capital Management, LLC stops by The Business Brew to discuss how he approaches investing. You can find all his letters, partnership info, etc., at https://alluvialcapital.com/
Dave primarily focuses on investments that you probably haven't heard of. He invests in illiquid securities, foreign securities, companies coming out of bankruptcy, and more. His portfolio is as unique as his path to investing.
We hope you enjoy the conversation.
Sponsor Info:
Daloopa is founded by a former hedge fund analyst to bring simplicity into the investment process. Daloopa offers an AI driven single source for all company reported data, and allows for investment teams to make the most informed decisions in the shortest amount of time.
Daloopa scales the velocity of an investment team’s idea gen. Analysts spend less time locating and manually inputting meaningful disclosures into Excel and more time synthesizing in the minutes after the print. Daloopa captures data from all company reported sources, including from footnotes, MD&As, and investor presentations. Our data sheets include GAAP to non-GAAP adjustments, guidance, and all company specific KPIs. Each datapoint is auditable to the source for easy verification and accuracy. Daloopa’s Excel plugin can also update your existing models for the latest quarter in just a single click. Bulge-bracket banks and major multi-managers are trusting Daloopa for use in initiating coverage, building and maintaining industry dashboards, and keeping their models up to date.
Visit Daloopa.com/BusinessBrew to create a free account and learn more about how Daloopa can help increase your team’s speed to differentiated insight.
Detailed Show Notes:
6:45 – Why Dave likes to look at obscure areas of the market
10:30 – When Dave found P10 Holdings
15:30 – Why your threshold for buying needs to be higher in microcap
21:15 – Rebuttable presumptions against microcap companies and the need for cheapness
23:00 – How Dave got interested in Garrett Motion
35:30 – Assessing incentives
41:50 – Community Development Financial Institutions
43:40 – What got Dave interested in investing
54:00 – Are microcaps destined to underperform?
59:30 – Potential risks and rewards around international investing
1:08:00 – Using subsidies to your benefit
1:10:40 – SPV banter
1:19:00 – Where Dave sees himself in 10 years
Josh Clarkson stops by The Business Brew to discuss alternative credit investments. Josh is a managing director at financial communications firm Prosek Partners, stops by The Business Brew to discuss communications, branding and marketing for alternative asset managers and his passion for working with clients in the private credit space. Josh has over a decade advising a wide range of financial sector and corporate clients on matters from corporate narrative building, positioning and profile raising to activism, M&A and contentious restructurings. Currently, he focuses on working with credit-oriented alternative asset managers to help them better compete for capital, deals and talent by better utilizing communications, branding and marketing.
In addition to taking a deep dive on the current private credit landscape and how managers benefit from developing and effectively communicating a differentiated narrative, we also take a trip down memory lane and discuss some of Josh’s prior work in shareholder activism, which, as with many things in Josh’s life, intersects with his interest in private credit.
Josh’s full biography can be found here: https://www.prosek.com/people/joshua-clarkson/ along with more information about Prosek Partners and how they work with leading alternative and traditional asset managers to achieve their business goals.
We hope you enjoy this conversation.
Sponsorship Note
This episode is sponsored by Daloopa. Daloopa is founded by a former hedge fund analyst to bring simplicity into the investment process. Daloopa offers an AI driven single source for all company reported data, and allows for investment teams to make the most informed decisions in the shortest amount of time.
Daloopa scales the velocity of an investment team’s idea gen. Analysts spend less time locating and manually inputting meaningful disclosures into Excel and more time synthesizing in the minutes after the print. Daloopa captures data from all company reported sources, including from footnotes, MD&As, and investor presentations. Our data sheets include GAAP to non-GAAP adjustments, guidance, and all company specific KPIs. Each datapoint is auditable to the source for easy verification and accuracy. Daloopa’s Excel plugin can also update your existing models for the latest quarter in just a single click. Bulge-bracket banks and major multi-managers are trusting Daloopa for use in initiating coverage, building and maintaining industry dashboards, and keeping their models up to date. Visit Daloopa.com/BusinessBrew to create a free account and learn more about how Daloopa can help increase your team’s speed to differentiated insight.
Kritof Gleich, President and CIO of Harbor Capital Advisors, stops by The Business Brew to discuss his views on picking managers. Kristof has over 20 years of investment experience with stints at Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, and BlueCove Asset Management (which Ares purchased a stake in). Harbor Capital Advisors spcializes in partnering with boutique investment managers in an effort to create superior investment outcomes.
Kristof has spent a lot of time developing a “factor framework” for evaluating a managers’ skill. You’ll hear Kristof say that our starting premise/hypothesis is to assume all managers’ historical excess return is due to luck and then look to reject that hypothesis (or not) by using deep analytical rigor. This stems from his physicist background to continue to understand subjects more deeply. Recently Kristof has been overseeing Harbor’s expansion from a factor framework to introducing “behavioral analytics”.
We hope you enjoy this conversation.
Sponsorship Note
This episode is sponsored by Daloopa. Daloopa is founded by a former hedge fund analyst to bring simplicity into the investment process. Daloopa offers an AI driven single source for all company reported data, and allows for investment teams to make the most informed decisions in the shortest amount of time.
Daloopa scales the velocity of an investment team’s idea gen. Analysts spend less time locating and manually inputting meaningful disclosures into Excel and more time synthesizing in the minutes after the print. Daloopa captures data from all company reported sources, including from footnotes, MD&As, and investor presentations. Our data sheets include GAAP to non-GAAP adjustments, guidance, and all company specific KPIs. Each datapoint is auditable to the source for easy verification and accuracy. Daloopa’s Excel plugin can also update your existing models for the latest quarter in just a single click. Bulge-bracket banks and major multi-managers are trusting Daloopa for use in initiating coverage, building and maintaining industry dashboards, and keeping their models up to date. Visit Daloopa.com/BusinessBrew to create a free account and learn more about how Daloopa can help increase your team’s speed to differentiated insight.
Detailed Show Notes
5:52 – Kritof’s background
11:55 – Picking managers that can handle scale
18:55 – What Kristof is doing to transform Harbor
30:10 – A discussion about banks
42:52 – Passive vs ETF and why they might be different
47:40 – Will the 60/40 portfolio do well going forward?
52:40 – A case study about providing an inflation “solution” and some of the complications investors can run into with commodities
1:07:10 – Picking good managers
1:22:05 – Behavioral finance based investing
Mario Cibelli stops by the Business Brew to discuss his views of the world as it exists today. Mr. Cibelli is the CIO and Managing Partner at Marathon Partners Equity Management, LLC. This conversation covers why SMID caps might be an interesting opportunity at the moment, when companies should and should not be public, how Mario does his research, being involved and adding value to management teams, and much more.
Shout out to Stratosphere.io for sponsoring the show. It was a pleasure to pitch your product. Keep up the good work!
Thank you to @mathewpassy and the team at The Podcast Consultant for producing the show.
Detailed Show Notes3:45 - Mario's background
10:45 - Why is today exciting in SMID caps
22:00 - What types of companies "should not be public?"
38:30 - How Mario cracked the code on Netflix vs. Blockbuster back in the day
42:20 - Adding value to management teams
50:30 - Did Zuck start a trend in Silicon Valley?
53:37 - What might be a tough place to invest in over the next 3 years.
57:30 - How Mario thinks about investing in Uber
1:09:10 - How low share prices may end up driving business improvement
1:12:20 - "Your normal is someone else's nightmare"
1:16:40 - Is there opportunity to invest alongside Mario Gabelli?
1:25:10 - Large companies have really big marketcaps. Can they justify those going forward?
1:33:40 - Bechle and tequila
Bill and Dr. Luke Benoit talk about Luke's invention, the RypStick. This is a golf specific episode. Luke Benoit founded RypStick, a product Bill uses and enjoys. RypStick helps golfers add distance to their game and Bill wanted to feature Luke because he respects what Luke created.
Normal episode will be back next week.
Note - This podcast has some advice that may be able to help you think about marketing your firm and/or yourself. Should you need a host, reach out to Bill. Should you need an editor, reach out to Mathew.
Mathew Passy (@mathewpassy on Twitter), founder/owner of The Podcast Consultant stops by The Business Brew to discuss his career, how he started his business and became the person behind your favorite finance podcasts, the podcast industry generally, tips for appearing on podcasts, the business of podcasting, and much more. As you should know by now, Mathew produces this show. The Business Brew, and the listening base, owes him a big thank you for how this podcast sounds.
This episode is sponsored by Stratosphere.io. Stratosphere.io is a web based terminal that has financial data, KPIs, links to filings, hedge fundletters, etc. A key differentiator is Stratosphere.io’s segment data and KPIs, which are triple checked for accuracy. Stratosphere saves users time, enables easy comparisons between companies, and offers company specific metrics such as subscriber counts, numbers of locations, etc.
Head over to Stratosphere.io for a free trial. Should you want to sign up for a paid offering please use the promo code BREW for 15% off.
Detailed Show Notes -
3:52 - How Mathew became The Podcast Consultant
13:30 - Why did the Wall Street Journal kill its first podcast network
22:00 - Starting a business
27:50 - What was the podcast business like in 2019
31:45 - How is the podcasting ecosystem evolving?
39:50 - Different monetization strategies of podcasting
48:15 - How have Mathew's thoughts about podcasting changed?
50:30 - What makes successful podcasters?
54:30 - Some advice Bill thinks is worth thinking about
1:00:00 - Meta dicussion
1:05:00 - Some advice on how to start a podcast
1:11:00 - Podcasts as internal communication
1:13:00 - What do the different hosting services offer?
1:18:30 - Onboarding with The Podcast Consultant
Ian Cassel stops back by The Business Brew to check in. As you may remember, Ian is a full-time microcap investor and founder of MicroCapClub. Ian started investing as a teenager and learned from losing his money over and over again. Today he is a full-time private investor that supports himself and his family by investing in microcaps. He is also the author of two books:
Intelligent Fanatics Project: How Great Leaders Build https://www.amazon.com/Intelligent-Fanatics-Project-Sustainable-Businesses/dp/0997576502/?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_w=7vP7f&content-id=amzn1.sym.22f5776b-4878-4918-9222-7bb79ff649f4&pf_rd_p=22f5776b-4878-4918-9222-7bb79ff649f4&pf_rd_r=140-2211477-9010244&pd_rd_wg=oufjI&pd_rd_r=438a9be9-ba2c-44c0-a800-30367bc020a7&ref_=aufs_ap_sc_dsk
Intelligent Fanatics: Standing On The Shoulders of Giants https://www.amazon.com/Intelligent-Fanatics-Standing-Shoulders-Giants/dp/0997576537/?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_w=7vP7f&content-id=amzn1.sym.22f5776b-4878-4918-9222-7bb79ff649f4&pf_rd_p=22f5776b-4878-4918-9222-7bb79ff649f4&pf_rd_r=140-2211477-9010244&pd_rd_wg=oufjI&pd_rd_r=438a9be9-ba2c-44c0-a800-30367bc020a7&ref_=aufs_ap_sc_dsk
Ian and Bill chatted because there was some noise about small and microcaps being cheap. Then Bill said “Come on the show.” And Ian said “Sure.” And then they had this conversation. And now you are listening. We hope you enjoy!
This episode is sponsored by Stratosphere.io. Stratosphere.io is a web based terminal that has financial data, KPIs, links to filings, hedge fundletters, etc. A key differentiator is Stratosphere.io’s segment data and KPIs, which are triple checked for accuracy. Stratosphere saves users time, enables easy comparisons between companies, and offers company specific metrics such as subscriber counts, numbers of locations, etc.
Head over to Stratosphere.io for a free trial. Should you want to sign up for a paid offering please use the promo code BREW for 15% off.
Thank you to the team at thepodcastconsultant.com for producing the show.
Detailed Show Notes -
2:50 - Staying patient in illiquid ideas
6:28 - The MicrocapClub conference
10:20 - Findings a micro cap worthy of holding
12:03 - Fallen angels vs rising stars
18:50 - Quality vs value
25:50 - What is Ian looking for in investments
28:20 - Look global for microcaps
30:20 - Why it is easier to raise money internationally than in the US
35:50 - SPAC talk
47:50 - Cogstate
1:00:30 - How microcap changed over the past year
1:05:50 - Training LPs, and yourself, to handle volatility
1:06:50 - Why the first discovery is powerful
1:11:30 - How Ian started MicroCapClub
1:13:05 - Some briefy therapy
1:15:30 - Concluding conversation
Devin Anderson, CEO and co-founder of Convexitas, stops by The Business Brew to discuss his firm's approach to risk management via options strategies. In short, Convexitas seeks to exploit structural options mispricing resulting from market participant's biases. What does that mean in plain English? Well, there are people that sell financial yield strategies that involve selling puts and selling covered calls. If enough of the market does that there is a chance the front month option pricing is not high enough. In that case, Convexitas might consider purchasing some of those options.
Why is Devin worth listening to? Before Convexitas, he was at Deutsche Bank for 15 years where he most recently was Managing Director and Head of Solutions in the Americas leading the structuring and sales teams which designed and distributed the risk premia, retail structured product, and the fund derivative businesses. His Deutsche Bank experience also includes covering institutional clients for listed options and OTC derivatives. Prior to the financial services industry, Devin had a previous career in technology where he held both engineering and sales roles at two early stage internet service & datacenter hosting providers, and former search engine Lycos. He holds a Bachelor of Finance from the University of Pittsburgh and an MBA from Carnegie Mellon, where he also guest lectures on options and option market micro-structure.
In short, the guy is smart and you can learn something.
Enjoy the episode. Hope you enjoyed this show note!
This episode is sponsored by Stratosphere.io. Stratosphere.io is a web based terminal that has financial data, KPIs, links to filings, hedge fund letters, etc. A key differentiator is Stratosphere.io’s segment data and KPIs, which are triple checked for accuracy. Stratosphere saves users time, enables easy comparisons between companies, and offers company specific metrics such as subscriber counts, numbers of locations, etc.
Head over to Stratosphere.io for a free trial. Should you want to sign up for a paid offering please use the promo code BREW for 15% off.
Thank you to the team at thepodcastconsultant.com for producing the show.
Detailed Show Notes -
2:00 - Devin's background
6:25 - Convexitas is a very risk focused firm
12:00 - The decision to reduce risk vs. manage risk
15:15 - What Convexitas is very good at
19:40 - Why an options thesis should start with the behavioral biases of the options market
24:50 - An options position should be better than a resized cash position
27:30 - If at any time short options strategies are changing your lifestyle then you should probably do less of it
35:00 - What about options counterparty risk?
37:30 - A discussion of one day options and why they exist (hint: they are a great business for market makers)
41:50 - How was Convexitas started?
45:10 - Does AI help Convexitas and/or is it a risk?
53:00 - It's not actually the risk, but how you manage to the risk
57:40 - The difference between financial products and investment products
1:01:25 - Performance under pressure and mindfulness
Michael Batnick, author of The Irrelevant Investor blog (https://theirrelevantinvestor.com/) and Big Mistakes: The Best Investors and Their Worst Investments (https://www.amazon.com/Big-Mistakes-Investors-Investments-Bloomberg/dp/1119366550) and Co Host of The Compound and Friends (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-compound-and-friends/id1456467014 for Apple and https://open.spotify.com/show/5VKsKPZUtwVylxslLie36k on Spotify) stops by The Business Brew for a quick chat.
In this episode Bill and Michael discuss Michael's book, his early days breaking into finance, his early investing style, and how he looks at the world now. They also touch on some personal chit chat at the end. Please note this episode was recorded before Bill's episode with Tom Gayner. Bill talks about Tom searching for ideas on the 52 Week High list. That part of the conversation is somewhat inaccurate and you should listen to Tom's episode for clarification.
This episode is sponsored by Stratosphere.io. Stratosphere.io is a web based terminal that has financial data, KPIs, links to filings, hedge fund letters, etc. A key differentiator is Stratosphere.io’s segment data and KPIs, which are triple checked for accuracy. Stratosphere saves users time, enables easy comparisons between companies, and offers company specific metrics such as subscriber counts, numbers of locations, etc.
Head over to Stratosphere.io for a free trial. Should you want to sign up for a paid offering please use the promo code BREW for 15% off.Detailed Show Notes
4:50 - Mark Twain as an investor
7:00 Mike's background and building an online presence
13:00 - How Mike got through a bad first job
18:00 - Dealing with emotions while investing
19:00 - How Future Proof started
21:00 - How Mike approaches The Compound and Friends
24:30 - Helping Clients
28:00 - Why people should consider buying stocks that have gone up
35:00 - Stock chit chat
37:00 - Writing Big Mistakes
Dan Zwirn, CEO and CIO of Arena Investors, stops by The Business Brew to discuss his investing strategy. Bill thinks of Dan as a merchant banker.
Arena Investors, LP is a registered investment advisor that originates investments (generally below $50 million) with borrowers and other counterparties who need access to financing and are otherwise not able to access conventional sources.
They have complete mandate flexibility across industry, product, and geography.
Bill enjoyed this conversation very much and hopes you will as well.
Arena's Website: https://www.arenaco.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Arena_Investors_Letter_YE_2022.pdf
Dan's Investor Letter: https://www.arenaco.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Arena_Investors_Letter_YE_2022.pdf
Detailed Show Notes
What Arena does - 1:00
How big money invests at times - 4:00
Process oriented vs. security selection - 7:00
Financial Products vs. Investment Products - 10:50
Why Arena has invested in servicing - 17:00
The incentives to not see what is going on - 19:50
Where are we in a credit/business/fiscal cycle - 22:30
How Arena thinks about opportunity - 30:00
How Arena thinks about LTVs - 36:35
"We are at a casino and there has never been more gamblers" - 41:30
Are defaults bad? - 45:30
Does diversification solve all problems? 50:00
A CLO discussion - 54:20
What is going on with the job market - 1:01:00
Mike and Eli, hosts of Chasing Scratch: A Golf Podcast, join The Business Brew to discuss their podcast, how they monetize podcasts, what they were trying to accomplish when they started podcasting, and, yes, golf.
Bill is a huge fan of the podcast they have put together. Check it out on your favorite podcast player!
Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/chasing-scratch-a-golf-podcast/id1281285953
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2W77oe7Nw7G8RzKkhsMi5E
Tom Gayner stops by The Business Brew to discuss a number of things. You can see the detailed show notes for specifics, below the stratosphere.io sponsor copy. In summation, Bill has wanted to interview Tom for a long time but didn’t know how to make the interview unique. We think this interview covers some topics Tom has not discussed elsewhere.
Please consider attending Markel’s annual meeting. On Wednesday, May 17th, from 9-10:30 the good folks at Robotti and Co. are hosting an investor panel. There will be 8-12 “best ideas” presented. The Markel annual meeting will follow that event. Food, music, and beer will follow the Markel annual meeting.
We hope you enjoy this podcast episode.
This episode is sponsored by Stratosphere.io. Stratosphere.io is a web based terminal that has financial data, KPIs, links to filings, hedge fund letters, etc. A key differentiator is Stratosphere.io’s segment data and KPIs, which are triple checked for accuracy. Stratosphere saves users time, enables easy comparisons between companies, and offers company specific metrics such as subscriber counts, numbers of locations, etc.
Head over to Stratosphere.io for a free trial. Should you want to sign up for a paid offering please use the promo code BREW for 15% off.
Thank you to the team at thepodcastconsultant.com for producing the show.
Detailed Show Notes -
5:00 – The goal of the Markel annual event
7:30 – Tom’s background
9:35 – Blue capital and orange capital
17:05 – Creating dealflow and how long that takes
20:10 – Learning how to delegate
24:55 – What happened with the ILS transactions
33:20 – Searching New Highs and New Lows
38:40 – How investing at Markel does or does not impact Tom’s investing style
34:20 – The intertwining of Berkshire, Markel, and The Davis Funds
43:50 – The importance of relationships
48:40 – The Big Lebowski
49:10 – What traveling to India has taught Tom
56:25 – Decisions in March 2020 and how being at Markel impacted Tom
1:02:20 – How was the transition from Co-CEO to CEO
1:05:40 – How to be a deserving spouse
Book Mention:
The Way We Live Now
https://www.amazon.com/Way-Live-Now-Penguin-Classics/dp/0140433929/ref=asc_df_0140433929/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=475771750252&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=16689022937612321338&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9011844&hvtargid=pla-469518675534&psc=1
Adam Wyden, founder of ADW Capital, stops by The Business Brew to share his investing philosophy, discuss some ideas, and talk about lessons learned. ADW is a concentrated, long biased investment partnership founded in 2010. In this episode Adam cautions against idol worship, talks about how he monitors positions and companies, shares his thoughts on management character, and much more. Bill's favorite line from this episode is "Invest with people that have more to lose than you do."
We hope you enjoy the show.
This episode is sponsored by Stratosphere.io. Stratosphere.io is a web based terminal that has financial data, KPIs, links to filings, hedge fund letters, etc. A key differentiator is Stratosphere.io’s segment data and KPIs, which are triple checked for accuracy. Stratosphere saves users time, enables easy comparisons between companies, and offers company specific metrics such as subscriber counts, numbers of locations, etc.
Head over to Stratosphere.io for a free trial. Should you want to sign up for a paid offering please use the promo code BREW for 15% off.
Thank you to the team at thepodcastconsultant.com for producing the show.
Detailed Show Notes -
8:00 – Meeting Joel Greenblatt
14:45 – Lessons from Fiat
22:30 – How Ferrari could grow faster
30:30 – Adam’s background as an investor
40:40 – Pivoting to better businesses
43:00 – Being proud of admitting mistakes quickly
44:30 – Takeaways from 2022
48:00 – Where to hunt
51:50 – What is the etymology of a return?
54:00 – Monitoring a position over time
59:30 – Watch out for idol worship
1:10:00 – The biggest risk is (a) investing with sociopaths and (b) becoming one
1:18:15 – Further discussion about APi Group
1:30:30 – The comfort of owning assets with honorable managers
Arnaud Cosserat, CEO of Comgest, and Rick Mercado, PM at Comgest stop by The Business Brew to discuss quality growth investing. Comgest is an independent, international asset management group, which since its creation in 1985, has pursued a long-term ‘Quality Growth’ and responsible investment style.
Arnaud is a long-standing Analyst and Portfolio Manager specialising in European equities. He started his career in 1989 as an Analyst at Banque Paribas, before joining Société de Bourse Oddo and then Generali as a Portfolio Manager.
He holds a Master of Science degree from the ESSEC business school (France) and is a member of the French Society of Financial Analysts (SFAF, Société Française des Analystes Financiers).
Before joining Comgest, Rick worked in London as a Portfolio Manager responsible for a North American equities fund with USS Investment Management and prior to that, as a Global Equities Portfolio Manager with F&C Investments. From 2001-2008 he worked in Australia, with Capital Partners as an Investment Analyst and with AMP Capital Investors as an Investment Strategist.
He holds a Bachelor of Science in Mathematics and a Bachelor of Commerce in Finance from the University of New South Wales. He is also a CFA® charterholder.
This episode is sponsored by Stratosphere.io. Stratosphere.io is a web based terminal that has financial data, KPIs, links to filings, hedge fund letters, etc. A key differentiator is Stratosphere.io’s segment data and KPIs, which are triple checked for accuracy. Stratosphere saves users time, enables easy comparisons between companies, and offers company specific metrics such as subscriber counts, numbers of locations, etc.
Head over to Stratosphere.io for a free trial. Should you want to sign up for a paid offering please use the promo code BREW for 15% off.
Randy Baron, lead Portfolio Manager for Pinnacle Associates Ltd's various international products, joins The Business Brew to discuss his investing philosophy. Randy is best known for international value investing and for publicly discussing Amyris. Amyris is an unprofitable company with a CEO that has a controversial reputation. But, it is a very interesting company backed by some very real investors.
Bill and Randy have spoken a few times over the past 2 years and Bill likes how Randy looks at the world. Bill was also curious about Amyris and how Randy's public support of the company has or has not influenced Randy's analysis. Randy is open and transparent on this podcast and it is a very entertaining, and informative, listen. We hope you enjoy.
Randy's official bio can be found at https://www.pinnacle-associates.com/team/randolph-baron
This episode is sponsored by Stratosphere.io. Stratosphere.io is a web based terminal that has financial data, KPIs, links to filings, hedge fund letters, etc. A key differentiator is Stratosphere.io’s segment data and KPIs, which are triple checked for accuracy. Stratosphere saves users time, enables easy comparisons between companies, and offers company specific metrics such as subscriber counts, numbers of locations, etc.
Head over to Stratosphere.io for a free trial. Should you want to sign up for a paid offering please use the promo code BREW for 15% off.
Detailed Show Notes:
4:15 - Intro
10:15 - Long term investing and international valuations
15:10 - Why US companies are listing in the UK
19:25 - What is Wandisco
22:25 - Randy’s idea of where returns will come from
23:50 - A discussion on Amyris
36:23 - A socially responsible investing tangent
38:23 - Back to Amyris
43:43 - Why every CEO should promote their stock
45:23 - When the price of a stock price matters
49:33 - Why explaining why you own something is important to investors
57:23 - How to act
1:05:20 - Renalytix; potentially solving a big problem
1:09:20 - Sizing early stage bets
1:11:30 - Looking to EM for cheap, good ideas
Whit Clay stops by The Business Brew to discuss his role in the financial ecosystem. Whit sits at the intersection of investor relations and public relations. He works with a wide variety of companies. We hope you enjoy the conversation!
Whit Clay is a Co-Chief Executive Officer with Sloane & Company and has been with the firm for more than 21 years. Beyond day-to-day leadership and management of the firm, he leads its financial and crisis communications practice with a focus across multiple sectors and clients.
Whit has worked on complex transactions, mergers and acquisitions, restructurings, litigation and numerous other special situations. He provides strategic counsel to the C-suite and taps his deep relationships with the media, business and financial community to achieve successful outcomes.
Clients of note across a range of industries include: Archer Aviation, Bloom Energy, Centrus Energy, Fortis, Francisco Partners, IMAX, Liberty Media, NOVA Infrastructure, Paladin Capital and Stagwell, Inc. among others.
Whit joined Sloane & Company in 1999 after more than three years working with Edelman Financial Worldwide, the financial communications and investor relations division of Edelman Public Relations Worldwide. Prior to that, he worked in Washington, DC for Capitoline, the U.S. Senate Sergeant-at-Arms and the American Trucking Associations.
This episode is sponsored by Stratosphere.io. Stratosphere.io is a web based terminal that has financial data, KPIs, links to filings, hedge fund letters, etc. A key differentiator is Stratosphere.io’s segment data and KPIs, which are triple checked for accuracy. Stratosphere saves users time, enables easy comparisons between companies, and offers company specific metrics such as subscriber counts, numbers of locations, etc.
Head over to Stratosphere.io for a free trial. Should you want to sign up for a paid offering please use the promo code BREW for 15% off.
Detailed Show Notes (Time Stamps)
2:45 - What is Sloane & Company?
4:04 – How much does narrative matter over the intermediate term?
6:30 – How management teams can create value through messaging
13:15 – How 5 year projections can cause value destruction
20:00 – What is Whit’s role in the financial ecosystem
22:20 – Whit’s background
29:08 – Whit takes some career risk in the late 90s
37:30 – What happened to Sloan’s client mix in 07-08
40:18 – Do CEOs know when bubbles are occurring or do they get just as caught up as the rest of us? And, what traits make CEOs good at navigating bubbles?
50:30 – Which clients are good matches for Slone & Company
56:00 – How has social media influenced corporate communications?
1:06:00 – How has being exposed to CEOs rubbed off on Whit as a leader?
1:10:00 – Sloane & Company’s values
Will Thomson stops by The Business Brew to discuss his approach to real asset investing. Will focuses on companies that happen to produce commodities and/or real assets. That said, he is looking to exploit company/project specific opportunities rather than making commodity calls. In this episode, he describes hi s process and explains how an investor could use publicly disclosed information to see a company's business plan (See: a 4301 document in Canada).
Will is the Founder and Managing Partner of Massif Capital, LLC.
He has experience in private equity and credit/political risk insurance, in addition to having served as a strategic and economic adviser to NATO/ISAF in Afghanistan. Before starting Massif Capital, Will worked in the New York office of Chaucer, a Lloyd’s of London insurance syndicate, serving as the co-portfolio manager for a $750 million portfolio of credit and political risk insurance policies. He is a Graduate of Trinity College and holds a Masters in Government from Harvard University.
This episode is sponsored by Stratosphere.io.
Stratosphere.io is a web based terminal that has financial data, KPIs, links to filings, hedge fund letters, etc.
A key differentiator is Stratosphere.io’s segment data and KPIs, which are triple checked for accuracy.
Stratosphere saves users time, enables easy comparisons between companies, and offers company specific metrics such as subscriber counts, numbers of locations, etc. Head over to Stratosphere.io for a free trial.
Should you want to sign up for a paid offering please use the promo code BREW for 15% off.
Detailed Show Notes:
5:00 - Will's take on oil
8:00 - What is the Lassonde Curve
11:38 - How a filing can help an investor underwrite mining companies.
14:00 - How Will thinks of comparing his DCF to market prices
15:00 - Will discusses how he thinks about investing
19:50 - How will thinks about placing commodity bets on equities
22:00 - The risk reward of majors vs minors in mining
27:50 - "Are you buying well or are you buying good things?"
31:00 - A discussion about Lithium Americas
36:10 - Don't fall in love with the assets
40:33 - The difference between processed commodities and depleting commodities and what it means for margins
45:14 - Some Inflation Reduction Act discussion
51:00 - Sometimes change creates opportunities in the things that don't change
1:05:00 - Chesterson's fence and then discussion
Thomas Ricketts, CFA, joins the pod to discuss his investment philosophy. This episode focuses on an investment style that, according to Bill's perception, seeks to identify change and innovation before the market identifies it. Bill was initially a little skeptical of doing an "innovation episode" given how the term has been used in the financial community. However, after diligencing Tom, Bill felt comfortable having Tom on the pod. This conversation adds value to The Business Brew library. Thank you to Tom for joining the show!
This episode is sponsored by Stratosphere.io. Stratosphere.io is a web based terminal that has financial data, KPIs, links to filings, hedge fund letters, etc. A key differentiator is Stratosphere.io’s segment data and KPIs, which are triple checked for accuracy. Stratosphere saves users time, enables easy comparisons between companies, and offers company specific metrics such as subscriber counts, numbers of locations, etc.
Head over to Stratosphere.io for a free trial. Should you want to sign up for a paid offering please use the promo code BREW for 15% off.
Tom's Bio
Thomas Ricketts, CFA, founder of Evolutionary Tree Capital Management, serves as Chief Investment Officer, Portfolio Manager, and Research Analyst. Over his 27-year investment career, he developed significant expertise in portfolio management, investment research, and executive management. Prior to founding Evolutionary Tree, Mr. Ricketts was a Sr. Portfolio Manager on Sands Capital’s flagship Select Growth strategy, a $20+ billion concentrated strategy of high-quality, sustainable growth businesses. Mr. Ricketts was one of the longest-tenured investment professionals at Sands Capital. Over the years, he contributed to building and leading the research team and attracting and retaining a broad client base of institutional and high-net-worth clients. He earned his Bachelor of Science degree from the McIntire School of Commerce at the University of Virginia (1994), his Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) designation (1997), and an Advanced Certificate for Executives from the MIT Sloan School of Management (2016- 2017).
Mr. Ricketts joined Sands Capital in 1994 as the Assistant to the President. He worked closely with founder Frank Sands, Sr. during the startup phase and early years of the firm, helping to grow the firm from less than $100 million in assets under management to approximately $40 billion in assets 22 years later. In 2008, Mr. Ricketts assumed the role of Sr. Portfolio Manager on the Sands US Large-Cap Growth strategy, working as a Co-PM to oversee the $20 billion strategy, and was a decision maker on that strategy for eight years. In 2011, Mr. Ricketts joined the Executive Management Team (EMT), which provides strategic leadership for the firm. In 2013, he became a member of the three-person Directing Research Team (DRT), which provided oversight of the 40-person investment team.
Henry Reardon, aka @integrity4mkts on Twitter, joins the podcast to discuss his investment philosophy. The conversation starts by discussing his Carvana short thesis then goes into his general investing philosophy. The conversation is a bit shorter than normal but packs a punch.
This episode is sponsored by Stratosphere.io. Stratosphere.io is a web based terminal that has financial data, KPIs, links to filings, hedge fund letters, etc. A key differentiator is Stratosphere.io’s segment data and KPIs, which are triple checked for accuracy. Stratosphere saves users time, enables easy comparisons between companies, and offers company specific metrics such as subscriber counts, numbers of locations, etc.
Head over to Stratosphere.io for a free trial. Should you want to sign up for a paid offering please use the promo code BREW for 15% off.
Jake Taylor stops by The Business Brew to discuss his new product Journalytic. Journalytic is a software designed to help investors improve their process and decision making. Clear thinking and decision making has been a passion of Jake’s for a very long time. Now, he is releasing the culmination of years of hard work to us, the public, FOR FREE. You can sign up at https://journalytic.com/.
This episode is sponsored by Stratosphere.io. Stratosphere.io is a web based terminal that has financial data, KPIs, links to filings, hedge fund letters, etc. A key differentiator is Stratosphere.io’s segment data and KPIs, which are triple checked for accuracy. Stratosphere saves users time, enables easy comparisons between companies, and offers company specific metrics such as subscriber counts, numbers of locations, etc.
Head over to Stratosphere.io for a free trial. Should you want to sign up for a paid offering please use the promo code BREW for 15% off.
Detailed Show Notes
4:30 – What is Journalytic
8:40 – What you need to get the most out of Journalytic
17:30 – Getting reps and calibrating
21:00 – How is Journalytic encrypted
26:00 – You can control process
29:00 – Why Jake wants feedback
38:30 – When you write you cannot rewrite what you were thinking
42:00 – Monitoring position sizing and whether it helps
46:30 – The End of The World is Just The Beginning
Chit Chat
John McClain, CFA stops by The Business Brew for a discussion about credit. John serves as a portfolio manager for the Brandywine Global’s High Yield and Corporate Credit Strategies. In this episode John makes the case for why high yield credit is a good bet after a bad year, discusses how corporate finance departments are more professional now (vs pre GFC), talks about companies adding value by buying back debt, and much more.
Before joining Brandywine Global, John was a Senior Vice President - Credit at Standard Life Investments from 2010 to 2014. From 2007 to 2010, he was with Nationwide Mutual Insurance as a Management Associate in the Financial Leadership Rotation Program and then an Investment Analyst in Distressed Debt. John is a CFA charterholder and earned a Master of Business Administration from Carnegie Mellon University and has a Bachelor of Science in Business Economics from University of Kentucky (magna cum laude).
BrandywineGlobal’s High Yield Fund has earned a 5 star rating from Morningstar. Morningstar gives the fund above average ratings for Process and People. In the words of Morningstar, “the strategy’s distinctive, value-oriented approach exploits price inefficiencies that often materialize across smaller high-yield issuers. It earns an Above Average Process rating…Comanagers Bill Zox and John McClain execute a disciplined value approach: They buy issues when their market prices are lower than the team's estimate of intrinsic business value and sell them when their initial thesis has played out or when there are better opportunities in the market.”
This episode is sponsored by Stratosphere.io. Stratosphere.io is a web based terminal that has financial data, KPIs, links to filings, hedge fund letters, etc. Stratosphere.io provides clean data for segment data and KPIs, which are triple checked for accuracy. Stratosphere saves users time, enables easy comparisons between companies, and offers company specific metrics such as subscriber counts, numbers of locations, etc.
Head over to Stratosphere.io for a free trial. Should you want to sign up for a paid offering please use the promo code BREW for 15% off.
NOTE: Investing carries the risk of loss. Brandywine Global’s past performance is not indicative of future results.
Detailed Show Notes
5:32 – How to think about credit generally
7:18 – What is a bond shell?
8:13 – The case for active management with credit
11:55 – How liquidity creates a cost of capital advantage for some companies
13:00 – Why high yield is no longer “junk”
15:45 – Company finance departments are better run than they were pre GFC
20:00 - Borrowing against assets and how professional it has gotten
22:35 - What The Fed cares about
27:30 - How retiring debt can help EV
30:00 - Some of the best capital allocators are in high yield
33:55 - How companies can manage our deleveraging cycle
34:50 - Why high yield hasn’t had back to back down years
38:00 - How the improvement in energy has benefitted high yield
41:45 - How Brandywine manages the quality of portfolio companies.
45:00 - How 2020/2021’s tech darlings can take advantage of today’s debt markets
46:30 - John’s take on private credit
49:30 - How tech could hurt private credit returns
54:30 - Long CEOs/short politicians
58:30 - How Brandywine manages their liquidity while running a open end fund
1:01:17 - How ETF transparency can create opportunities
1:03:00 - What type of investor is right for high yield
1:11:00 - How transparency can hurt liquidity
1:15:00 - Illiquidity and what it’s doing to the market
Bob stops by The Business Brew to discuss his early career, what he has learned over his career, investing in cyclical businesses/industries, and his biggest investment "loser." This conversation is filled with good lessons and we hope you enjoy.
Robert Robotti is the President and Chief Investment Officer of Robotti & Company. Prior to forming Robotti & Company, Incorporated in 1983, Bob was a vice president and shareholder of Gabelli & Company, Inc. He worked in public accounting before coming to Wall Street and is currently an inactive CPA. Bob holds a BS from Bucknell University and an MBA in Accounting from Pace University. Some of Bob's areas of coverage include Special Situations, Energy Industry and Home Building. Bob is the principal of the managing member or general partner of several investment vehicles.
Bob currently serves on the Board of Directors of a NYSE-listed real estate company, AMREP Corporation, located in Germantown, PA; as Chairman of the Board of Directors of Pulse Seismic Inc., a seismic data licensing business located in Calgary, Alberta; as an Independent Director of PrairieSky Royalty, a Toronto Stock Exchange listed company located in Calgary, Alberta, having one of the largest portfolios of sub-surface mineral rights in western Canada; as a recently elected Director of NYSE-listed Tidewater, Inc. which owns and operates one of the largest fleets of OSVs (Offshore Support Vessels) in the industry; and was previously on the Board of Directors of BMC Building Materials Holding Corporation, prior to the completion of its merger with Stock Building Supply Holdings, Inc. on December 1, 2015; and Bob had served on the Board of Panhandle Oil & Gas Company, a NYSE-listed diversified mineral company located in Oklahoma City through May 1, 2020.
In addition, he serves on the Boards of many non-profit organizations where he generously donates his time and expertise. Previously, Bob was a member of the Securities and Exchange Commission's Advisory Committee on Smaller Public Companies, established to examine the impact of Sarbanes-Oxley Act and other aspects of the federal securities law.
This episode is sponsored by Stratosphere.io. Stratosphere.io is a fantastic web based research terminal for company specific metrics like KPIs and segment revenues. Head over to Stratosphere.io to try the product for free OR use the promo code BREW for 15% off Stratosphere's premium product.
Detailed Show Notes Below:
3:20 - Bob’s early career
6:35 - How Bob ended up as CFO of Gabelli and Company
10:25 - Bob’s evolution as an investor
14:25 - How tough times create better businesses and Builder’s FirstSource discussion
18:20 - Holding equities and Bob’s biggest loser
29:50 - Why earnings drive liquidity
31:20 - How Bob implements his takeaways from his biggest loser
33:20 - Why Bob got excited about the Revenge of the Old Economy in 2020
35:20 - The case for Olin Corp
43:50 - How Bob’s “margin of safety” comes from his portfolio company’s asset bases
45:50 - Bob’s energy outlook; this is an around the world oil discussion that lasts ~11 minutes
1:02:20 - Why reshoring makes sense
1:04:30 - Did Volker really succeed?
1:05:20 - Why China is no longer deflationary
1:09:20 - The nuance of selling
1:11:20 - The potential perils of linear thinking
Cullen Roche is the Founder of Discipline Funds. Discipline Funds is a low fee financial advisory and asset management firm. Prior to establishing his own business, Mr. Roche founded his own investment partnership in 2005 after working at Merrill Lynch Global Wealth Management where he helped oversee $500MM+ in assets under management. During the the 7 years running the partnership he was able to guide the small business to high risk adjusted returns with no negative full year returns during one of the most turbulent periods in stock market history.
Mr. Roche's primary areas of expertise include global macro portfolio construction, quantitative risk management, behavioral finance and monetary theory.
He is regularly cited in the Wall Street Journal, on CNBC and in the Financial Times. Mr. Roche is a Georgetown University alumnus, growing up in the DC area and now living in San Diego, California with his fiancée Erica and their problem child, Cal, an Australian Shepherd.
You can find Cullen's bio here: https://www.pragcap.com/meet-cullen-roche/
Detailed Show Notes:
1:34 - The fully loaded cost of housing
4:23 - Japanese real estate and what it may mean for real estate in the US
5:54 - Housing as a central component not just to the economy, but to everyone’s balance sheet
8:16 - Housing in other countries whose Central Banks are more aggressive
16:32 - How consumers act in the beginning of economic slowdowns
17:43 - The Fed is worryied about the short term inflation rate
20:41 - The likelihood or more fiscal stimulus in a big downturn
23:08 - How banking operates in panics
32:33 - How Quantitative Easing works
47:36 - The Buffett approach in investing
52:40 - Focusing on investor behavior
54:07 - The inter-temporal (mismatched time horizons) conundrum
1:02:39 - Behavioral problems in a 60/40 portfolio
1:06:17 - Thoughts on diversification
1:15:20 - The biggest benefit of understanding macro finance
Craig Moffett has covered the telecommunications industry – first as a management consultant and later as a Wall Street analyst – for more than thirty years. He has been elected to Institutional Investor Magazine’s All-American Research Team in the U.S. Telecom and/or Cable & Satellite sectors on seventeen separate occasions, including nine separate appearances as the #1 analyst in America in either U.S. Telecom and/or Cable & Satellite.
Prior to founding MoffettNathanson, Mr. Moffett spent more than ten years at Sanford Bernstein & Co., LLC as a senior research analyst. He was previously the President and founder of the e-commerce business at Sotheby’s Holdings, the venerable auction house, where, in 1999, he led Sothebys.com to what was then the highest first year sales of any consumer website ever launched. Mr. Moffett spent more than eleven years at The Boston Consulting Group, where he was a Partner and Vice President specializing in telecommunications. He was the leader of BCG’s global Telecommunications practice from 1996 to 1999. While at BCG, he led client initiatives in the U.S. local, long distance, and wireless sectors, in both consumer and commercial services, and advised companies outside the U.S. in Europe, Latin America, and Asia.
Mr. Moffett graduated from Harvard Business School with Honors in 1989. He received a BA from Brown University, where he was magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa, in 1984.
Detailed Show Notes -
5:41 - Why Silicon Valley Bank is a good fit for MoffettNathanson
6:50 - Why telecom is a hard business
7:40 - The history of US telecom
10:10 - How cable incubated an industry under AT&T/telecom's business
15:52 - How does cable compete with fiber going forward?
17:47 - High splits, node splits, who gives a split?
22:50 - Cable strategy and why high splits are the current strategy
29:09 - Wireless vs. broadband going forward
35:00 - The physics of wireless
46:00 - Verizon's big strategic decision was correct but implementation left something lacking
51:10 - Cable's wireless offering and how it fits into the competitive set
58:44 - What does broadband's growth runway look like?
1:03:45 - How do fiber overbuilders factor into the future?
1:08:00 - The fiber bubble will burst. Then some Altice discussion.
Mark started his professional work life as a consultant with Accenture, where he helped clients for 14 years. He founded his advisory business in 2005, and in 2022 joined Journey Strategic wealth through a merger of his firm with Journey. Prior to graduating from university, he was an auto mechanic, was in the auto parts industry, and spent time as a retail store manager. Mark’s focus has always been either providing advice or fixing things. What drives Mark is helping others reach their goals.
Mark believes both financial freedom and fun can occur concurrently. You will find that he has an active (sometimes too active!) sense of humor. He’s quite proud that his teammates Angela and Melissa have been with him for 14 and 12 years and will do everything possible to make sure Danielle stays “forever”, as well. He’s a little nutty about college basketball, golf, and several other sports. In addition, he loves taking beach and golf trips with his family and is an avid reader.
Mark holds an Accounting degree from Virginia Commonwealth University as well as the CFP® and RICP® designations.
Thank you to @mathewpassy (on Twitter) for the show production.
Please leave us a rating in your favorite podcast player!
Show Notes:
6:00 - Mark's background
17:30 - Embrace your strengths and weaknesses
22:30 - Good moments coming from scary times
27:30 - Starting a business from a passion
29:00 - Building teams
34:00 - Mark's approach to advising
37:24 - Where Mark thinks we are relative to history
46:50 - The power of checks and balances
50:45 - Finding and retaining employees
58:30 - Thinking about planning for aging
1:10:00 - Why you need to get your Power of Attorney documents done!
1:13:00 - Talking to the older member of your family about the aging process
Matt Cochrane (@Matt_Cochrane7 on Twitter) stops by The Business Brew to discuss his investment philosophy, how it’s evolved over the past few years, Big Tech, and more. Matt is a police officer with a passion for investing.
He began his investment education by studying The Motley Fool discussion boards. Bill and Matt catch up regularly and Bill always enjoys chatting with Matt. This week they decided to record one of those conversations.
We hope you enjoy the discussion.
Matt Cochrane (@Matt_Cochrane7 on Twitter) stops by The Business Brew to discuss his investment philosophy, how it’s evolved over the past few years, Big Tech, and more. Matt is a police officer with a passion for investing.
He began his investment education by studying The Motley Fool discussion boards. Bill and Matt catch up regularly and Bill always enjoys chatting with Matt. This week they decided to record one of those conversations.
We hope you enjoy the discussion.
This episode features Alex Morris of TSOH Investment Research. You can find his Substack at https://substack.com/profile/10489671-the-science-of-hitting. In this episode, Alex and Bill have a casual conversation; mostly about media and cable.
Through the conversation you will hear how Alex thinks about partnering with companies and management teams for the long term. You will also hear how Alex thinks about competitive positions and strategic decision making.
Alex is a wonderful person that is sharing his investment journey publicly. We hope you enjoy the conversation and, should you decide to subscribe, enjoy his research as well.
Thank you to @mathewpassy (on Twitter) for the show production.
Please leave us a rating in your favorite podcast player!
This episode features Alex Morris of TSOH Investment Research. You can find his Substack at https://substack.com/profile/10489671-the-science-of-hitting. In this episode, Alex and Bill have a casual conversation; mostly about media and cable.
Through the conversation you will hear how Alex thinks about partnering with companies and management teams for the long term. You will also hear how Alex thinks about competitive positions and strategic decision making.
Alex is a wonderful person that is sharing his investment journey publicly. We hope you enjoy the conversation and, should you decide to subscribe, enjoy his research as well.
Thank you to @mathewpassy (on Twitter) for the show production.
Please leave us a rating in your favorite podcast player!
Daniel Needham, CFA, stops by The Business Brew for a wide ranging discussion. Daniel is a wealth of knowledge. He is president of Morningstar’s Wealth Management Solutions, which includes software and aggregation capabilities from Morningstar Office and ByAllAccounts, and the individual investor experience across Morningstar.com, and Morningstar Investment Management.
After the recent acquisition, he also oversees the U.K. and international business of Praemium and their core products, which were re-branded to Morningstar Wealth Platform and Wealthcraft, a Morningstar company.
Prior to his current role, Needham served as president and global chief investment officer since 2015 for Morningstar’s Investment Management group, a unit of Morningstar, Inc., that provides managed portfolio services, retirement, and investment advisory for financial institutions, plan sponsors, and advisors through investment management entities around the world.
In 2013, Needham stepped into the global chief investment officer role for the Investment Management group, and he also assumed responsibility for Morningstar’s investment management operations in Europe. Previously, Needham was chief investment officer and managing director for Investment Management in Asia-Pacific, including Ibbotson Associates Australia, where he led the group’s business and investment activities in the region.
Needham joined Morningstar in 2009 through the company’s acquisition of Intech Pty Ltd., where he served as chief investment officer. He also held other investment roles including analyst, portfolio manager, and head of multi-strategy. Before joining Intech in 2002, Needham worked for Zurich Financial Services in Sydney. Needham holds a bachelor’s degree in commerce from the University of Sydney, where he majored in finance and economics.
He also holds the Chartered Financial Analyst® designation and is an interested trustee for the Morningstar Funds Trust.
Supplemental Information -
Following the podcast recording, Mr. Needham sent the following information to Bill (shared with permission):
Here are some useful books to learn more about MMT and Post-Keynesian economics. It pays to tread carefully with all this stuff given the political leaning of the respective economic schools of thought.
Soft Currency Economics – Warren Mosler – provides a lens to why the system is different for certain governments post the gold standard
John Maynard Keynes – Hyman Minsky – one of the best early critiques of the modern economic consensus that dominates central banks and government treasuries
Daniel Needham, CFA, stops by The Business Brew for a wide ranging discussion. Daniel is a wealth of knowledge. He is president of Morningstar’s Wealth Management Solutions, which includes software and aggregation capabilities from Morningstar Office and ByAllAccounts, and the individual investor experience across Morningstar.com, and Morningstar Investment Management.
After the recent acquisition, he also oversees the U.K. and international business of Praemium and their core products, which were re-branded to Morningstar Wealth Platform and Wealthcraft, a Morningstar company.
Prior to his current role, Needham served as president and global chief investment officer since 2015 for Morningstar’s Investment Management group, a unit of Morningstar, Inc., that provides managed portfolio services, retirement, and investment advisory for financial institutions, plan sponsors, and advisors through investment management entities around the world.
In 2013, Needham stepped into the global chief investment officer role for the Investment Management group, and he also assumed responsibility for Morningstar’s investment management operations in Europe. Previously, Needham was chief investment officer and managing director for Investment Management in Asia-Pacific, including Ibbotson Associates Australia, where he led the group’s business and investment activities in the region.
Needham joined Morningstar in 2009 through the company’s acquisition of Intech Pty Ltd., where he served as chief investment officer. He also held other investment roles including analyst, portfolio manager, and head of multi-strategy. Before joining Intech in 2002, Needham worked for Zurich Financial Services in Sydney. Needham holds a bachelor’s degree in commerce from the University of Sydney, where he majored in finance and economics.
He also holds the Chartered Financial Analyst® designation and is an interested trustee for the Morningstar Funds Trust.
Supplemental Information -
Following the podcast recording, Mr. Needham sent the following information to Bill (shared with permission):
Here are some useful books to learn more about MMT and Post-Keynesian economics. It pays to tread carefully with all this stuff given the political leaning of the respective economic schools of thought.
Soft Currency Economics – Warren Mosler – provides a lens to why the system is different for certain governments post the gold standard
John Maynard Keynes – Hyman Minsky – one of the best early critiques of the modern economic consensus that dominates central banks and government treasuries
Kyle Mowery, Founder & Portfolio Manager at GrizzlyRock Capital stops by The Business Brew to discuss his investment philosophy. Kyle is a traditional value investor that tends to focus on smaller, cyclical companies. In this episode he talks about why he fishes in that pond, where he has found his biggest winners, how he thinks about investing, and much more. GrizzlyRock does very deep due diligence and Bill thinks highly of their work.
We hope you enjoy the conversation!
You can find Kyle’s Orion Engineered Carbons conversation with Andrew Walker at https://open.spotify.com/episode/7xmapUv85wtAoHpGlcMxmP?si=3wZXGogJT5-zbU5aJxv1NA
or https://yetanothervalueblog.com/podcast
Thank you to @mathewpassy (on Twitter) for the show production.
Please leave us a rating in your favorite podcast player!
Detailed Show Notes:
4:30 – Kyle’s view on the macro environment
7:00 – What Kyle learned in 2008
8:00 – What working in mezzanine debt did for Kyle’s career
10:50 – A case against microcaps
12:00 – Due diligence
14:50 – What was interesting about Darling International?
19:50 – What GrizzlyRock sees in OEC
26:05 – The merits of running a long/short strategy
29:15 – Chicago chit chat
35:15 – Back to investment discussion
36:30 – Why Kyle prefers more of a deep value philosophy
40:57 – What got Kyle interested in Orion Engineered Carbons?
51:14 – What is CoVest Select
1:01:10 – Thoughts on starting a fund
Kyle Mowery, Founder & Portfolio Manager at GrizzlyRock Capital stops by The Business Brew to discuss his investment philosophy. Kyle is a traditional value investor that tends to focus on smaller, cyclical companies. In this episode he talks about why he fishes in that pond, where he has found his biggest winners, how he thinks about investing, and much more. GrizzlyRock does very deep due diligence and Bill thinks highly of their work.
We hope you enjoy the conversation!
You can find Kyle’s Orion Engineered Carbons conversation with Andrew Walker at https://open.spotify.com/episode/7xmapUv85wtAoHpGlcMxmP?si=3wZXGogJT5-zbU5aJxv1NA
or https://yetanothervalueblog.com/podcast
Thank you to @mathewpassy (on Twitter) for the show production.
Please leave us a rating in your favorite podcast player!
Detailed Show Notes:
4:30 – Kyle’s view on the macro environment
7:00 – What Kyle learned in 2008
8:00 – What working in mezzanine debt did for Kyle’s career
10:50 – A case against microcaps
12:00 – Due diligence
14:50 – What was interesting about Darling International?
19:50 – What GrizzlyRock sees in OEC
26:05 – The merits of running a long/short strategy
29:15 – Chicago chit chat
35:15 – Back to investment discussion
36:30 – Why Kyle prefers more of a deep value philosophy
40:57 – What got Kyle interested in Orion Engineered Carbons?
51:14 – What is CoVest Select
1:01:10 – Thoughts on starting a fund
Marc Cohodes' (@AlderLaneEggs on Twitter) LinkedIn profile describes him as the "Head Bull Fighter at Alder Lane Farm." He is a well known short seller, but in this episode he discusses how he thinks about his long positions more than he discusses short selling. Marc is highly entertaining, informed by deep due diligence, and is not afraid to say what is on his mind.
We hope you enjoy this episode.
Detailed Show Notes:
2:00 – Marc discusses scuttlebutt
7:00 – The importance of getting it right and why Marc runs a concentrated portfolio
8:50 – How Marc deals with emotions with concentrated bets
13:20 – Dealing with talking publicly about ideas
18:05 – What was Marc doing with the AMC “apes”
29:00 – Marc’s thoughts on how the market currently works (or doesn’t work)
38:20 – What Marc sees in TZero
43:50 – Thoughts on position sizing and “having a seat at the table”
50:00 – Discussion about Camping World
58:20 – Enovix conversation
1:09:30 – Does Marc worry about being wrong?
Marc Cohodes' (@AlderLaneEggs on Twitter) LinkedIn profile describes him as the "Head Bull Fighter at Alder Lane Farm." He is a well known short seller, but in this episode he discusses how he thinks about his long positions more than he discusses short selling. Marc is highly entertaining, informed by deep due diligence, and is not afraid to say what is on his mind.
We hope you enjoy this episode.
Detailed Show Notes:
2:00 – Marc discusses scuttlebutt
7:00 – The importance of getting it right and why Marc runs a concentrated portfolio
8:50 – How Marc deals with emotions with concentrated bets
13:20 – Dealing with talking publicly about ideas
18:05 – What was Marc doing with the AMC “apes”
29:00 – Marc’s thoughts on how the market currently works (or doesn’t work)
38:20 – What Marc sees in TZero
43:50 – Thoughts on position sizing and “having a seat at the table”
50:00 – Discussion about Camping World
58:20 – Enovix conversation
1:09:30 – Does Marc worry about being wrong?
Evan Tindell joins The Business Brew to discuss how his background as a poker player influences his investing philosophy, how he got started in the business, and he drops some knowledge about shorting. Bill reached out to Evan because Bill wanted to discuss position sizing and “Kelly betting,” which was the catalyst for this conversation.
Please pardon some construction noise in the beginning, the conversation’s quality is worth listening past some background noise.
You can follow Evan’s firm at https://www.biremecapital.com/ and Evan at @evantindell on Twitter (https://twitter.com/evantindell).
We hope you enjoy the conversation. Please leave us a rating in your favorite podcast player/app.
Detailed Show Notes
2:00 - Evan’s Background
7:20 - Overtrading
9:30 - How poker losses help investing
11:30 - How price impacts analysis
22:50 - Evan’s start as an asset manager
26:30 - Evan looks for cognitive reasons the market is wrong
28:00 - Evan’s view on size
33:30 - A Netflix Discussion
44:45 - Bet sizing
48:20 - Position sizing and merger arb
53:00 - Incentives and money management
57:26 - How to think about Kelly betting and risk reward throughout an investment
1:02:45 - Fighting the bias to sell early
1:05:43 - Shorting high value
1:10:50 - Managing shorting
1:23:00 - Twitter whistleblower discussion and wrap up
Evan Tindell joins The Business Brew to discuss how his background as a poker player influences his investing philosophy, how he got started in the business, and he drops some knowledge about shorting. Bill reached out to Evan because Bill wanted to discuss position sizing and “Kelly betting,” which was the catalyst for this conversation.
Please pardon some construction noise in the beginning, the conversation’s quality is worth listening past some background noise.
You can follow Evan’s firm at https://www.biremecapital.com/ and Evan at @evantindell on Twitter (https://twitter.com/evantindell).
We hope you enjoy the conversation. Please leave us a rating in your favorite podcast player/app.
Detailed Show Notes
2:00 - Evan’s Background
7:20 - Overtrading
9:30 - How poker losses help investing
11:30 - How price impacts analysis
22:50 - Evan’s start as an asset manager
26:30 - Evan looks for cognitive reasons the market is wrong
28:00 - Evan’s view on size
33:30 - A Netflix Discussion
44:45 - Bet sizing
48:20 - Position sizing and merger arb
53:00 - Incentives and money management
57:26 - How to think about Kelly betting and risk reward throughout an investment
1:02:45 - Fighting the bias to sell early
1:05:43 - Shorting high value
1:10:50 - Managing shorting
1:23:00 - Twitter whistleblower discussion and wrap up
Scott Reardon, Portfolio Manager at Dakon Capital, Author of The Dark Continent series and Bonfire of the Beasts, stops by The Business Brew to chat about what he learned from the greatest investors of all time (and other things). Scott's work led him to focus on very favorable risk/reward scenarios. While that might sound trite, it's hard in practice.
You can read Scott's work at:
Greatest investors: https://www.dakotavalue.com/stewart-s-bridge-paper
Cyclicality of markets and life: https://www.dakotavalue.com/draper-s-carousel
We hope you enjoy the conversation!
Album art photo taken by Mike Ando. Please see www.mikeando.com.
Thank you to @mathewpassy (on Twitter) for the show production.
Please leave us a rating in your favorite podcast player!
Just a quick message to let you know Bill is on vacation with his family, but episodes of the Business Brew will return in a few weeks.
Chadd Garcia hosted the The Business Brew for this conversation. Chadd runs the Ave Maria Focused Fund, which is a non-diversified mutual fund (ticker: AVEAX). His portfolio holding are eclectic. Some themes you will see in there are quality and compounders. However, several of the companies are undergoing business transformations or have advantaged business models.
Chadd has an interesting background. He grew up on a family farm in Arizona. He worked in management at a multi-national agribusiness, where he helped turnaround of a business. He caught the investing bug and headed to Harvard Business School to get into finance. He spent time in investment banking and private equity before moving over to public markets. I think these experiences give him an interesting perspective and thought process that he brings to investing. He’s a natural teacher and I am excited for this episode.
Chadd is lead portfolio of the Ave Maria Focused Fund and co-portfolio manager of the Ave Maria Growth Fund. He is also responsible for equity research functions for the firm.
Previously, Chadd analyzed public equities as a Managing Director at SQ Advisors. Prior thereto Chadd worked in private equity as a Managing Director at Gulf Coast Capital Partners and as Vice President at Comvest Partners. Before his work in private equity, Chadd was an Associate in the mergers and acquisitions group at CIBC World Markets.
Chadd has a Bachelor of Science degree in Agricultural Resource and Economics from The University of Arizona and a Master of Business Administration degree from Harvard University. He is a board member and CFO of The Rising Farmworker Dream Fund and is a Knight in the Sovereign Military Order of Malta. He is a CFA® charterholder.
Contact Chadd at CMG@schwartzinvest.com
Ave Maria Funds Page: https://www.avemariafunds.com/fund-family/aveax.html
Fund Commentary Found Here: https://www.avemariafunds.com/financial-insight/fund-commentaries.html
Album art photo taken by Mike Ando. Please see www.mikeando.com.
Thank you to @mathewpassy (on Twitter) for the show production.
Please leave us a rating in your favorite podcast player!
Detailed Show Notes:
2:40 - What Chadd learned from studying HEICO
12:10 - An accounting lesson worth listening to
19:45 - Chadd's thesis on eDreams
29:40 - What Chadd looks for to premortum businesses
33:00 - A discussion about Green Plains and business transformation
39:10 - A discussion about GFL (a waste management company)
42:40 - How Chadd thinks about position sizing
44:50 - The moral component of what Chadd does
53:55 - How Chadd analyzed the short report behind GFL
Vitaliy Katsenelson stops by The Business Brew to discuss investing and his new book; Soul In The Game (see https://soulinthegame.net/). Vitaliy is an amazing writer who discusses investing and life. You can find his writings at https://contrarianedge.com/. We hope you enjoy this discussion.
No detailed show notes on this one.
This episode is brought to you by Bastiat Partners, a a new breed of investment and merchant bank that specializes primaries, secondaries, and co-investment opportunities in the private markets. Bastiat caters to a unique coverage universe of 250+ family offices, VCs, and crossover hedge funds. While sector generalists, the Firm specializes in fast-growing technology and technology-enabled businesses, advising companies on primary capital raises and creating liquidity events for founders and early investors via secondary transactions. The Firm also advises fundless sponsors and GPs on co-investment opportunities. Bastiat Partners was founded nearly a decade ago by Nader Afshar, a former senior investment banker at J.P. Morgan, and is headquartered in Los Angeles.
See https://bastiatpartners.com/.
Securities offered by Hollister Associates, LLC, Member FINRA/SIPC. Bastiat Partners and Hollister Associates, LLC are not affiliated companies.
Please leave us a rating in your favorite podcast player.
Album art photo taken by Mike Ando. Please see https://www.mikeando.com.
Thank you to @mathewpassy (on Twitter) for the show production.
Tom Morgan stops by The Business Brew for a wide-ranging conversation. Tom is the Director of Content and Communications at The KCP Group. His writings can be found at https://thekcpgroup.com/insights. Tom describes himself as a curious sherpa. He's always looking to find interesting people and ideas. You can find Tom at @tom_morganKCP on Twitter.
No detailed show notes on this one. Just listen.
This episode is brought to you by Bastiat Partners, a boutique investment banking firm. See https://bastiatpartners.com/. Detailed show notes below.
Please leave us a rating in your favorite podcast player.
Album art photo taken by Mike Ando. Please see www.mikeando.com.
Thank you to @mathewpassy (on Twitter) for the show production.
Please leave us a rating in your favorite podcast player!
This episode is brought to you by Bastiat Partners, a new breed of investment and merchant bank that specializes in primaries, secondaries, and co-investment opportunities in the private markets. Bastiat caters to a unique coverage universe of 250+ family offices, VCs, and crossover hedge funds. While sector generalists, the Firm specializes in fast-growing technology and technology-enabled businesses, advising companies on primary capital raises and creating liquidity events for founders and early investors via secondary transactions. The Firm also advises fundless sponsors and GPs on co-investment opportunities. Bastiat Partners was founded nearly a decade ago by Nader Afshar, a former senior investment banker at J.P. Morgan, and is headquartered in Los Angeles.
Securities offered by Hollister Associates, LLC, Member FINRA/SIPC. Bastiat Partners and Hollister Associates, LLC are not affiliated companies.
See https://bastiatpartners.com/.
William Green, best selling author and podcast host extraordinare, comes back to The Business Brew to have a very real conversation about life. William's first appearance was part of the launch of Richer, Wiser, Happier, which you can find at https://www.amazon.com/s?k=richer+wiser+happier+william+green&i=audible&sprefix=richer%2Caudible%2C84&ref=nb_sb_ss_ts-doa-p_1_6. This conversation is more focused on William's career and lessons he has learned.
This was a conversation that really put a smile on Bill's face and it is one The Business Brew is very proud to feature. Hopefully this conversation shows a unique side to William Green; the side Bill got to see when they first met.
We hope you enjoy the conversation as much as Bill enjoyed recording it.
This episode is brought to you by Bastiat Partners, a boutique investment banking firm. See https://bastiatpartners.com/. Detailed show notes below.
Album art photo taken by Mike Ando. Please see www.mikeando.com.
Thank you to @mathewpassy (on Twitter) for the show production.
Please leave us a rating in your favorite podcast player!
Detailed Show Notes:
Beginning – Where William and Bill “are” right now
9:30 – Structuring a portfolio to support your personality and advice from Peter Lynch
13:40 – What can come from the sense of being lost
17:40 – The difference between how investing is covered and reality for most people
22:10 – Bill and William talking about identity
24:20 – William’s career background
32:10 – The gifts from hard times
34:10 – Try to flood the body with good emotions
40:25 – Dealing with the feeling of unworthiness
48:10 – Accepting your beautiful monsters
53:40 – Munger’s insight about Richer, Wiser, Happier
1:03:40 – The power of looking to help others
1:09:40 – One of William’s takeaways from the Berkshire meeting
1:15:40 – Going strong vs. going weak
1:20:40 – Internal vs. external scorecards
1:22:30 – William’s experience with audio interviews
1:26:10 – Picking up on body language
1:30:40 – How Richer, Wiser, Happier is doing
Books mentioned:
Richer, Wiser, Happier (BUY IT!) https://www.amazon.com/s?k=richer+wiser+happier+william+green&i=audible&sprefix=richer%2Caudible%2C84&ref=nb_sb_ss_ts-doa-p_1_6
Power vs. Force https://www.amazon.com/Power-vs-Force-Dr-David-R-Hawkins-audiobook/dp/B000KZRMCO/ref=sr_1_1?gclid=CjwKCAjw-8qVBhANEiwAfjXLrrQaA5rWgk4cxmKB0DXcwEZ7Pzzm2qwPAXcEfK93MJdhuzhebTDEtxoCxzsQAvD_BwE&hvadid=548152874877&hvdev=c&hvlocphy=90
Jordan Noone stops by The Business Brew to discuss his experience founding Embedded Ventures and Relativity Space. At the age of just 22 years old Jordan co-founded Relativity Space, which 3D prints rockets! Yes, rockets. See https://www.relativityspace.com/.
Following his time at Relativity Space, Jordan co-founded Embedded Ventures, a venture capital firm. Embedded has an interesting goal of using "clean capital" to enhance the security of the US while generating investor returns. See below for the official bios on both of Jordan's companies.
We hope you enjoy the conversation!
ABOUT EMBEDDED VENTURES - See https://www.embedded.ventures/ - Launched in 2020, Embedded Ventures is a next generation venture capital firm investing in dual-use space startups beyond launch. Best described as “the skunkworks of Venture Capital” because of their unique investment approach and backgrounds, Embedded has a first-of-its-kind partnership with the United States Space Force. Co-Founders Jenna Bryant and Jordan Noone both have atypical industry experiences and strong passions for the communities they represent. The firm invests in the pre-seed and seed stage startups focused on space operations, digital engineering, and advanced manufacturing. To date, Embedded Ventures has announced investments in Chromatic 3D Materials, Inversion, KittyCAD, Slingshot Aerospace and Skyryse.
ABOUT JORDAN NOONE Jordan Noone is the Co-Founder, CTO, and General Partner at Embedded Ventures, the skunkworks of deep tech venture capital. Launched with his Co-Founder Jenna Bryant.
Jordan is Relativity’s Co-Founder and founding CTO - as of 2020, Relativity is the world’s second most valuable private space company. As Relativity's CTO, Jordan focused on technical direction and engineering design, including: developing printing technology, launch vehicle design, propulsion design, software development, infrastructure development, and government affairs. Jordan also led many Relativity initiatives including: expansion of Relativity’s Stargate Factory into the rest of aerospace manufacturing, Relativity’s strategy for expanding printing technology off-planet; and the ability of Relativity’s factory flexibly scale to a wide range of rocket sizes.
Jordan has had a lifelong interest in aerospace, including the design and build of spaceflight hardware at the age of 18 while at the University of Southern California, and becoming the first student and youngest individual in the world to get Federal Aviation Administration clearance to fly a rocket to space (150 kilometer altitude) while leading USC’s Rocket Propulsion Lab. In 2015 he started Relativity when 22 years old. He has been chosen for “30 Under 30” by Forbes, Business Insider, and Inc. Magazine.
He received a BS in Aerospace Engineering, and dropped out of a BS in Biophysics, both from University of Southern California. Outside of Relativity, Jordan is active in promoting STEM education worldwide with the US Department of State.
This episode is brought to you by Bastiat Partners, a boutique investment banking firm. See https://bastiatpartners.com/. Detailed show notes below.
Album art photo taken by Mike Ando. Please see www.mikeando.com.
Thank you to @mathewpassy (on Twitter) for the show production.
Please leave us a rating in your favorite podcast player!
Detailed Show Notes:
Open – Jordan’s background
7:25 – What down rounds do to everyone
9:20 - What it was like to start Relativity at 22 years old
17:00 - How to prove students can launch rockets without killing anyone
24:00 - The benefits of 3D printing for manufacturing
30:30 - How VCs, specifically Mark Cuban, helped Relativity
33:00 - What Embedded Ventures is doing, and why
Cem Karsan stops by The Business Brew to discuss the lens he views markets through. Cem's viewpoint is unique compared to many guests on this program because he looks at how options dealers are positioned and considers what flows may result from that positioning. Many guests on this show view equity valuation as the present value of the discounted cash flows available to equity. While Cem would likely agree with that, he argues in this episode that an equity's valuation is really an output derived from the options market (which expresses probabilistic views of discounted cash flows). We hope this episode gives you something to think about!
Cem Karsan formed Kai Volatility Advisors after two decades of experience building industry-leading derivatives businesses. From 1999 to 2002, he worked as a volatility trader as part of RBC Dominion Securities/ Derivatives Arbitrage Group. From 2002 to 2005, he worked under renowned Wall St. investor John Mulheren at Bear Wagner Specialists, where Cem helped expand the firm's fledgling derivatives arbitrage business into a competitive force within the industry. In 2005, Cem took a select group from the firm's proprietary trading arm and founded Precision Capital Management, specializing in equity index volatility arbitrage. The firm became a significant SPX market maker reaching, at its peak, a high of ~13% of daily trading volume. In 2010, Cem divested his stake in Precision and fouded AEGEA Capital, the precursor to Kai Volatility Advisors. Past performance may not be indicative of future results.
Follow Cem on Twitter https://twitter.com/jam_croissant
Learn more about Kai: https://www.kaivolatility.com/contact
This episode is brought to you by Bastiat Partners, a boutique investment banking firm. See https://bastiatpartners.com/. Detailed show notes below.
Album art photo taken by Mike Ando. Please see www.mikeando.com.
Thank you to @mathewpassy (on Twitter) for the show production.
Please leave us a rating in your favorite podcast player!
Detailed Show Notes:
Open – Cem’s background
7:25 – How Cem thinks about what matters to capital markets
13:10 – Valuations have no predictive value, short term
14:10 – What happened in 2017 and why did the market seem to go up every day?
21:40 – The counterintuitive conclusion of buying and selling volatility
23:10 – Why equities are derivatives of “derivatives”
27:10 – Why options are potentially better instruments for expressing a view
32:45 – Gamma squeezes explained
38:25 – Cem’s thoughts on where we are from a macro perspective
46:10 – The wealth gap and why
49:40 – Why we may be in a fundamentally inflationary environment
54:50 – The impacts of monetary policy and which generations have been hurt and helped by policy
1:00:40 – Why some medicine today may end up better in the long run
1:02:10 – The tension between utopia and the current (efficient) system
1:06:40 – Evolution and iteration will hopefully lead to better incomes
1:10:55 – The coming risks may come from exported inflation to emerging markets
1:13:10 – The winners of tomorrow used easy money to plant seeds over the past years
1:15:10 – More background on Cem
Amanda Agati stops by The Business Brew to discuss her investment outlook going forward.
Amanda is Managing Director and Chief Investment Strategist for the PNC Financial Services Group. In this role, she oversees all investment strategy-related activities for the Institutional Asset Management, Wealth Management, and Hawthorn (ultra-high-net-worth) businesses. In addition, she leads the team that establishes overall strategic and tactical asset allocation guidance of client portfolios, manages the evolution of investment processes, provides thought leadership on key investment issues, and is the author of numerous publications. She also performs research and analytics that help drive the overall investment recommendations of the firm while also managing the firm’s asset allocation models.
Amanda is a self described optimist. Her opinions are nuanced and thoughtful. This conversation touches on a number of topics and is quite balanced. There is even some stuff in here for dog lovers. We hope you enjoy!
This episode is brought to you by Bastiat Partners, a boutique investment banking firm. See https://bastiatpartners.com/. Detailed show notes below.
Album art photo taken by Mike Ando. Please see www.mikeando.com.
Thank you to @mathewpassy (on Twitter) for the show production.
Please leave us a rating in your favorite podcast player!
Detailed Show Notes:
Opening - General discussion
12:40 - Thoughts on the economy
14:55 - Stagflation?
16:40 - Importance of diversification
22:10 - Energy discussion
26:05 - Career path
29:30 - Quality growth for the long term
34:10 - Thinking opportunistically in this market
41:30 - Impact of supply shortages
44:25 - Investor whiplash
51:40 - The need for supply chain diversification
55:40 - Does an illiquidity premium make sense?
58:10 - Crypto winter (for now)
1:07:10 - What Amanda attributes her success to
Description - Sean Stannard Stockton, President and CIO of Ensemble Capital Management, stops by The Business Brew for a repeat appearance. Sean discussed his process on his first appearance (see Season 1). In this episode he discusses how he is sticking to his process and managing a portfolio in an uncertain world.
Please forgive the lack of time stamps in the show notes. We will follow up and update. In the meantime, enjoy the entire episode. It’s a good one.
This episode is brought to you by Bastiat Partners, a boutique investment banking firm. See https://bastiatpartners.com/. Detailed show notes below.
Please leave us a rating in your favorite podcast player.
Album art photo taken by Mike Ando. Please see www.mikeando.com.
Thank you to @mathewpassy (on Twitter) for the show production.
Please leave us a rating in your favorite podcast player!
This episode is brought to you by Bastiat Partners, a boutique investment banking firm. See https://bastiatpartners.com/. Detailed show notes below.
Please leave us a rating in your favorite podcast player.
Album art photo taken by Mike Ando. Please see www.mikeando.com.
Thank you to @mathewpassy (on Twitter) for the show production.
Please leave us a rating in your favorite podcast player!
J Mintzmyer, a renowned maritime shipping analyst who directs the Value Investor's Edge ("VIE") research platform on Seeking Alpha, returns to The Business Brew to give an update on the state of the shipping industry (and the associated stocks). This episode is meant to be listened to in conjunction with Craig Fuller’s episode in order to provide the listener with a more robust understanding of what is happening in supply chains.
In this episode J discusses many shipping specific ideas. If you are interested in J’s analysis consider subscribing to his work at Value Investor’s Edge on Seeking Alpha.
You can find a presentation J recently did at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=be5-IDIpTJw
During the conversation the following paper is mentioned: https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w13428/w13428.pdf
This episode is brought to you by Bastiat Partners, a boutique investment banking firm. See https://bastiatpartners.com/. Detailed show notes below.
Please leave us a rating in your favorite podcast player.
Album art photo taken by Mike Ando. Please see www.mikeando.com.
Thank you to @mathewpassy (on Twitter) for the show production.
Please leave us a rating in your favorite podcast player!
This episode is brought to you by Bastiat Partners, a boutique investment banking firm. See https://bastiatpartners.com/. Detailed show notes below.
Please leave us a rating in your favorite podcast player.
Album art photo taken by Mike Ando. Please see www.mikeando.com.
Thank you to @mathewpassy (on Twitter) for the show production.
Please leave us a rating in your favorite podcast player!
Detailed Show Notes:
3:30 - The setup for shipping
7:15 - Oil tanker overview
18:10 - Is this a uniquely good time for shipping?
19:30 - How J is thinking about a recession and the risk to shipping
25:30 - How J manages risk.
27:30 - ZIM discussion
34:30 - DAC and GSK - the leasing cos
38:00 - ZIM IPO'd at $15 and paid out more than that in dividends within a year.
41:30 - How congestion impacts shipping
46:30 - Supply side is doing the heavy lifting in shipping
53:30 - General inflation/closing discussion
Tim Laehy stops by The Business Brew to discuss his career as a CFO. Tim, who served as Coinbase's first interim CFO (from 2017 to 2018), is often hired to come in and professionalize emerging companies' finance departments; setting them up to go public. Some examples of Tim's work include: organizing and developing robust accounting controls & capabilities, building & growing an international tax function, establishing global treasury functions, and developing budgeting and reporting capabilities.
Tim is a technology executive based in San Francisco. His experience spans multiple industries, including crypto currency brokerage & exchange, SaaS, enterprise software, and service. He has extensive experience as a public & private company CFO and has deep capital markets experience. He has managed three successful IPOs, three successful sell-side mergers, raised over $3B of capital at increasing valuations, managed significant revenue growth from pre-revenue to $1B annual revenue. During his career he has helped create more than $20B of value for multiple companies and investors. He has extensive buy-side and sell-side M&A experience serving public, private, domestic, and international companies.
This episode is brought to you by Bastiat Partners, a boutique investment banking firm. See https://bastiatpartners.com/. Detailed show notes below.
Please leave us a rating in your favorite podcast player.
Album art photo taken by Mike Ando. Please see www.mikeando.com.
Thank you to @mathewpassy (on Twitter) for the show production.
Please leave us a rating in your favorite podcast player!
This episode is brought to you by Bastiat Partners, a boutique investment banking firm. See https://bastiatpartners.com/. Detailed show notes below.
Please leave us a rating in your favorite podcast player.
Album art photo taken by Mike Ando. Please see www.mikeando.com.
Thank you to @mathewpassy (on Twitter) for the show production.
Please leave us a rating in your favorite podcast player!
Craig Fuller stops by The Business Brew to discuss the freight recession. Craig made news when his organization, FreightWaves, wrote an article forecasting a freight recession. Craig's initial call discussed the trucking sector, but China's lockdowns may create a freight recession throughout the freight industry.
This was a fun conversation. It's a must listen if you are interested in the freight and logistics markets.
Craig is great on the mic. We hope you enjoy the discussion.
Craig Fuller is CEO and Founder of FreightWaves, the only freight-focused organization that delivers a complete and comprehensive view of the freight and logistics market. FreightWaves’ news, content, market data, insights, analytics, innovative engagement and risk management tools are unprecedented and unmatched in the industry. Prior to founding FreightWaves, Fuller was the founder and CEO of TransCard, a fleet payment processor that was sold to US Bank. He also is a trucking industry veteran, having founded and managed the Xpress Direct division of US Xpress Enterprises, the largest provider of on-demand trucking services in North America. Fuller also owns Flying Magazine.
This episode is brought to you by Bastiat Partners, a boutique investment banking firm. See https://bastiatpartners.com/. Detailed show notes below.
Please leave us a rating in your favorite podcast player.
Album art photo taken by Mike Ando. Please see www.mikeando.com.
Thank you to @mathewpassy (on Twitter) for the show production.
Please leave us a rating in your favorite podcast player!
Detailed Show Notes
Open - Intro to freight
11:20 - The state of US inventory levels
19:30 - Will the freight market become very "choppy" for a while?
24:27 - Will the US onshore or nearshore the supply chain?
40:25 - What is it like to move JB Hunt's stock?
47:30 - Is Old Dominion impacted by the freight recession?
52:00 - How did Craig get into freight and trucking?
58:40 - What you should think about as a consumer.
61:30 - How is there oversupply in the trucking market with a trucking shortage?
68:18 - The commonalities between different markets.
72:10 - JB Hunt, and intermodal's, strength
83:40 - Craig's media career
85:30 - The dollar strength
87:30 - What motivated Craig to write
95:00 - Aftershow talk
This episode of The Business Brew is Bill participating in a group discussion about the future of streaming media services. The forum was Twitter “Spaces,” an open forum where anyone can join the discussion and contribute. We cover a number of topics over 2 hours of discussion.
We hope you enjoy!
This episode is brought to you by Bastiat Partners, a boutique investment banking firm. See https://bastiatpartners.com/. Detailed show notes below.
Please leave us a rating in your favorite podcast player!
Album art photo taken by Mike Ando. Please see https://www.mikeando.com/
Thank you to @mathewpassy (on Twitter) for the show production.
Please leave us a rating in your favorite podcast player!
Erick Mokaya stops by The Business Brew to chat with Bill about what they have learned as investors. Erick has an inspiring story of dedication, drive, and learning. He describes himself as a Kenyan living in Sweden, who has a passion for financial markets. He is a regular contributor on Seeking Alpha and also the Lead Author the Transcript, a weekly capital markets newsletter that summarizes earnings calls. He invests in US and Nordic equities and, on a small scale, in small businesses in Kenya.
He was fun to speak with and we hope you enjoy the discussion. You can find Erick's blog at https://themokaya.com/ and follow him on twitter at @ekmokaya.
This episode is brought to you by Bastiat Partners, a boutique investment banking firm. See https://bastiatpartners.com/. Detailed show notes below.
Please leave us a rating in your favorite podcast player.
Album art photo taken by Mike Ando. Please see https://www.mikeando.com
Thank you to @mathewpassy (on Twitter) for the show production.
Please leave us a rating in your favorite podcast player!
Detailed Show Notes
2:53 - Erick’s background
4:59 - Seeing people struggle
8:45 - Being self driven
12:25 - Having people’s support
15:02 - Erik’s intro to investing
18:26 - Value investing
25:20 - The value of growth (Apple)
29:26 - Cash flows & management
33:10 - Networking via Twitter
38:36 - Learning from Patrick O'Shaughnessy & Chris Bloomstran
41:13 - Adding value to a community
44:35 - Erick’s newsletter
48:28- Restoration Hardware
58:47 - Holding through volatility
1:02:08 - Managing emotion
1:03:49 - Learning every day
1:08:15 - Twitter’s potential
1:14:19 - African Markets
1:17:01 - Activism
1:21:02 - Takeaways from Michael Mauboussin
Josh Horowitz and Liz Gulliver stop by The Business Brew to discuss employer-employee relationships. Josh and Liz co-founded Kunik to help employers build sustainable, scalable cultures that work for everyone, everywhere they are working.
How and where we work has permanently changed. Kunik helps organizations build thriving cultures by fueling the workplace with community and conversation. Kunik Conversations are facilitated, expert-led discussions that deliver intentional moments of connection, learning, and growth inside a company. Whether it’s DEI, hybrid work, leadership, new managers, burnout, or another challenge, Kunik helps its clients, ranging from nonprofits to large multinationals, build better relationships with and among their employees.
Josh and Liz, met at Columbia Business School. Both came from, and returned to, careers in finance before starting Kunik. Josh spent 10+ years on the buyside (Perry Capital, Citi, & Mackenzie Cundill) and graduated from Columbia’s Value Investing Program. Liz worked in corporate finance and consulting. They built Kunik to help companies build the workplace culture they always wanted but could never find.
We hope you enjoy this discussion
This episode is brought to you by Bastiat Partners, a boutique investment banking firm. See https://bastiatpartners.com/. Detailed show notes below.
Please leave us a rating in your favorite podcast player!
Album art photo taken by Mike Ando. Please see https://www.mikeando.com/
Thank you to @mathewpassy (on Twitter) for the show production.
Please leave us a rating in your favorite podcast player!
Detailed Show Notes
2:15 - Liz’s background
2:55 - Josh’s background
6:00 - What does Kunik do?
8:35 - Culture and retaining talent
15:27 - The new employer/employee relationship
18:25 - How to change culture in a big company
28:03 - Customers factoring in culture
37:02 - Facilitating conversations to connect people
42:44 - Retention and the ROI on people
55:47 - T-mobile’s culture
58:28 - Being a founder
1:04:39 - Diversity + Psychological safety
1:09:39 - How to get employees interested
1:24:09 - Managing burnout
1:29:00 - Resilience
1:31:54 - Being vulnerable
Mark S.F. Mahaney stops by The Business Brew to discuss tech investing and his book Nothing But Net. Mark is a senior managing director and head of the Internet Research Team at Evercore ISI. He has covered internet stocks for almost 25 years, and has been consistently recognized by Institutional Investor for his research, including 15 years as a “top 3” ranked analyst and five years as a No. 1-ranked analyst.
Previously, Mr. Mahaney worked on both the sell-side and the buy-side for American Technology Research, Morgan Stanley, Citibank and Royal Bank of Canada, among others. He began his career in management consulting with Deloitte & Touche and with the U.S. Department of State, U.S. Senate, and Office of the U.S. Trade Representative.
Mr. Mahaney received his B.A. in political science and history from Amherst College, his M.A. from Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and his MBA from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School. He is also the former lead bassist for Monkey Funk.
This episode is brought to you by Bastiat Partners, a boutique investment banking firm. See https://bastiatpartners.com/. Detailed show notes below.
Please leave us a rating in your favorite podcast player!
Album art photo taken by Mike Ando. Please see https://www.mikeando.com/
Thank you to @mathewpassy (on Twitter) for the show production.
Please leave us a rating in your favorite podcast player!
Detailed Show Notes
5:35 - Living through the 99-00 bubble crash
7:30 - Riding the growth curve of the internet sector
12:25 - The importance of revenue growth
19:55 - Thinking through growth vs maintenance spend
23:55 - The four questions to ask when trying to figure out what profitability might look like in the "out" years
27:25 - Facebook discussion
36:55 - Thoughts on stock based compensation
40:23 - Mark's ideal investment situation
44:45 - Mark's prescient warning about lapping COVID comps
50:35 - The potential soft patch for growth equities
56:45 - Dont get hung up on false precision
Dan Katz and Stephen Miran Ph.D. stop by The Business Brew to discuss JSG Investing. JSG investing is investing that focuses on Jobs, Security, and Growth. Their firm, Amberwave partners (see https://www.amberwavepartners.com/) helps investors align their portfolios and values, putting their savings to work for the good of American communities.
Dan and Stephen have very interesting bios. They read as follows:
Steve Miran is a co-founder and lead portfolio manager at Amberwave. Steve has ten years of successful investing experience including as a hedge fund portfolio manager and head of macro strategy, and before that as an analyst at Fidelity Investments. He has invested in major asset classes in both developed and emerging economies.
Before Amberwave, Steve was senior advisor for economic policy at the United States Department of the Treasury, which he entered in April 2020 to assist with fiscal support to the economy. He contributed to the implementation and evaluation of several CARES Act programs, in particular the Paycheck Protection Program, which provided over $800 billion of job-preserving investments in American small businesses and supported over 50 million workers.
Steve holds a Ph.D. in economics from Harvard University. He received a B.A. summa cum laude from Boston University, where he studied economics, philosophy and mathematics. His academic work has focused on fiscal policy, and his writing has been published in the American Economic Journal, the Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, and RealClearMarkets.
Dan Katz is a co-founder and portfolio manager at Amberwave. Dan served as a senior advisor at the United States Department of the Treasury from September 2019 to January 2021, where he helped lead the Treasury’s efforts to rescue the U.S. aviation industry during the COVID-19 recession. Dan served as the Chairman of the National Security Loan Program Credit Committee and a member of the Airline Loan Program Credit Committee, which collectively oversaw more than $20 billion of emergency loan transactions. Dan also oversaw the implementation of the Payroll Support Program, which supported hundreds of thousands of jobs in the aviation industry.
Earlier in Dan’s career, he worked as an investment banker at Goldman Sachs. He also served as a policy advisor at Treasury, where he focused on financial threats to U.S. national security, and as an advisor to the commander of U.S. forces in Kabul, Afghanistan. Dan holds a B.A. from Yale College and a J.D. magna cum laude and Order of the Coif from New York University School of Law.
We hope you enjoy the conversation.
Please leave us a rating in your favorite podcast player!
Album art photo taken by Mike Ando. Please see https://www.mikeando.com/
Thank you to @mathewpassy (on Twitter) for the show production.
Detailed Show Notes
2:48 - What is JSG Investing?
9:05 - Sanctions & their mechanisms
16:33 - Commodities
21:03 - Knowing your supply chain exposure
25:48 - How is JSG measured?
31:14 - The impact of ESG
37:55 - What is “green washing”?
42:58 - Quantitative vs. qualitative
45:03 - Creating growth in the US
48:03 - Shale & energy
49:28 - Working at the US Treasury
56:18 - The cost of time deploying stimulus
57:38 - Moral hazard & airlines
1:07:03 - The “American Recovery Plan” act
1:10:33 - Inflation
1:17:08 - Supply chains
1:20:38 - Asia & semiconductors
1:23:20 - Innovation
1:28:08 - Investing in rural communities
Dave Girouard stops by The Business Brew to discuss how Upstart is attempting to change the way credit is underwritten. Upstart uses machine learning and artificial intelligence to expand loan underwriting beyond FICO scores. The company’s goal is to make the underwriting process more efficient; creating a win-win for consumers and lenders.
Dave also talks about Upstart’s early struggles, what artificial intelligence actually does, how First Round Capital stepped up when Upstart really needed them to, and much more. We hope you enjoy the conversation.
Thank you for joining the show Dave!
We will be on break for 1-2 months following this show. “See” you in April/May.
Please leave us a rating in your favorite podcast player!
Album art photo taken by Mike Ando. Please see https://www.mikeando.com/
Thank you to @mathewpassy (on Twitter) for the show production.
Detailed Show Notes
2:15 – Intro to Dave
7:40 – The problem Upstart is looking to solve
12:45 – What will machine learning do for the world?
16:35 – Dave’s history at Google
19:33 – Upstart’s history as a company
22:21 – Upstart’s financing problem as a young company – Shoutout to First Round Capital!
27:15 – Who held the credit risk when Upstart’s loans were first funded
30:45 – Upstart’s relationship with Cross River Bank
37:15 – How Dave thinks about operating for growth vs. profits
40:42 – The right team is necessary
47:53 – Running Upstart through COVID and remotely
55:45 – How does Dave thinks about Share Based Comp
58:46 – What it’s like to manage when a stock is super volatile
1:02:00 – Will Upstart begin to hold credit risk? Hint: No.
Simeon Siegel, Managing Director and Senior Analyst at BMO Captial Markets, stops by The Business Brew to discuss his prescient call to sell Peloton, the oddity that brands peak at $3Bn in sales, the role of “Sell Side” analysts, and a whole lot of retail. His views on how COVID saved retail were particularly interesting. Simeon and Bill met at the dinner before Liberty Media’s Investor Day, hit it off, and this conversation is the follow up. We hope you enjoy! Simeon’s official bio reads as follows: Simeon Siegel is a Managing Director and award-winning Senior Analyst specializing in Retail and E-commerce. Simeon began his career at Goldman Sachs and has since worked on the #1 ranked Retail franchise at JPMorgan, Nomura | Instinet and BMO Capital Markets.
Dubbed "one of the more intellectual students of retail on Wall Street" by WWD, Simeon has been named a Top Retail Influencer by RETHINK Retail, a Top Stock Picker by StarMine, a Rising Star of Wall Street by Institutional Investor, a Rising Star of Equity Research by Business Insider, and a Top Earnings Estimator by Thomson Reuters and Refinitiv. He has worked on the Institutional Investor #1 ranked All America Research Team for Specialty Retail and the Wall Street Journal's "Best on the Street" list of top analysts.
Simeon is in constant dialogue with investors and C-Level Management across the industry, analyzing and advising on the ever-evolving retail landscape. He has guest lectured at Harvard Business School and NYU Stern School of Business and has been featured in a Harvard Business School case study. Simeon is a regular guest on CNBC and frequently quoted across the media including The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Women's Wear Daily, The Business of Fashion, Barron's, Bloomberg and others.
Simeon received a BA from Columbia University in Economics and Philosophy and is a CFA® charterholder. He serves on the Boards of the Hebrew Free Loan Society and the UJA Entertainment, Tech & Lifestyle Board and is Vice Chair of the UJA Retail, Fashion & Lifestyle Division. He previously served on the Board of Read Ahead.
Detailed show notes below the Stream by Mosaic sponsor copy and thank yous.
Please leave us a rating in your favorite podcast player!
This episode is brought to you by Stream by Mosaic, a product that is integral to any fundamental research process. Stream has developed an extensive library of expert interviews that cover a variety of industries. Today, https://streamrg.co/BB features over 300 expert interviews per week. 70% of Stream's experts are found exclusively on https://streamrg.co/BB. Visit
Michael Green stops by The Business Brew to discuss his inelastic market theory, the outlook for inflation, why the market might be too excited about rate normalization, and much more. Michael is a frequent contributor to Real Vision and has done some phenomenal interviews, which can be found on YouTube.
He has been a student of markets and market structure, for nearly 30 years. His proprietary research into the shift from actively managed portfolios and investment funds to systematic passive investment strategies has been presented to the Federal Reserve, the BIS, the IMF and numerous other industry groups and associations.
Michael joined Simplify in April 2021 after serving as Chief Strategist and Portfolio Manager for Logica Capital Advisers, LLC. Prior to Logica, Michael managed macro strategies at Thiel Macro, LLC, an investment firm that manages the personal capital of Peter Thiel. Prior to Thiel, Michael founded Ice Farm Capital, a discretionary global macro hedge fund seeded by Soros Fund Management. From 2006-2014, Michael founded and managed the New York office of Canyon Capital Advisors, a $23B multi-strategy hedge fund based in Los Angeles, CA, where he established their global macro strategies, managing in excess of $5B of exposure across equity, credit, FX, commodity and derivative markets. In addition to his work as a market theorist and portfolio manager, Michael has been noted for his work as a public speaker and financial media participant. He is a graduate of the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and a CFA holder.
Detailed show notes below the Stream by Mosiac sponsor copy and thank yous.
Please leave us a rating in your favorite podcast player!
This episode is brought to you by Stream by Mosaic, a product that is integral to any fundamental research process. Stream has developed an extensive library of expert interviews that cover a variety of industries. https://streamrg.co/BB features over 300 expert interviews per week. 70% of Stream's experts are found exclusively on https://streamrg.co/BB.
Visit
Chris Cerrone, a Partner at Akre Capital Management, stops by The Business Brew for a discussion about his investment philosophy, simplicity, the definition of quality, and much more. Chris’ paper, The Art of (Not) Selling, really made an impression on Bill. This discussion follows up on that paper, among other topics.
Prior to joining Akre Capital Management in 2012, Chris served as an equity research analyst for Goldman Sachs & Co. in New York from 2010 to 2012. In that position, he covered restaurant and retail companies. He began his investment management career in 2007 as a junior equity research analyst with Century Capital Management in Boston. Chris graduated summa cum laude with a B.A. in economics from Tufts University.
Bill really enjoyed listening to Chris talk about how Mr. Akre would push Chris to find the essence of a business. That enables an analyst to then focus on THE most important question.
Books mentioned include:
https://www.amazon.com/Zen-Art-Motorcycle-Maintenance-Inquiry/dp/0060589469
https://www.amazon.com/Lila-Inquiry-Robert-M-Pirsig/dp/0553299611/ref=pd_lpo_2?pd_rd_i=0553299611&psc=1
https://www.amazon.com/The-Art-of-Learning-Josh-Waitzkin-audiobook/dp/B00JE2WEEK/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3DQ5DXHBNOWB7&keywords=the+art+of+learning&qid=1643803876&s=books&sprefix=the+art+of+learning%2Cstripbooks%2C83&sr=1-1
Detailed show notes below the Stream by Mosiac sponsor copy and thank yous.
Please leave us a rating in your favorite podcast player!
This episode is brought to you by Stream by Mosaic, a product that is integral to any fundamental research process. Stream has developed an extensive library of expert interviews that cover a variety of industries. https://streamrg.co/BB features over 300 expert interviews per week. 70% of Stream's experts are found exclusively on https://streamrg.co/BB. Visit
Andrew Freedman stops by The Business Brew for a discussion about the ever changing media landscape. In this discussion, Andrew articulates how he views valuation, what makes stocks good “long” and “short” candidates, and how his process has evolved over time. There’s a lot of company specific discussion here. We hope it is beneficial, educational, and entertaining.
Andrew’s official bio reads as follows:
Andrew Freedman, CFA, is a Managing Director and Communications Sector Head at Hedgeye. In addition, he holds Senior Analyst responsibilities on the Health Care Team where he specializes in Information Technology. Before joining Hedgeye in 2014, Andrew worked for an institutional consulting firm where he was responsible for client asset allocation and investment manager due-diligence. Andrew is a CFA® charterholder and holds a Bachelor of Science degree from Marquette University in Finance and Business Economics.
Hedgeye is an independent investment research firm covering 10 fundamental/industry sectors, macro and policy. We provide actionable long/short ideas to institutions (hedge funds, mutual funds, and family offices) and RIAs/Individuals. Institutional research includes access to deep dive fundamental reports (black books) on individual stocks, thematic/industry analysis, proprietary and third party datasets, industry thought leader calls, company models, one-on-one analyst access and more. We do not have a broker dealer and don't do banking. Please contact sales@hedgeye.com if you are interested in learning more about Hedgeye's research offerings.
Detailed show notes below the Stream by Mosiac sponsor copy and thank yous.
Please leave us a rating in your favorite podcast player!
This episode is brought to you by Stream by Mosaic, a product that is integral to any fundamental research process. Stream has developed an extensive library of expert interviews that cover a variety of industries. https://streamrg.co/BB features over 300 expert interviews per week. 70% of Stream's experts are found exclusively on https://streamrg.co/BB. Visit
Troy Lavinia, founder of Stream by Mosaic, stops by The Business Brew to discuss creating Stream, building teams, and strategic thinking. Troy is a really interesting thinker, approaches life with an abundance mentality, and is always looking to find the right partners to grow a business. Interesting tidbits about Troy include his time at Elliott Management and playing football fullback and tight end at University of Pennsylvania.
At one point in the conversation Bill asks Troy how he got comfortable delegating work. Troy responded by saying something to the effect of “You have to associate joy with creating a meaningful job for someone else.” That answer struck Bill as a very positive association for delegation.
We hope you enjoy this conversation. It is a peek into the financial services industry and an introduction to the person behind our sponsor.
Please leave us a rating in your favorite podcast player!
This episode is brought to you Bill.
Stream by Mosaic is a product that is integral to any fundamental research process. Stream has developed an extensive library of expert interviews that cover a variety of industries. https://streamrg.co/BB features over 300 expert interviews per week. 70% of Stream's experts are found exclusively on https://streamrg.co/BB. Visit https://streamrg.co/BB for a 14 day trial.
Album art photo taken by Mike Ando. Please see https://www.mikeando.com/
Thank you to @mathewpassy (on Twitter) for the show production.
Detailed Show Notes
3:00 – Troy’s background, including time at Elliott Management
6:00 – How Stream was incubated within Mosaic and then spun out for growth reasons
8:00 – How Troy thought about partnering with AlphaSense
11:30 – Why expert transcript libraries are similar to media streaming services
16:15 – Did COVID “help” Stream by Mosaic as a business?
19:00 – Why does Troy like running startups vs. more mature businesses?
21:20 - Team building and the power of delegation
33:00 – Listening to the interviews on Stream by Mosaic
35:00 – Troy’s association with selling St
Will Thomson stops by The Business Brew to discuss his approach to real asset investing. Will is the Founder and Managing Partner of Massif Capital, LLC. He has experience in private equity and credit/political risk insurance, in addition to having served as a strategic and economic adviser to NATO/ISAF in Afghanistan.
Before starting Massif Capital, Will worked in the New York office of Chaucer, a Lloyd’s of London insurance syndicate, serving as the co-portfolio manager for a $750 million portfolio of credit and political risk insurance policies. He is a Graduate of Trinity College and holds a Masters in Government from Harvard University.
Detailed show notes below the Stream by Mosiac sponsor copy and thank yous.
Please leave us a rating in your favorite podcast player!
This episode is brought to you by Stream by Mosaic, a product that is integral to any fundamental research process. Stream has developed an extensive library of expert interviews that cover a variety of industries. https://streamrg.co/BB features over 300 expert interviews per week. 70% of Stream's experts are found exclusively on https://streamrg.co/BB. Visit https://streamrg.co/BB and use promo code BREW for a 14 day trial.
Album art photo taken by Mike Ando. Please see https://www.mikeando.com/
Thank you to @mathewpassy (on Twitter) for the show production.
Detailed Show Notes
Will Thomson –
4:05 – Being able to present at Grant’s
5:05 – Will’s background and his experience watching government intervention change an industry
8:30 – What Massif focuses its time on
10:30 – Everyon
Muji stops by The Business Brew to discuss modern internet infrastructure. Muji has extensive technical knowledge about internet infrastructure, network security, and high growth companies such as Snowflake. He shares his knowledge via a paid newsletter, found at hhhypergrowth.com, which Bill subscribes to and enjoys very much. Our discussion mostly focuses on how information travels over the internet to end up being consumed by everyone. This is a very interesting discussion and we hope you enjoy.
Detailed show notes below the Stream by Mosiac sponsor copy and thank yous.
Please leave us a rating in your favorite podcast player!
This episode is brought to you by Stream by Mosaic, a product that is integral to any fundamental research process. Stream has developed an extensive library of expert interviews that cover a variety of industries. https://streamrg.co/BB features over 300 expert interviews per week. 70% of Stream's experts are found exclusively on https://streamrg.co/BB. Visit https://streamrg.co/BB for a 14 day trial.
Album art photo taken by Mike Ando. Please see https://www.mikeando.com/
Thank you to @mathewpassy (on Twitter) for the show production.
Detailed Show Notes
4:30 – What is an edge network and a CDN
9:45 – How Fastly and Cloudflare attacked Akami
15:40 – Cloud Infrastructure vs. CDNs
18:50 – Fastly strategy
21:30 – The rise of software defined networking
23:15 – Fully programmable app stacks vs. monolithic app stacks
Denise Shull is Founder and CEO of The ReThink Group (see https://therethinkgroup.net/). She developed the Shull method, which relies on the latest brain research on how humans perceive, judge and decide. Understanding this on a practical level routinely allows The ReThink Group to resolve the mysterious mental challenges of slumps, burnout, motivation and resilience. Denise’s distinctive approach produces results that are unmatched in the performance and risk-taking fields.
We start off jumping into the conversation. Denise learned from modern psychoanalysts. This conversation begins talking about anger, but it is more about managing emotions. Managing emotions is extremely important in life and investing. Yet, it is underdiscussed on many investment podcasts. Hence this interview.
While this a bit different, we think this podcast could meaningfully improve your results if you take it seriously.
We hope you enjoy the discussion.
Detailed show notes below the Stream by Mosiac sponsor copy and thank yous.
Please leave us a rating in your favorite podcast player!
This episode is brought to you by Stream by Mosaic, a product that is integral to any fundamental research process. Stream has developed an extensive library of expert interviews that cover a variety of industries. https://streamrg.co/BB features over 300 expert interviews per week. 70% of Stream's experts are found exclusively on https://streamrg.co/BB. Visit https://streamrg.co/BB for a 14 day trial.
Album art photo taken by Mike Ando. Please see https://www.mikeando.com/
Kristi Ross stops by The Business Brew to discuss her career, leading companies through M&A, and two notable exits exceeding $1.7Bn (the most recent of which was valued at $1Bn https://www.bizjournals.com/chicago/inno/stories/news/2021/01/21/chicagos-tastytrade-acquired-in-1b-deal.html). Kristi is the co-CEO of tastytrade, which launched in 2011. She also co-founded dough, a visual front-end trading technology platform that launched in 2014 and ultimately merged with and rebranded as tastytrade when the team launched their own online brokerage firm, tastyworks, in 2017.
Kristi is an award-winning entrepreneur who believes in empowering the do-it-yourself investor to engage more with their finances. She also uses her time to interview innovative entrepreneurs on her show, Bootstrapping in America. She also walks through the ins and outs of taxes for traders in Kristi’s Tax Bursts.
Kristi started her career in public accounting, specializing in financial services industry clientele including individual traders, proprietary firms, market makers, and advisory firms. After her run as a public accountant, Kristi acted as CFO of Automated Trading Desk Specialists, a stock specialist on the Chicago Stock Exchange. She then partnered up with Tom Sosnoff to serve as CFO of thinkorswim Group where she led numerous mergers, acquisitions and integration. thinkorswim sold to TD-Ameritrade for $750M in 2009.
You can find her information here: LinkedIn, Twitter, and tastytrade.
We hope you enjoy the discussion.
Detailed show notes below the Stream by Mosiac sponsor copy and thank yous.
Please leave us a rating in your favorite podcast player!
This episode is brought to you by Stream by Mosaic, a product that is integral to any fundamental research process. Stream has developed an extensive library of expert interviews that cover a variety of industries. StreamRG.com features over 300 expert interviews. 70% of Stream's experts are found exclusively on StreamRG.com. Visit StreamRG.com and use promo code BREW for a 14 day trial.
Album art photo taken by Mike Ando. Please see https://www.mikeando.com/
Thank you to @mathewpassy (on Twitter) for the show production.
Detailed Show Notes
3:30 - Kristi’s background
5:05 - How Kristi growing up formed her views on entre
Jillian Jaccard Murrish stops by The Business Brew to discuss co-founding and running Pier Asset Management; an alternative credit firm. Pier delivers fixed income yield by investing in alternative credit, which they define as all nonbank lending. Typical loan sizes in Pier’s portfolio are loans less than $250,000.
This was a fun conversation and touches on an asset class that hasn’t been discussed much on this program. As always, nothing is investment advice and do your own due diligence! Jillian’s credentials are as follows:
Mrs. Murrish is a co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of Pier Asset Management. Prior to founding Pier, she was Executive Vice President of Capital Markets at Patch of Land where she built one of the first institutional whole loan sale programs in the real estate marketplace lending industry, secured $750M in loan purchase commitments, managed the firm’s warehouse funding, and lead equity capitalization efforts. Prior to her time in marketplace lending, Mrs. Murrish worked with technology clients in the Capital Markets group at a leading middle market investment bank, Houlihan Lokey. She has completed the Series 7, Series 63, Series 65, and Series 79 examinations. She is a graduate of the Loyola Marymount University Honors Program and has a B.S. in Accounting and a B.B.A. in Finance.
We hope you enjoy the discussion.
“The investment strategy discussed in this podcast is only suitable for eligible investors and there is no guarantee that the investment strategy will be successful or meet its goals. Any discussion of targeted returns reflects the intended interest rates paid by borrowers and is not reflective of returns to investors. Also, nothing in this discussion should be regarded as a representation, warranty or prediction that any specific transaction will reflect any particular performance or that it will achieve or is likely to achieve any particular result or that investors will be able to avoid losses, including total loss of their investment. Inherent in any investment is the potential for loss. This podcast discussion is solely for informational purposes only and is not a solicitation or an offer to buy any security or instrument or to participate in any trading strategy.”
Detailed show notes below the Stream by Mosiac sponsor copy and thank yous.
Please leave us a rating in your favorite app store.
This episode is brought to you by Stream by Mosaic, a product that is integral to any fundamental research process. Stream has developed an extensive library of expert interviews that cover a variety of industries. https://streamrg.co/BB features over 300 expert interviews per week. 70% of Stream's experts are found exclusively on
NOTE: For 20% off of KOYFIN please use the following link: https://www.koyfin.com/?utm_campaign=BusinessBrew20off&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=rewardful&via=business
The discount will be applied at checkout.
Rob Koyfman stops by The Business Brew to discuss his background, starting a Fintech business, building teams, and much more. Rob’s experience includes stints and Goldman Sachs, Citigroup and macro roles at Luxor Asset Management and Tekne Capital Management. This was a fun conversation for Bill. We hope you enjoy meeting the person behind our first sponsor.
Audio time stamps (note - YouTube will not sync to these).
0:00 - Rob’s career at Goldman
~2:00 - How Goldman staffs and why that’s smart
~4:40 - Building culture at Koyfin
~6:00 - Living in London
~10:50 - Starting Koyfin
~14:30 - Rob the investor and how it influenced Koyfin’s homepage
~19:00 - Walk through Koyfin homepage
~ 23:00 - Some technical talk
~32:00 - Technicals signaled a reversal in 2009
~35:00 - Rate & yield curve discussion
~38:00 - Rob’s data visualization beginning
~40:16 - Koyfin has transcripts too!
~44:30 - Getting the word out about Koyfin
~47:40 - The importance of having a team to accomplish bigger things
~50:30 - Moving to a paid model and what that’s like for Koyfin’s business
~56:30 - The breadth of Koyfin’s offering
Tren Griffin stops by The Business Brew for a fun conversation about his career, investing, and life. Tren is an author of 7 books, had a front row seat to Bill Gates’ career, sold ½ of his business in the .com bubble, deeply studied Charlie Munger, and now works at Microsoft. This conversation spans Tren’s career, his advice regarding giving to get, the importance of being brave, and much more.
Tren, thank you for joining The Brew. It was a pleasure speaking with you. We hope you enjoy the discussion. You can find Tren on Twitter @trengriffin and read his work at https://25iq.com/
Detailed show notes below the Stream by Mosiac sponsor copy and thank yous.
Please leave us a rating in your favorite app store.
This episode is brought to you by Stream by Mosaic, a product that is integral to any fundamental research process. Stream has developed an extensive library of expert interviews that cover a variety of industries. https://streamrg.co/BB features over 300 expert interviews per week. 70% of Stream's experts are found exclusively on https://streamrg.co/BB. Visit StreamRG.comhttps://streamrg.co/BB today for a 14 day trial.
Album art photo taken by Mike Ando. Please see https://www.mikeando.com/
Thank you to @mathewpassy (on Twitter) for the show production.
Audio
~6:20 – Scaling luck
~9:15 – Age creating humility
~11:30 – Coming up with a startup idea when the internet was nascent
~15:21 – Interesting Seattle connecti
Louisa Nicola stops by The Business Brew to discuss her time as a triathlete, recovering from a major injury, and how she got curious about the power of the brain during her rehab from injury. Today, Louisa is Director and Head Neuroscientist at Neuro Athletics. Her firm helps athletes and hedge fund managers monitor their sleep, diet, etc. in order to help them achieve their maximum potential.
You can follow Louia @lousianicola_ on Twitter or read her writing at https://substack.com/profile/32674240-louisa-nicola
We hope you enjoy the discussion. Detailed show notes below the Stream by Mosiac sponsor copy and thank yous.
Please leave us a rating in your favorite app store.
This episode is brought to you by Stream by Mosaic, a product that is integral to any fundamental research process. Stream has developed an extensive library of expert interviews that cover a variety of industries. StreamRG.com features over 300 expert interviews. 70% of Stream's experts are found exclusively on StreamRG.com. Visit StreamRG.com today for a 14 day trial. Tell them The Business Brew sent you!
Album art photo taken by Mike Ando. Please see https://www.mikeando.com/
Thank you to @mathewpassy (on Twitter) for the show production.
Audio/YouTube
~3:00 – Louisa’s history as an elite triathlete
~9:45 – Learning by treating the body as a science experiment
~13:00 – Facilitating healthy sleep
~18:45 – Negative impacts from not enough sleep
~23:00 – Neurology 101
~28:30 – General dietary discussion (NOT ADVICE)
~31:00 – What engaging Louisa’s firm “looks like”
~35:00 – Heart Rate Variability and an inconvenient truth about
alcohol (and cannabis)
~40:00 – Tracking health
~47:50 – Social media is not good for sleep
~53:00 – How to contact Louisa
The one and only David Gardner stops by The Business Brew for an interview Bill has been looking forward to for over a year. David is a Co-Founder of The Motley Fool. He is best known for his Rule Breaker investing strategy but Bill knows him as a person that forced Bill to contemplate how he looks at investing.
You can find David’s Rule Breaker podcast at https://www.fool.com/podcasts/rule-breaker-investing/, follow him on Twitter at @DavidGFool, and sign up for The Motley Fool at https://www.fool.com/. See also his podcasts with Invest Like The Best https://podcasts.apple.com/dk/podcast/david-gardner-finding-companies-that-break-the-rules/id1154105909?i=1000392148108 or https://open.spotify.com/episode/4bwyONARX4WeVcsPYosiuR?si=H8lR4qlwTgS92N5u6IQ2mA and Wealth Track https://wealthtrack.com/category/guests/david-gardner/
We hope you enjoy the discussion. Detailed show notes below the Stream by Mosiac sponsor copy and thank yous.
Please leave us a rating in your favorite app store.
This episode is brought to you by Stream by Mosaic, a product that is integral to any fundamental research process. Stream has developed an extensive library of expert interviews that cover a variety of industries. https://streamrg.co/BB features over 300 expert interviews per week. 70% of Stream's experts are found exclusively on https://streamrg.co/BB. Visit https://streamrg.co/BB today for a 14 day trial.
Album art photo taken by Mike Ando. Please see https://www.mikeando.com/
Thank you to @mathewpassy (on Twitter) for the show production.
Audio/YouTube
5:24 – David’s minimum investment time horizon
8:30 - What running a business did for David’s investments
14:30 - Rule Breaking for the long term
19:30 – David’s thoughts on investing vs. tradi
Jonathan Boyar stops by The Business Brew to discuss his investing philosophy. Jonathan is the President of Boyar's Intrinsic Value Research LLC., an independent research boutique established in 1975 that counts some of the world’s largest sovereign wealth funds, hedge funds, mutual funds and family offices as subscribers. He is also a Principal of Boyar Asset Management, which has been managing money utilizing a value oriented strategy since 1983.
He has been interviewed by Barron’s, Welling on Wall Street and GuruFocus. He spoke at the 2017 London Value Investor Conference, the 2017 GuruFocus Value Conference and the 2017 International Value Investing Conference. He is also a contributor to the latest edition of Harriman’s Book of Investing Rules: The Do’s & Don’ts of the World’s Best Investors. He is a senior contributor to Forbes as well as the host of The World According to Boyar podcast.
We hope you enjoy the discussion. Detailed show notes below the Stream by Mosiac sponsor copy and thank yous.
Please leave us a rating in your favorite app store.
This episode is brought to you by Stream by Mosaic, a product that is integral to any fundamental research process. Stream has developed an extensive library of expert interviews that cover a variety of industries. https://streamrg.co/BB features over 300 expert interviews per week. 70% of Stream's experts are found exclusively on https://streamrg.co/BB. Visit https://streamrg.co/BB today for a 14 day trial.
Album art photo taken by Mike Ando. Please see https://www.mikeando.com/
Thank you to @mathewpassy (on Twitter) for the show production.
Youtube:
05:00 - What makes The Berkshire Weekend so great
10:00 -
David Fauchier stops by The Business Brew to discuss crypto and market neutral strategies in crypto assets. David works at Nickel Digital Asset Management, an investment manager connecting traditional finance with the digital assets market. The firm deploys highly sophisticated low-latency algorithmic trading, pursuing a range of arbitrage strategies in both spot and derivative markets, as well as a range of directional buy-and-hold products. All funds are designed with institutional clients in mind, but we hope the discussion is broadly applicable.
You can reach David at @dfauchier on Twitter.
We hope you enjoy the discussion. Detailed show notes below the Stream by Mosiac sponsor copy and thank yous.
Please leave us a rating in your favorite app store.
This episode is brought to you by Stream by Mosaic, a product that is integral to any fundamental research process. Stream has developed an extensive library of expert interviews that cover a variety of industries. https://streamrg.co/BB features over 300 expert interviews per week. 70% of Stream's experts are found exclusively on https://streamrg.co/BB. Visit https://streamrg.co/BB today for a 14 day trial.
Album art photo taken by Mike Ando. Please see https://www.mikeando.com/
Thank you to @mathewpassy (on Twitter) for the show production.
Youtube:
4:19 - What David does - market neutral strategies in crypto
6:04 - How to look at market neutral strategies when there is not "value" in a coin
8:48 - David's take on crypto and monetary regimes
14:39 - H
Alexandra Blumenfeld stops by The Business Brew to discuss her business, Red Rover. Alex is a Junior at Vanderbuilt University and founded Red Rover, an expert network. Bill, Josh Tarasoff, Trey Kuppin, and Elliot Turner have all used Alex's service and all recommend the service. This conversation will highlight the value Alex provides. See show notes below for details of the conversation.
Red Rover Website: redrovernetwork.com
Red Rover Twitter Page: https://twitter.com/RedRoverNetwork
If you'd like to order a poll please see the website and click on "order polls" or contact Alex at alex@redrovernetwork.com.
NOTE: The timestamps should be accurate for those listening to the podcast on a dedicated podcast player. YouTube's timing is different because of how we edit the podcast audio.
In this show you will hear about:
3:33 - 15:33 - Alex's path to entreprenuership
16:25 - The type of data Alex's business provides
18:21 - Whether there is geographical bias in Red Rover sampling
21:50 - How Alex is thinking about expanding Red Rover's capabilities
22:50 - Examples of surveys Red Rover has run
23:45 - Alcohol consumption among college students
25:45 - Video streaming services
30:00 - Insights on Spotify vs. audio streaming
35:20 - Discussion about podcasts
35:15 - How Gen Z ranks social media
37:15 - Gen Z is comfortable with a lack of privacy
39:50 - What Red Rover is doing to monitor levels of engagement
43:10 - Cultivating an Instagram account to make sure people don't say no to friendship
45:30 - How much time does video get with Gen Z?
48:10 - Body image and Instagram
50:30 - Metaverse (note: this was recorded before Facebook's announcement)
52:40 - Growing up with the internet and whether that is tough on the mind
58:50 - Subscription billing practices
60:00 - How Alex thinks about building a culture that will last.
Kyler Hasson (Kyler@hassoninvestments.com) stops by The Business Brew to discuss how he has morphed as an investor and as a Registered Investment Advisor. Kyler is one of Bill's good friends and they've chatted about investments for a number of years now. Kyler is an investor that has gravitated to high quality businesses. He has also gravitated towards a less concentrated portfolio in order to fulfill client objectives. We hope you enjoy listening to the two of them sharing lessons they've learned.
We hope you enjoy the discussion. Detailed show notes below the Koyfin sponsor and thank yous.
Please leave us a rating in your favorite app store.
This episode is brought to you by Koyfin, one of the fastest-growing platforms for financial data and analytics to research stocks and understand market trends. Check out Koyfin.com to see what a Bloomberg-lite, with tons of high-quality fundamental data and a powerful graph engine looks like.
Album art photo taken by Mike Ando. Please see https://www.mikeando.com/
Thank you to Mathew Passy for the podcast production. You can find Mathew at @MathewPassy on Twitter or at thepodcastconsultant.com
In this episode you will learn how Kyler and Bill think about:
1:35 - How Kyler started his investing career
4:22 - How Kyler views being an RIA (Registered Investment Advisor)
7:17 - Tax drag and how that can hurt investment performance
11:04 - Why finding a great business that can compound returns over time may be a better strategy
15:00 - Mean reversion and risk
18:49 - Moving towards a more diversified portfolio and avoiding overconfidence bias
24:49 - Whether investors really want to be like Charlie Munger.
26:02 - A very cool class Kyler took in college
30:32 - Why certain tribe of investors talk past each other
34:12 - Being aware of behavioral biases
36:00 - Lessons from an energy investment
40:36 - Lessons from Altice and why demanding execution might have been a better idea
42:19 - Looking for high quality companies that sell off for non core reasons
48:00 - Culture compounding as a competitive advantage
52:54 - The individual investor's greatest advantage
56:40 - Buying a new position or adding to an existing position
58:00 - Whether buying "cheap" is harder than owning fairly priced quality companies
This week Chris Bloomstran stops by The Business Brew to catch up. Part of this conversation are a bit scary. Parts you may disagree with. Regardless, it's very apparent that Chris thinks A LOT about what he is investing in.
Chris is the President and Chief Investment Officer of Semper Augustus Investments Group. He is best known for his annual letters; most of which have an incredibly detailed analysis of Berkshire Hathaway. See https://www.semperaugustus.com/clientletter
We hope you enjoy the discussion. Detailed show notes below the Koyfin sponsor and thank yous.
Please leave us a rating in your favorite app store.
This episode is brought to you by Koyfin, one of the fastest-growing platforms for financial data and analytics to research stocks and understand market trends. Check out Koyfin.com to see what a Bloomberg-lite, with tons of high-quality fundamental data and a powerful graph engine looks like.
Album art photo taken by Mike Ando. Please see https://www.mikeando.com/
Thank you to Mathew Passy for the podcast production. You can find Mathew at @MathewPassy on Twitter or at thepodcastconsultant.com
In this episode Chris and Bill discuss:
0:34 - Chris' wine hobby
7:34 - Chris setting weight lifting records in high school
11:33 - Playing football against Barry Sanders
17:04 - Pivot to investing
17:47 - What about today rhymes with the late 90s
25:00 - Chris' warning about Twitter, Shopify, and Tesla
28:00 - What rhymes between ARK and Janus
30:54 - How Chris thinks about today's multiples
38:25 - Why Chris has positions in energy companies
43:00 - Chris' use of Twitter and his Twitter threads
50:31 - Chris' love for teaching
53:03 - Bill and Chris discuss Berkshire
60:45 - Berkshire Hathaway Energy and how it fits within the renewable energy landscape
1:04:45 - Discussion about opportunity cost and value traps
1:08:45 - Why Chris is lukewarm on Big Tech
1:10:00 - Chris' take on the idea of never selling a great business
1:16:10 - Chris discusses Costco vs. Amazon and concludes the opportunity cost discussion at 1:18:52
1:22:00 - More energy (in the context of opportunity cost)
Margot Edelman stops by The Business Brew to discuss corporate communications as well as the Edelman Trust Barometer (see https://www.edelman.com/sites/g/files/aatuss191/files/2021-01/2021-edelman-trust-barometer.pdf). Edelman is an award-winning global public relations consultancy firm. Key findings from the 2021 Trust Barometer are as follows:
- Trust in business increased in 17 of 27 countries
- Trust is technology declined a substantial amount
- People turned to their employer for facts/trust
- There was a fairly substantial reduction in trust in China
- Social leaders are not trusted to do what is "right"
We hope you find this conversation educational and entertaining.
Margot Edelman is the General Manger of Edelman’s Bay Area Hub, where she leads a team of skilled practitioners and innovators in Edelman’s San Francisco and Sacramento offices as they deliver industry-leading communications strategies that build brand trust and visibility. Her clients range from private equity and venture capital firms to technology companies and well-known individuals.
Before becoming General Manager, Margot led the Bay Area Tech team, advising executives and business leaders in Silicon Valley. Prior to moving to California, Margot led the firm’s Research and Insights group in New York. Margot is a regular contributor to Edelman’s Annual Trust Barometer and host of the monthly “Meet the Press” series for Edelman, which features speakers from the FT, Bloomberg, NYT, and other top-tier media outlets.
Margot is a graduate of Harvard Business School and Harvard University.
This episode is brought to you by Koyfin, one of the fastest-growing platforms for financial data and analytics to research stocks and understand market trends. Check out Koyfin.com to see what a Bloomberg-lite, with tons of high-quality fundamental data and a powerful graph engine looks like.
Album art photo taken by Mike Ando. Please see https://www.mikeando.com/
Thank you to Mathew Passy for the podcast production. You can find Mathew at @MathewPassy on Twitter or at thepodcastconsultant.com
Stinson Dean (@lumbertrading on Twitter), owner of Deacon Lumber, stops by The Business Brew to discuss the current lumber market, what happened to lumber in 2020, and how the market got to where it is. This is a long conversation, but deserves the length. Stinson goes deep into what it means to trade physical lumber, how he manages risk, why he is hedged, and much, much more.
The goal of this conversation was to have a calmer conversation about lumber than what may have occurred just a year ago. Lumber is an extremely volatile market and Stinson is a fantastic person to discuss the market with. We hope you enjoy this conversation.
Please rate the show in your favorite app!
This episode is brought to you by Koyfin, one of the fastest-growing platforms for financial data and analytics to research stocks and understand market trends. Check out Koyfin.com to see what a Bloomberg-lite, with tons of high-quality fundamental data and a powerful graph engine looks like.
Album art photo taken by Mike Ando. Please see https://www.mikeando.com/
Meb Faber joins The Business Brew to discuss his views on investments, geographical diversification, trend following, and much more.
Meb's podcast, The Meb Faber Show https://mebfaber.com/podcast/, was one of the first financial podcasts Bill listened to. That show has featured many incredible thinkers, different styles of investments, and more recently many private market investment discussions. In addition to his podcast, Meb writes often and highlights his favorite investment writing (see https://www.cambriainvestments.com/investing-insights/). Another fun thing Meb does is post things he disagrees with his peers about. You can find that thread at https://twitter.com/mebfaber/status/1108070025770856448?s=21.
Meb is incredibly smart, nice, and everyone that knows him speaks highly of him. The Business Brew hopes this conversation adds value to your day. We also hope it adds a different element to your thinking. But as importantly, we hope it highlights Meb.
Meb, thank you for the education you've shared. And thank you for joining the show.
This episode is brought to you by Koyfin, one of the fastest-growing platforms for financial data and analytics to research stocks and understand market trends. Check out Koyfin.com to see what a Bloomberg-lite, with tons of high-quality fundamental data and a powerful graph engine looks like.
See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRJKoalFBgs for Bill and Rob's podcast. This is the podcast that will highlight how Koyfin works.
Album art photo taken by Mike Ando. Please see https://www.mikeando.com/
Kyla Scanlon stops by The Business Brew to discuss the life of a finance content creator. Kyla is a Gen Z financial content creator. Her content focuses on macro economics, monetary policy, crypto innovation, and more. She chooses to avoid stock discussions in an effort to avoid anything that could be deemed "pumping."
Bill wanted to speak with Kyla because he (a) is interested in how younger people are getting introduced to financial markets and (b) thinks she creates content the "right" way. Said differently, Bill appreciates how Kyla does what she does and wished more creators took the responsibility as seriously as she does.
The article referenced in this podcast can be found at https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-social-media-stars-who-move-markets-11630056601
This episode is brought to you by Koyfin, one of the fastest-growing platforms for financial data and analytics to research stocks and understand market trends. Check out Koyfin.com to see what a Bloomberg-lite, with tons of high-quality fundamental data and a powerful graph engine looks like.
J Mintzmyer (@mintzmyer) is a renowned maritime shipping analyst who directs the Value Investor's Edge ("VIE") research platform on Seeking Alpha. He stopped by The Business Brew to discuss the shipping industry. J is a frequent speaker at industry conferences, is regularly quoted in trade journals, and hosts a popular podcast featuring shipping industry executives. Mr. Mintzmyer also hosts regular "Virtual Investor Forums," which are a must-attend for anyone interested in the shipping and infrastructure industries. As Head of Research at Value Investor's Edge, his trades and model portfolios have outperformed the shipping sector average for 6 consecutive years and have beaten the Russell 2000 for 5 of the past 6 years. J has earned a BS in Economics from the Air Force Academy, an MA in Public Policy from the University of Maryland, and is a PhD Candidate at Harvard University, where he researches global trade flows and security policy.
This episode is brought you by Koyfin, one of the fastest-growing platforms for financial data and analytics to research stocks and understand market trends. Check out Koyfin.com to see what a Bloomberg-lite, with tons of high-quality fundamental data and a powerful graph engine looks like.
Rui Ma, co host of Tech Buzz China, stops by The Business Brew to discuss what is going on with China's current regulations. This conversation is nuanced, offers perspective on some of China's goals, and touches on a variety of subjects. The goal of the conversation is not to offer answers, per se. Rather, we are trying to help provide a framework of how to think about what the CCP might be attempting to achieve and help listeners think about how to analyze different Chinese competitive dynamics.
Rui has sixteen years of experience in technology and finance, spanning seed stage to pre-IPO investing, with a decade focused on China. She founded Tech Buzz China in 2018 to educate and consult investors, funds and entrepreneurs on Chinese tech companies products, strategies and trends. She previously worked at 500 Startups as an investment partner, and spent a decade in private equity and mergers & acquisitions roles at the Raine Group, Morgan Stanley and Merrill Lynch in both Silicon Valley and China. Rui holds a B.S. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from the University of California at Berkeley, and additional degrees from Tsinghua, INSEAD, UIUC and Harvard University.
We hope you enjoy this conversation with Rui. She has a great personality and is a fantastic resource. Please follow her on Twitter at @ruima and join her community at https://www.techbuzzchina.com/insider.
This episode is brought you by Koyfin, one of the fastest-growing platforms for financial data and analytics to research stocks and understand market trends. Check out Koyfin.com to see what a Bloomberg-lite, with tons of high-quality fundamental data and a powerful graph engine looks like.
Major Topics: Housing and Macro
Logan Mohtashami is a housing data analyst, financial writer, and blogger covering the U.S. economy specializing in the housing market. Mohtashami’s work is frequently quoted in BankRate.com and Bloomberg financial. Logan is also a Lead Analyst for HousingWire. Mohtashami has been an invited speaker at the Americatlyst, California Association Of Realtors and the National Association Of Women In Real Estate Business, and other economic conferences. He is a recurring guest on Bloomberg Financial, where he discusses the health of the housing market. Logan Mohtashami, now retired, was a senior loan officer at AMC Lending Group, which has been providing mortgage services for California residents since 1987.
In this episode Logan stops by to describe his data driven process, why the US housing market is "unhealthy," why demographics are a tailwind through 2024, and how Logan pulled off a one of a kind trading year in 2020. Logan brings the heat with this one. Hope y'all enjoy!
This episode is brought you by Koyfin, one of the fastest-growing platforms for financial data and analytics to research stocks and understand market trends. Check out Koyfin.com to see what a Bloomberg-lite, with tons of high-quality fundamental data and a powerful graph engine looks like.
Major Topics: 80s Culture and Film Directing
Seth Porges stops by The Business Brew to discuss directing Class Action Park, a beautiful piece of art. The New Jersey and New York fans may appreciate this episode a bit more than the rest, but rest assured this is a fun conversation. Check out Class Action Park on HBO Max before listening if you are concerned with spoilers.
Why does this episode work on The Brew? Well, for one, because it's dope. But also, Seth bootstrapped production for the documentary. Furthermore, Action Park is one of the most fascinating businesses ever. A combo of freedom, negligence, and a darker side that led to some people dying.
We hope you enjoy the episode. You can follow Seth at @sethporges on Twitter. Bill can be reached at @BillBrewsterTBB on Twitter.
This episode is brought you by Koyfin, one of the fastest-growing platforms for financial data and analytics to research stocks and understand market trends. Check out Koyfin.com to see what a Bloomberg-lite, with tons of high-quality fundamental data and a powerful graph engine looks like.
Major Topics: Special Situations, Small Cap Investing, Unique Thinking
Thomas Braziel is the Founder and CIO at 507 Capital. The son of bankruptcy lawyers, Thomas was destined to become an expert in distressed investing. He loves looking at weird and esoteric trades and investments.
This episode covers behavioral investing, special situations investing, how illiquidity breeds good behavior, and Thomas' big win on his Mt. Gox claims. Thomas has a unique mind and introduces some ideas that are not en vogue in 2021. We hope Thomas' thoughts help expand the definition of an investment in some people's minds.
This episode is brought you by Koyfin, one of the fastest-growing platforms for financial data and analytics to research stocks and understand market trends. Check out Koyfin.com to see what a Bloomberg-lite, with tons of high-quality fundamental data and a powerful graph engine looks like.
Major Topics: Process and Decision Making Improvement
Jake Taylor is CEO of Farnam Street Investments, Co-Host of Value After Hours, Host of the 5GQ podcast, author of The Rebel Allocator, and Founder of journalytic.com. Jake and Bill met at Berkshire and immediately became friends. While they invest differently, they have more in common than Value After Hours fans may think.
On Value After Hours Jake is known for his "veggie" segments, which are segments that tie investing ideas to other worldy concepts. He is very passionate about making the best decisions possible and drawing from a wide range of subjects.
We hope this episode highlights how Jake thinks about the world and spreads better decision making. Topics covered include:
-Base rates underpinning underwriting
-Bayesian updating
-Tracking what happens vs what you thought would happen
-
Few stocks driving the majority of return. See https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2900447
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W. Brian Arthur's theory of Returns to Scale. See https://hbr.org/1996/07/increasing-returns-and-the-new-world-of-business
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And much more
We hope you enjoy this conversation!
This episode is brought you by Koyfin, one of the fastest-growing platforms for financial data and analytics to research stocks and understand market trends. Check out Koyfin.com to see what a Bloomberg-lite, with tons of high-quality fundamental data and a powerful graph engine looks like.
Major Topics: The Human Mind, Life, and Quant Investing
Wall Street legend, best selling author, Godfather of FinTwit, and Chief Meme Officer James P. O'Shaughnessy joins The Business Brew. Jim is a one of a kind individual who took time out of his life to help Bill work through some real life issues earlier in the year. They connected as individuals and Bill values Jim's friendship highly.
This is a wide ranging conversation about finance, the human brain, and life. Jim has so much knowledge and shares it freely. Rather than summarize this conversation, we ask that you please give it the time and listen closely. The Business Brew guarantees there are thoughts worth adopting in this conversation.
This episode is brought you by Koyfin, one of the fastest-growing platforms for financial data and analytics to research stocks and understand market trends. Check out Koyfin.com to see what a Bloomberg-lite, with tons of high-quality fundamental data and a powerful graph engine looks like.
New photo courtesy of Mike Ando. Please see https://www.mikeando.com/
Thank you to all the fans, guests, and especially to Mathew Passy. If you like the intro music you'll love this episode.
We will be back soon. Until then, thank you and take care!
-Bill
Rick Van Nostostrand is a Partner and Senior Portfolio Manager at Cornerstone Investment Partners. Cornerstone is an investment boutique in Atlanta, Georgia. The firm manages "mid $2Bn" across a number of value strategies. They have a qualitative approach with a quantitative model that guides them. See https://cornerstone-ip.com/.
Prior to Conerstone, Rick was a voting member of the investment committee at EARNEST Partners and served on the Fundamental Value product at Invesco Capital Management. Previously, he worked in management consulting where he served clients across industries at both McKinsey & Company and Accenture (the Anderson Consulting). Rick earned an MBA with a concentration in Finance from Wharton (U Penn), and holds a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science Engineering from Southern Methodist University. This conversation covers: ~2:30 - Rick's Background ~3:53 - His consulting career at Accenture and McKinsey ~7:11 - College businesses, one of which could have been quite successful if Amazon existed ~13:57 - The theory that in the real world prices and value are seldom aligned ~ 16:23 - Need to develop an investment process and Cornerstone's philosophy ~ 22:21 - What Cornerstone's model told them about Microsoft that the market missed ~ 24:08 - Looking for high quality companies building value over time ~ 26:21 - ESG discussion ~29:36 - Risk subsidies driving valuation ~32:31 - Indexes and how they impact investment results and the market ~37:00 - What happened to certain stocks after the 1999 bubble burst ~38:00 - Investing in the late 90s ~43:00 - Buying the dip may not work forever ~45:00 - Avoiding financials in 2009 ~50:50 - Real option theory in valuation ~54:05 - Where Wells Fargo erred in remediation ~ 57:19 - Why Citigroup was a palatable turnaround investment ~1:01:00 - The benefit of investing with a team ~ 1:05:00 - Avoiding groupthink as a team ~1:07:00 - How to have investment teams function well ~1:14:00 - Building teams to last and culture ~1:19:00 - Miscellaneous discussion
Jason Buck (@JasonMutiny on Twitter), Co Founder and CIO of Mutiny Funds, stopped by for the first in person interview on The Business Brew. Mutiny is releasing the Cockroach Portfolio, a portfolio designed to survive any market conditions. See https://mutinyfund.com/ for details. In this episode Jason discusses his history as an entrepreneur, which took a hit in the Great Financial Crisis. That event caused Jason to think about whether it was possible to hedge entrepreneurial risk. After years of thought, the Cockroach Portfolio was born. The goal of the Cockroach Portfolio is to keep wealth in all market conditions. This conversation goes all over the place. We hope you enjoy. ~4:05 - Trading VIX ~9:00 - Jason's history as a real estate entrepreneur ~10:00 - How often "black swans" occur ~16:50 - Jason describes thinking about hedging macro/entrepreneurial risk ~18:00 - Shannon's Demon - see also https://quant.stackexchange.com/questions/38473/intuitive-explanation-for-shannons-demon ~22:30 - How would Buffett behave if he were starting today? ~23:35 - The $SHIT ETF ~29:17 - What it's like to lose everything ~32:00 - Keeping wealth vs. making wealth ~37:50 - The Hypomanic's Edge ~41:00 - How Jason and Taylor "solved" the problem they wanted to solve ~48:07 - Be so good they can't ignore you ~49:20 - Selecting the right partners ~55:00 - Building the Cockroach Portfolio the right way ~1:04:00 - Playing better games than stock picking; compounding capital without tax ~1:09:00 - What lies do we tell ourselves? ~1:13:00 - Laying asymmetric bets ~1:17:00 - Mental health and whether substances risk mental health ~1:18:00 - General mental health discussion and habits to keep healthy ~1:29:00 - General podcast and Pirates Of Finance Discussion; see https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCsfk98XxbnjTCLkROQZ5zWg/featured ~1:37:00 - Back to Mutiny Fund and how it's structured ~1:40:00 - Avoiding big drawdowns
Jason Wild is the founder and President of JWAM, an SEC-registered investment adviser with over $1.7 billion under management. Jason found investing during his last year of pharmacy school. Taking Peter Lynch seriously, he invested every other paycheck in pharmaceutical ideas he thought were undervalued. His theses were correct far more often than they weren't and he made himself almost a half million dollars in the market. After proving his competence, he started a fund with a mere $80,000. Today, that fund manages over $1.7Bn. Jason's initial strategy focused on specialty pharmaceuticals. His knowledge base enabled him to assess asset bases and M&A quickly (and correctly). After pitching a company on an M&A opportunity, and getting nothing in return, Jason decided to take matters into his own hands. He decided to purchase Arbor Pharmaceuticals for $2.5mm dollars and built the company via M&A. After 3 years, KKR bought a portion of Arbor; valuing the enterprise at $1.1Bn. Today, Jason is Chairman and Interim CEO of TerrAscend Corporation, a cannabis company with multi state operations in the US. His official Bio is as follows: "Jason Wild is the founder and President of JWAM, an SEC-registered investment adviser with over $1.7 billion under management. After starting his first fund in 1998 with only $80,000 AUM, Jason achieved early success by leveraging his background as a pharmacist to find undervalued specialty pharmaceutical companies and by managing the firm’s investments for long-term growth. After building a strong track record as a stock picker, Jason expanded his investment universe and applied his experience and extensive healthcare network to private market opportunities. He has since established himself as a highly respected investor and sought-after partner for both public and private companies."
This was an awesome conversation to have. Highlights are as follows: ~1:00-6:00 - Early career highlights ~6:00- Finding cannabis as a potential investment opportunity ~9:50 - Applying the same learnings from pharmaceuticals to cannabis and getting control of TerrAscend ~13:50 - When the US cannabis thesis got derisked ~16:44 - Applying for licences in New Jersey and what that means ~18:50 - Buying Ilera ~23:30 - Discussion on incentives for East Coast regulators and how they may think about supply/demand balances ~26:30 - The strategy of density vs spreading out the retail footprint ~28:58 - Homegrown cannabis as an alternative ~31:00 - Federalization/interstate commerce and what that may do to the thesis. ~34:49 - The social justice impact of legalization ~37:13 - Consistency in edibles and what is difficult about getting those products consistent ~44:00 - Whether the illicit market will keep its customers ~49:00 - What Jason is doing with Chris Webber to help minorities profit in the cannabis industry ~55:00 - Why issuing equity right now was the right choice for TerrAscend
Arnold Van Den Berg is one of the most unique investors alive today. He is Jewish and was born in Amsterdam, Holland, in 1939. As a toddler, he and his family were forced to hide in a small closet when the Nazis searched his street. His mother was concerned that Arnold and his brother, then 5 years old, would not be able to keep quiet during the searches. Consequently, she arranged for Arnold and his brother to be smuggled out of Amsterdam. While Arnold was successfully smuggled out of Amsterdam, his mother never received a phone call confirming his safety. She grew worried and eventually set out to find a phone to confirm Arnold's safety. Arnold's dad went with her. On the way to the phone booth Arnold's mother and father duked into a store to avoid an air raid. The store owner alerted the Nazis and both of Arnolds parents were sent to Auschwitz. They both survived. This episode is about investing. But, it is more about life than anything. BIll has been fortunate to get to know Arnold over this process. They have talked on the phone for ~10 hours and will do so until Arnold tires of Bill! Arnold is a testament to what humans can do. He and his immediate family survived the most hellish conditions on Earth. Yet, he holds no resentments. In fact, he discusses his experiences as something he's almost grateful for because they enabled him to become the person he is now. In conclusion, no detailed show notes on this one. As a listener, you are encouraged to listen to this entire interview and determine what is helpful for you. Arnold is someone to celebrate and his story should never be forgotten. We hope we add something important to your Memorial Day with this episode. Thank you to all that serve and help ensure the freedomes we enjoy today. Best wishes. Much love.
David Barr (@PenderDave on Twitter) is the President and Portfolio Manager at Pender Fund Capital Management. He focuses primarily on Canadian small cap equities, but is not limited to that subset of investments. Bill met Dave at an MOI Global event in 2019 and was very excited for Dave to join The Business Brew because Dave truly loves stock picking. Dave is extremely well respected, high integrity, and looks at the world through a unique lens. While some people see small cap investing as riskier, Dave sees it as an opportunity. Perhaps it's because of his background in venture capital ("VC"). Perhaps it's because he does better "work" than others. Whatever the reason, The Business Brew is grateful for his time and hope we introduce an investor that warrants respect. Topics discussed include: ~2:50 - Bill and Dave discuss MOI Global as a community ~4:30 - Dave discusses small cap investing ~7:40 - "Microcap draws people who are business analysts" ~8:35 - How venture capital influenced Dave ~10:00 - Why redemptions disproportionately influenced small caps in 2018 ~13:00 - How Dave thinks about marrying VC thinking with equity investing ~15:50 - How journaling helped Dave remember what COVID was really like ~20:00 - Avoiding envy in a social media world ~22:00 - Dave's experience getting "active" (read: constructive) with his holdings ~28:00 - What the Canadian Venture Exchange is and why companies are going public now ~35:00 - How Canada can lead in the financial trends and a discussion on how bubbles form ~45:00 - Dave's thoughts on balancing a portfolio of "compounders" and rerating investments ~49:00 - Are public markets really "long term?" ~53:00 - Is it possible to fully appreciate the right tail of outcomes? ~1:00:00 - Companies are people organizations now; reflexivity matters ~1:04:00 - Follow @PenderFelix! ~1:09:00 - Why Dave is respected by colleagues and how he's been able to achieve success ~1:15:00 - What to learn from Buffett ~1:20:00 - Founder/CEO turnover in smaller cap companies as a risk factor ~1:34:00 - Some SPAC talk
This episode features Francisco Olivera (@FrancoOlivera on Twitter) and Alex Morris (@TSOH_Investing on Twitter). Francisco and Alex are Bill's "mastermind" group. The three of them talk daily and discuss ideas. Scroll down to see topics and time stamps. This episode was recorded in early May. The AT&T and Discovery deal changes some of the discussion. Nevertheless, the thought process is what's more important than the event outcome. Alex and Francisco will return in Season 2 to discuss more media. We are certain of that. Please also note that Alex sold Qurate Retail Group after this episode was recorded. Unfortunately, Bill's mic is a little distorted in this episode, but the conversation was so good that Bill didn't want to scrap it. The three gentlemen hope you all enjoy the conversation. Sign up for Alex's Substack at https://thescienceofhitting.substack.com/ Check out Francisco's most recent "pitch" for Roblox at https://www.dropbox.com/s/qg827ammn51axwg/Roblox%20Investment%20Memo_vF.pdf?dl=0 and you can see him on Andrew Walker's podcast at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Np3AQjNV4OY Time stamps as follows: ~2:00 - starting a Substack and thinking through the frequency of client communication ~8:00 - Francisco's research process and why he's Bill's Abominable NO-man. ~12:00 - Position sizing ~17:00 - Buffett on Verizon ~19:00 - Takes on Berkshire annual meeting ~35:00 - What a "bull market" may do to how we all frame investments (note Alex's YOLO hedge idea at ~39 minutes) ~44:00 - How we think about cash/macro; leads into big tech talk ~50:00 - How our investing philosophy has changed. ~53:00 - Comcast discussion ~58:00 - AT&T discussion (changed with deal) ~1:03:00 - Disney discussion ~1:09:00 - Alex presents a counter to some of the Never Sell narrative and points out that great companies go through tough periods ~1:14:00 - Microsoft talk ~1:19:00 - Difference between multiples and market caps ~1:21:00 - Back to position sizing ~1:30:00 - GEICO vs Progressive ~1:35:00 - Back to Substack, then Alex describes his Substack offering at ~1:39:00 ~1:48:00 Qurate Retail Group ~1:50:00 - Alex and Francisco's bet for Apple to buy Disney ~1:55:00 - Twitter talk ~2:00:00 - Podcast strategy ~2:20:00 - State of Pay TV
Brian Feroldi (@brianferoldi on Twitter) joined The Business Brew to discuss his investment philosophy. Brian is doing some very cool things to spread the message of personal finance and intelligent investing. Matt Cochrane (@matt_cochrane on Twitter) and Austin Lieberman (@libermanaustin on Twitter) vouch for him as a person. That means something to Bill. As for the discussion, Bill enjoyed speaking to Brian very much. Brian is process driven, open minded, and implements a different style from Bill's. Thus, he's exactly the type of guest Bill looks to speak to. Bill's takeaways from this conversation are as follows: Brian is smart, writes everything down, has an intelligent mental model of how the world works, is trying his best to do something positive for the finance industry, and has a passion for learning. He looks for businesses with huge potential and market caps that are capable of growing for a long time. He articulates some of the concepts behind David Gardner's "Rule Breaker" philosophy very well in this episode. Studying the philosophy that underlies Brian's strategy has been a great experience for Bill. The strategy is very different from Warren Buffett's, but it has created impressive outcomes for those that follow it. While Buffett takes large swings, Brian's strategy involves owning many companies and allowing the stocks to grow into concentrated bets. As he says, "make your biggest holdings earn their spot." We hope you enjoy this conversation. If you do then please subscribe to Brian's Substack https://brianferoldi.substack.com/ and YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCs60_Z83HU76uygzHRQl0kA.
ALSO, PLEASE GIVE US A 5 STAR RATING IN THE APP STORE IF YOU LIKE WHAT WE ARE DOING. Thank you for listening!
Title - Austin Lieberman - Squash The Beef Description - Austin Lieberman stops by The Business Brew for a special “squash the beef” episode. Austin and Bill are mortal enemies stemming from a classic “value vs growth” bet. Please see this GoFundMe link for details https://www.gofundme.com/f/fintwit-war-value-vs-growth?utm_campaign=p_cp_url&utm_medium=os&utm_source=customer. While Austin and Bill are not actually mortal enemies, they did disagree on their investment philosophy. Austin is more focused on faster growing companies than Bill has traditionally focused on. Their style differences caused them to talk past each other. One day Austin told Bill that the problem with “value investors” is they think there’s only one way to invest. Bill realized Austin had a point, which upset Bill (mostly because he hates being wrong). That conversation sent Bill on a path to study other styles. For that, he is grateful to Austin. More importantly, Bill is also grateful to Austin’s military service. Austin served as a Tactical Air Control Party (TACP) Officer in the Air Force. He talks about how that influenced him as a person and as an investor in this episode.
This conversation is light hearted, good natured, and a fun way for two people from opposite ends of the investing spectrum to come together to talk investments. We hope you enjoy and are entertained.
George Livadas stopped by The Business Brew to discuss his background, investing framework, and investment strategy. George is the founder and CIO of Upslope Capital Management. Bill really likes how George looks at the world. You can find George's work at https://www.upslopecapital.com/. George's portfolio tends to be focused on industries he covered in the past. Bill was curious to discuss how George thinks of his gross exposure (long exposure minus short exposure) and whether shorting has been, and will be, a good idea in the future. A reason for Bill's interest in long/short strategies is thinking about whether long/short strategies are a better method of diversification relative to the traditional 60/40 stock/bond allocation. In this conversation George talks about his investment theories, position sizing, how he sees risk/reward, and much more. The Business Brew is happy to feature him this week. You can follow Upslope Capital on Twitter at @UpslopeCapital.
Jeremy Raper stopped by The Business Brew to discuss his unique way of viewing equity markets.
Jeremy is a global investor that looks for value in obscure places. He views the world through a credit lens, which is fun for Bill since that’s Bill’s background.
This episode covers position sizing, illiquid microcap positioning, global investing, and more. Thank you to Jeremy for joining!
First and foremost, Bill owns stock in OppFi. This episode is not an invitation or solicitation to buy or sell shares in FGNA, the entity that OppFi is merging with in a SPAC transaction. Second, The Business Brew and Bill encourage listeners to do their own due diligence and talk to their financial advisor before purchasing or selling shares in any security.
With that said, Bill wanted to interview Jared because OppFi sits at the intersection of many Business Brew episodes. To begin, FGNA is taking the company public via SPAC (See Andrew Walker's episode for a discussion on SPACs). Next, Mike Mitchell, our first guest, introduced Bill to Kyle Cerminara, a recent guest, who is part of the group taking OppFi public. Finally, OppFi would have never passed Bill's "smell test" if it wasn't for Tyrone V. Ross' episode where Tyrone talked about the need for serving the underbanked.
In the interest of complete transparency, Bill does not have a significant portion of his net worth allocated to OppFi. Instead, OppFi is part of a "basket bet" Bill made on Kyle Cerminara. Within that bet, Bill finds the incentives of all the people involved compelling. That said, Bill has not done enough work, nor is he convinced enough on OppFi's prospects, to make OppFi a significant weighting in the portfolio.
For the avoidance of doubt, this podcast interview is biased and is part of an open source due diligence project. Bill may change his mind at any time and does not commit to letting people know when he does so.
We hope you enjoy the episode.
William Green is the author of RICHER, WISER, HAPPIER: How the World’s Greatest Investors Win in Markets and Life (April 20, 2021; Scribner). Green has written for many leading publications in the US and Europe, including The New Yorker, Time, Fortune, Forbes, Barron’s, Fast Company, Money, Worth, Bloomberg Markets, The Los Angeles Times, The Boston Globe Magazine, The New York Observer, The (London) Spectator, The (London) Independent Magazine, and The Economist. He has reported in places as diverse as China, India, Japan, the Philippines, Bangladesh, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, the US, Mexico, England, France, Monaco, Poland, Italy, and Russia. He has interviewed presidents and prime ministers, inventors, criminals, prize-winning authors, the CEOs of some of the world’s largest companies, and countless billionaires. While living in London, Green edited the European, Middle Eastern, and African editions of Time. Before that, he lived in Hong Kong, where he edited the Asian edition of Time during a period in which it won many awards.
Green has collaborated on several books as a ghostwriter, co-author, or editor. One of them became a #1 New York Times and #1 Wall Street Journal bestseller in 2017. He also worked closely with a renowned hedge fund manager, Guy Spier, helping him to write his much-praised memoir, The Education of a Value Investor: My Transformative Quest for Wealth, Wisdom, and Enlightenment. Green also wrote and edited The Great Minds of Investing, which features short profiles of 33 renowned investors, along with stunning portraits created by Michael O’Brien, one of America’s preeminent photographers.
Born and raised in London, Green was educated at Eton, studied English literature at Oxford, and received a Master’s degree from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism. He lives in New York with his wife, Lauren, and their children, Henry and Madeleine.
Corey Hoffstein, host of Flirting with Models, stopped by The Business Brew to have a wide ranging conversation about markets and his career. Corey is an amazing thinker. Rather than summarize his thoughts we would direct listeners to his website: https://blog.thinknewfound.com/author/choffstein/. You can find his podcast links at https://www.thinknewfound.com/podcast. He's a great guy, incredibly smart, and this is one cool conversation. We hope you listen and enjoy! Corey is the Co-Founder and Chief Investment Officer of Newfound Research, a quantitative investment manager. Corey received his BS in Computer Science from Cornell University and his MS in Computational Finance from Carnegie Mellon University.
In this episode Preston Pysh joins The Business Brew. Preston needs no introduction in the financial podcast world. But just in case... Preston Pysh is an authority in business, investing, and leadership. His business podcast is globally ranked #1 on iTunes for stock investing and numerous other categories. On Amazon, Preston is globally ranked as a top 100 business author. His work has been translated into numerous languages and he writes about international finance and central banking. His podcast, We Study Billionaires, has been downloaded millions of times per year. Preston has interviewed billionaire NBA sports team owners, Hedge Fund Managers, and global authorities in finance. His work has been featured on shows like The Colbert Report on Comedy Central, The History Channel, and many others. Preston is the founder of the Pylon Holding Company and he is a graduate of West Point and Johns Hopkins University. He was an AH-64D Attack Helicopter pilot and Company Commander with the 101st Airborne Division During Operation Enduring Freedom and he was awarded the Bronze Star Medal." Bill used to listen to Preston when Preston co-hosted the Saturday "show" on The Investor's Podcast Network; We Study Billionaires (see https://www.theinvestorspodcast.com/we-study-billionaires/). Bill has a habit of being late to ideas, so he was closed minded to Bitcoin while Preston made the case for Bitcoin. Fortunately for Bill, he does usually realize when he might be wrong/stupid. So, he invited Preston on The Business Brew to discuss Preston's transition from a "traditional value" investor to a Bitcoin bull. Regardless of whether you, as a listener, agree with Preston's thesis, we hope you can learn a little about: (a) how Preston thinks, (b) what it took for him to make a macro/currency call, and (c) the courage it took for him to make a call on something Buffett and Munger dismiss as silly. We are grateful for him saying yes to coming on The Brew. Props on the BTC call Preston.
Bill invited Aaron to stop by The Business Brew to have some fun and do a 4/20 episode. While the conversation does touch on cannabis, the more important parts of the conversation involve Aaron's philosophy of work life balance. Aaron is a strong advocate of the 24/6 workweek. He is a staunch advocate of observing a work sabbath weekly. We hope there is wisdom and entertainment in this episode. Aaron's bio is as follows: Aaron M. Edelheit is the CEO and Founder of Mindset Capital, a private investment firm. Aaron also was the Chief Strategy Officer of FLO Technologies, after being one of the first investors in the company, helping the company grow from a pre-revenue startup to raising $28 million and launching in over 500 Home Depot stores. FLO was acquired in January of 2020 by Fortune Brands. In his previous role as CEO of The American Home, Aaron founded and grew a company from 16 rental homes to one that owned 2,500 single family rental homes and was sold in April 2015 to a publicly traded Real Estate Investment Trust. Aaron also founded and ran a successful money management firm, Sabre Value Management from 1998 to 2011. In 2018, IdeaPress published Aaron’s first book, The Hard Break: The Case for a 24/6 Lifestyle. The book makes the case for taking one day off from work, email and smartphones for a more productive, healthier and more creative life. Aaron has served on the boards of non-profits such as the Moishe House Foundation and Global Village Project. And he is also a member of Social Venture Partners in Santa Barbara, California. Aaron has also been featured and quoted in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Bloomberg, and CNBC among others and has given lectures on business and entrepreneurship in the U.S., Canada and South Africa.
In this episode Heather Brilliant stops by The Business Brew to discuss what it is like to run a valuation focused asset manager in 2021. Heather has a unique view on asset management and what she is trying to accomplish at Diamond Hill. She is stakeholder focused and believes constraining asset management capacity helps align client and manager incentives. She currently serves as Chief Executive Officer and President for Diamond Hill Capital Management, an independent active asset management firm providing valuation-driven investment management services across a range of asset classes. Heather joined the firm in 2019 bringing more than 20 years of domestic and international investment industry experience to the role. Previously, Heather served as Chief Executive Officer, Americas with First State Investments. Prior to that role, she spent nearly 14 years with Morningstar where she served as Global Head of Equity & Credit Research before advancing to Chief Executive Officer, Morningstar Australasia. Earlier in her career, she held several roles analyzing both credit and equity at firms including Bank of America and Driehaus Capital Management.
Heather is a long-standing member of the CFA Institute, a global credentialing organization for the investment industry. She served on the board of the CFA Institute from 2013 to 2020 and was chair of the board from 2018 to 2019. As chair she provided leadership and governance to a board of 15 senior investment management executives. She is also a member of the CFA Society of Columbus.
She is a member of the Columbus Partnership, a non-profit, membership-based organization of more than 70 CEOs from Columbus’ leading businesses and institutions focused on improving the economic vitality of the Columbus Region, and YPO (Young President’s Organization), a global leadership community of chief executives that are committed to lifelong learning and idea exchange.
Heather is on the executive committee of the Ohio chapter of the International Women’s Forum (IWF), an invitation-only membership organization made up of more than 7,000 diverse and accomplished women from 33 nations. IWF’s mission is to support women leaders and build better leadership across careers, continents and cultures by connecting accomplished women both locally and globally.
She is a frequent speaker at industry conferences and is a volunteer teacher for Rock the Street, Wall Street, a non-profit organization that aims to spark interest in finance among high school girls. Heather was recently named a 2021 Women WELDing the Way® honoree by Women for Economic and Leadership Development (WELD) for supporting the leadership development of other women and women-owned businesses in the community.
Heather earned her MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and has a degree in economics from Northwestern University.
Please see https://www.fgfinancial.com/corporate-overview/officers-directors/default.aspx for Kyle's official bio. Kyle "stopped by" The Business Brew to discuss his role as CEO of Fundamental Global. In that capacity, he is focused on four portfolio companies: Ballantyne Strong Inc, BK Technologies Corp, GreenFirst Forest Products Inc, and SPAC that reached a definitive agreement to purchase Opportunity Financial. Kyle has a very interesting background. He is mentioned in David Einhorn's book, Fooling Some of the People All of the Time, because he crossed paths with David on the Allied Capital trade. At that time, Kyle was a Financial Services analyst at T. Rowe Price. Following his stint at T. Rowe Price, Kyle worked at SAC. Following his time at T Rowe Price, Kyle founded Fundamental Global with his partner Joe Moglia. Together, they take control of companies and look to create long term shareholder value. In this episode, Kyle discusses why he does what he does, how he thinks about value creation, and what he is trying to accomplish. Bill and Kyle met when Mike Mitchell was The Business Brew's first guest. Since that time, Bill has watched Kyle work tirelessly to execute his plans. Consequently, Bill has grown to respect Kyle very much and wanted to feature Kyle as a guest. This episode may give a glimpse into a fantasy many investors seem to have: buying controlling interests in companies. Bill's conclusion is he would rather partner with Kyle and let Kyle do the heavy lifting of execution. Disclosure: Bill owns shares in 3 of Kyle's companies. He won't name which ones because he doesn't want people to read anything into his decisions. However, he will commit to hold every share for at least a year following this podcast episode.
Adam Robinson is the Co-Founder of The Princeton Review, a NY Times Best Selling author, and a US Chess Federation life master. He currently works as a global macro advisor to the heads of some of the world's largest hedge funds through Robinson Global Strategies. Bill has wanted to interview Adam since he heard Tim Ferris interview Adam at The 92nd St. Y. You can find one of his episodes with Tim Ferris at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSyMmleisQM. See also Adam's interview with Shane Parrish at https://fs.blog/knowledge-project/adam-robinson-pt1/. Finally, Adam recently did a 4-hour interview with Kevin and Fred. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sU_AM9VDgFs. In this episode, Bill follows up on some of the thoughts Adam gave Bill via various interviews. They start out talking about the concept of "things that are blatantly obvious and those that make no sense." This was one of the first concepts that Adam said where Bill said "wow, that's an interesting way to frame investing thoughts." Following that conversation, Bill follows up on many of the issues that he's wondered about as he's found as he's listened to Adam. This is a wide-ranging conversation that covers a lot of investing and some life. We hope you enjoy.
Sanjay Ayer is a Portfolio Manager & Business Analyst at WCM; which he joined WCM in 2007. His primary responsibilities are portfolio management and equity research for WCM's global, fundamental growth strategies. Since he began his investment career in 2002, Sanjay’s experience includes a position as Equity Analyst at Morningstar, Inc. in Chicago. In this episode Sanjay "stops by" The Business Brew to have a candid conversation about what really matters in investing. Sanjay has spent a lot of time thinking about group think, the power of enabling analysts/talent to develop itself, spending time on the signal vs. noise, and many more important investment topics. Sanjay's "best" quality might be his modesty. He's clearly a very astute analyst and a clear thinker. However, he is incredibly humble, modest, and stresses the importance of self improvement. At one point Sanjay said "I think if we were to hire for one quality, it would probably be just a keen, keen self awareness." Please listen to this episode. And by listen, we mean really internalize what Sanjay says here. There are definitely important takeaways in this one. Thank you for being a guest Sanjay! Sanjay graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Johns Hopkins University (Maryland) with a B.A. in Economics and B.S. in Applied Mathematics.
Elliot Turner is a co-founder and Managing Partner, CIO at RGA Investment Advisors, LLC. RGA Investment Advisors runs a long-term, low turnover, growth at a reasonable price investment strategy seeking out global opportunities. Elliot focuses on discovering and analyzing long-term, high-quality investment opportunities, and strategic portfolio management. In this episode Elliot joins The Business Brew to discuss his days as a Phish podcast host, being a business analyst, his thoughts on the COVID 19 policy response, why he gained conviction through March 2020, Twitter, and creativity as an investor. Elliot is incredibly generous giving knowledge to the investment community and sharing his work. He's one of the investors Bill really admires. We hope you enjoy the conversation. Thank you for listening!
Liz Simmie is the Co-Founder of Honeytree Investment Management, a firm that lives ESG investing. See the end of this description for Liz' official bio. In this episode Liz Simmie stops by The Business Brew to talk all things ESG. Unlike many "ESG" managers, Liz actually practices what she preaches. Said differently, Liz is the real deal and doesn't just use ESG as a marketing tool. The catalyst for this conversation was Bill thinking about morality in investing. On one hand, owning assets one is proud of seems like a reasonable goal. On the other hand, how do we draw the lines? If cigarettes are bad then why is sugar OK? If tobacco is bad why is alcohol OK? We cover a wide range of topics including: - how ESG is bastardized due to marketing - what real ESG investing looks like - why ESG is as important to Honey Tree - gender and racial diversity driving positive financial outcomes - issues preventing companies from embracing ESG policies - and much more. Bill's biggest takeaway was that ESG can provide a qualitative advantage for investment analysis. We are grateful for Liz' time and hope you enjoy the show. Thank you for listening! Bio: Liz is the co-founder of Honeytree Investment Management, an asset management firm focused on responsible growth, based in Toronto. Together with the team she manages Honeytree’s concentrated active investment strategies for institutional and private clients. Honeytree believes what is traditionally seen as ‘ESG’ data is just as important to assessing a company’s long term growth and risk as traditional fundamental data – and they integrate them both equally in our investment process. Honeytree is proud to be one of the handful of female led responsible asset management firms globally leading the conversation. Prior to founding Honeytree she worked at Bristol Gate Capital Partners a leading active management firm, and before that she worked in quantitative market research for Ipsos. Liz has BA in Economic Statistics and History.
Ian Cassel is the CIO at Intelligent Fanatics Capital Management ("IFCM"). IFCM invests in the smallest public companies in the world. They focus on businesses that are run by management teams who are capable of growing those businesses while benefiting stakeholders. Ian also founded MicroCapClub. In this episode Ian discusses how he became a microcap investor. One of his first successes was XM Satellite Radio. He discovered the company when it was a microcap trading for $2/sh and didn't have any contracts with car manufacturers yet. Ian saw they were presenting at a conference in NY, got in a car, and met with the CEO. After that meeting Ian became obsessed with turning into a full time private investor. Ian stresses the importance of doing deep due diligence, remaining rational, and keeping personal expenses "variable." He invests in a concentrated manner (only a few stocks at a time), which is very Buffett like. Unlike Buffett, however, Ian discusses the importance of remaining open to selling winners. This is because Ian is "fishing in a pond" of smaller companies and execution risk must always be monitored. Ian is a refreshing voice in the investment community and we are happy to have him join the show! Note: We reference Connor Haley's presentation in this discussion. That presentation can be found here
Naufal Sanaullah is the macro advisor at EIA Alpha Partners. EIA is a minority-owned firm that has realized very impressive results since inception. Among its many awards, EIA boasts the following (see https://eiaalphapartners.com/): #1 Net Returns of Top Performing Relative Value Strategies Hedge Funds in 2019
#3 Net Returns of 2017-Inception Hedge Funds in 2019
#4 Net Returns of Top Performing Volatility Trading Hedge Funds in 2019
#5 Net Returns of Top Performing Hedge Funds in 2019 with Less than $100mn in AUM
#8 Net Returns of Top Performing North America-Based Hedge Funds in 2019
#16 Net Returns of Top Performing Hedge Funds in 2019
Naufal is responsible for macro strategy, macro trading, and overall portfolio management at EIA. Prior to EIA, he was involved in portfolio construction and macro strategy at Li Global Investors, a macro hedge fund in New York City. He studied mathematics at University of Michigan and Stony Brook University. His macro research has been highlighted in various media platforms, including Bloomberg, Business Insider, and Financial Times. He enjoys spending his free time producing hip-hop instrumentals and nurturing his puppy Nas. In this episode Naufal joins Bill to discuss Naufal's view on inflation, policy efficacy, and what to watch for going forward. Bill, historically an Austrian leaning investor, found it interesting to listen to Naufal describe his view of the world, which is far more Keynesian and could be called Modern Monetary Theory driven. The Business Brew is proud to feature this conversation for many reasons. One of which is the discussion is counter to the current market narrative/pricing on/of future inflation. If you like to consider both sides of an issue, this is a must listen macro episode. Also, please consider donating to https://www.publicolor.org/ if Naufal's message resonates with you.
Oren Falkowitz is the founder of Area 1 Security. He was Chief Executive Officer of Area 1 2013-2020 and currently serves on the Board of Directors. Mr. Falkowitz holds numerous patents and is an avid wearer of bow ties on Thursday. Previously, he was the founder of sqrrl (acquired by Amazon) and held positions at the National Security Agency (NSA) and United States Cyber Command (USCYBERCOM).
He joined the Business Brew to discuss his career and the cyber security landscape. We hope you enjoy.
The Business Brew is pleased to feature Derek Walin, @walin on Twitter, this week. Derek is Bill's cousin. They grew up together and Bill has known Derek since he was born. As Derek grew, Bill watched him become the consummate entrepreneur. Derek began landing "gigs" as a magician. He would do magic for kids, elderly people, and anyone that would book him (by calling his parents). After that, Derek took a liking to DJing (before it was cool). He earned money throughout his high school years by DJing dances, birthday parties, and Bar and Bat Mitzvahs. Despite Derek's father having a corporate background, Derek knew college wasn't for him. Instead, he wanted to attend Full Sail and pursue his dreams of chasing a career in entertainment/music. Fast forward to today and Derek and his partners manage ~11 artists. Check out https://www.supermusicgroup.com/ and check out the artists on your favorite music app! As always, thank you for listening.
Moses Kagan is a co-founder of Adaptive Realty, the Los Angeles-based real estate private equity firm. Since 2008, through Adaptive and predecessor entities, he has overseen the acquisition and rehabilitation of nearly 100 properties. Adaptive is laser focused on sub institutional scale multifamily. So these are deals between three and 10 million dollars of total capitalization. The firm is unusual in the real estate private equity world because they buy and hold real estate rather than buying buildings, fixing them up, and flipping them as is done in a more IRR driven model. In this episode Moses discusses his journey from running a smaller fund that had a single LP to what he does now. One of the most interesting parts of the conversation he discussed is when he had to sell the real estate in his first fund. To the outside world, it may have appeared to be a success. To Moses, however, it was a lesson in how much taxes hurt returns. That lesson formed the philosophy behind Adaptive. We are happy to have Moses as this week's guest. As always, we hope you enjoy the episode!
Andrew Walker, a PM at Rangeley Capital, author of Yet Another Value Blog, and host of Yet Another Value Podcast stopped by to discuss SPACs and his investment philosophy. We are releasing this episode as a bonus because there are some elements of it that require a faster release than normal. Areas discussed were SPACs, sum of the parts analysis, Getting Better as an Investor, and the current market environment.
Andrew has had an interesting career. He's found "compounders," special situations, and everything in between. He won the 2017 Sohn Idea Contest (that's a big deal for those that don't know) when "La Quinta (LQ) is sold its franchise business to Wyndham and spun off its owned hotel portfolio into a new REIT (CorePoint) in a taxable spin." You can see his presentation here: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/10t7lVjWmNkkm7jwunh46nMLvfVsS4tYgAJrNcFd7DRg/edit#slide=id.p3
We hope you enjoy this bonus episode.
Mike is an ex-activist investor who writes about tech, corporate governance, the power of friction & incentives, strategy, interpersonal board dynamics, and activist fights. In this episode Mike and The Business Brew discuss everything from corporate governance to the potential for charismatic personalities to use their brand to make a run at real companies. Mike has a unique outlook on the world. Mike describes how the clues in corporate governance actions can help investors triangulate their ideas of valuation. At times, Mike will even use corporate governance changes as signals to initiate positions. For instance, he used clues to call a bottom on GrubHub shares and was correct. Join The Business Brew as we discuss how a different analytical lens can potentially help improve analysis and returns. But more importantly, listen to a unique mind talk about how he looks at the world. It was a pleasure to chat with Mike. A big thank you to Mathew Passy and his team for saving this episode.
The Business Brew is joined by Shomik Ghosh. Mr. Ghosh is a Principal at Boldstart Ventures, a day one, pre-product partner for technical founders with portfolio companies such as Snyk, Kustomer, BigID, Superhuman, Front, and Security Scorecard.
His career has spanned everything from fixed income sales & trading to investment banking to venture capital. He specializes in enterprise software for his day job and long-term competitively advantaged businesses in his PA (a lot of which are also enterprise software companies 😀).
Shomik has been trying to make Bill less stupid for almost two years now. He succeeded in this conversation. We are grateful for his time and appearance. Follow him on Twitter!
The Business Brew is joined by Jen Ross this week. Jen was a professional short seller. Consequently, she has a unique perspective. It took Bill a while to understand the role of short selling in a portfolio but Jen’s comment about the need (or lack thereof) to hedge a quality equity portfolio really helped Bill understand what risks to think about hedging via short selling.
Her Bio very unique:
Jennifer L. Ross has more than 20 years of engineering and financial experience. She is a principal engineer in Launch and Enterprise Operations at The Aerospace Corporation.
Prior to joining Aerospace, Ross held management and executive positions in the areas of material science and manufacturing, process engineering, and financial analysis. Her focus is analyzing the space industrial base and helping space startups conduct business with the U.S. Space Force.
Ross transitioned from engineering to management consulting and finance in 2007. She spent five years as vice president of a public finance management and municipal bond firm. She later joined a hedge fund as an equity short seller/research analyst, analyzing corporate financials of publicly traded companies and predicting the probability of financial failure for those businesses. Ross joined Aerospace in 2015 when she saw the opportunity to combine her passions for both engineering and financial analysis.
We are fortunate to be joined by Tyrone V Ross Jr. What started out as a connection over BitCoin turned into something much more important. In this episode Tyrone discusses many issues that seem to be forgotten as the stock market hits new highs. We cover a wide range of issues and potential financial solutions.
We recommend listening to this one at 1x speed. As always, thank you for listening.
We were fortunate to be joined by Sean Stannard Stockton, CIO of Ensemble Capital Management. Sean is one of the best generalist investors we know of. In this episode, Sean discusses: Running an investment firm during COVID-19; The need for companies to lead by example; The willingness to remain open minded; Thinking about serial acquirers; The potential perils of low/slow growth investing; His thoughts on position sizing; And he provides the best answer we've ever heard to an error of omission. We hope you enjoy this episode. You can find our more about Ensemble Capital Management at https://ensemblecapital.com/?gclid=Cj0KCQiA3NX_BRDQARIsALA3fIJGBM5kcERDGlwpAcPWjR2UtW6FSQCOY_6cSvZx56ss1CpDyXBAP7kaAntGEALw_wcB.
This episode details the successful career of Jack Rohrbach. Jack began as a salesman and worked his way up. He made the most of every opportunity. While he often attributes his success to luck, it’s clear he was a team player who found out how to help those above him. In doing so, he became a leader. Our favorite quote of the interview occurred when Jack was talking about his later career. When asked how it felt to have a lot of employees working for him, he responded “I don’t look at it that way. I always thought I worked for them.” This episode show what persistence, hard work, and an open mind can accomplish. Jack went on to be Chairman of the Board for 10 portfolio companies at Kohlberg & Co. We hope you enjoy this holiday edition of The Business Brew. Thank you for tuning in. Happy Holidays and Happy New Year.
Tobias Carlisle is a well known author. He's written extensively about value investing. In our view, Deep Value is one of the best investment books ever written.
He is also the founder and managing director of Acquirers Funds, LLC. See acquirersfunds.com
We hope this interview answers some of the tougher questions people have for him regarding “value’s” underperformance. And, more importantly, we hope to introduce a really unique individual to the investing community.
We are grateful for his appearance on the pod.”
The second episode of The Business Brew features Dan McMurtrie, PM at Tyro Partners. In this episode Dan pulls back the curtain on how a true hedge fund manager thinks. He discusses: A tough launch (13:20) Pivoting from "value" investing (17:50) Agency costs hurting "value" investments (20:35) Convergent & iterative thinking (32:40) Risk management and buying higher (44:20) The dangers of the value investing inoculation (46:50) THE DATING PAPER (58:00) Being early on COVID (1:08:00) TINA + Liquidity Shortages + FOMO (1:22:11) Businesses as networks of people (1:37:45) The anointed companies (1:46:00) Inflection points and when it "gets simple" 1:54:00 When paying more can reduce risk (2:00:00) We are grateful to him for sharing his mind. Please enjoy the episode.
Welcome to the first episode of The Business Brew. Our first guest is Michael Mitchell. Michael is a former partner at Locust Wood Capital Advisors. He describes himself as 80% Greenblatt and 20% Buffett. Alternatively, he can be described as fundamental and opportunistic. Labels aside, he's a great thinker and a cool guy. So enjoy the episode and please subscribe to our feed.