Deep Value Investing Using The Acquirer’s Multiple Revisited w/ Tobias Carlisle - AZ TRT S05 EP 39 (255) 10-6-2024

Deep Value Investing Using The Acquirer’s Multiple Revisited w/ Tobias Carlisle

AZ TRT S05 EP 39 (255) 10-6-2024

 

 

What We Learned This Week

• Acquirers Multiple – Enterprise value of the business, mindset of buying the entire business

• Deep Value Investing – good companies at wonderful prices, looking for companies that are beat down, but not going out of business, will rebound, mean reversion
• Activist Investors – like Carl Icahn, act as catalyst to push mgmt to unlock value – stock buybacks, spin offs, etc.
• Value Trap – buy a cheap company (stock) that just keeps going down, but still looks cheap

 

 

Guest: Tobias Carlisle – Founder of Acquirers Fund and author of Acquirers Multiple book & blog

Website: https://acquirersmultiple.com/   /  https://acquirersfunds.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tobycarlisle

Twitter: https://twitter.com/acquirersx

 

 

 

 

Investing is broken down with Toby's philosophy on 'Deep Value', the Acquirers Multiple (purchasing the whole company), and value investing from Graham to Buffett.

Tobias Carlisle is the founder of The Acquirer’s Multiple®. He is also the founder of Acquirers Funds®. He is best known as the author of the #1 new release in Amazon’s Business and Finance The Acquirer’s Multiple: How the Billionaire Contrarians of Deep Value Beat the Market, the Amazon best-sellers Deep Value: Why Activists Investors and Other Contrarians Battle for Control of Losing Corporations (2014), and other books. He has extensive experience in investment management, business valuation, public company corporate governance, and corporate law.

 

 

He runs the Acquirers Fund, a Long / Short Fund (ticker symbol – ZIG). Prior to founding the forerunner to Acquirers Funds in 2010, Tobias was an analyst at an activist hedge fund, general counsel of a company listed on the Australian Stock Exchange, and a corporate advisory lawyer. As a lawyer specializing in mergers and acquisitions he has advised on transactions across a variety of industries in the United States, the United Kingdom, China, Australia, Singapore, Bermuda, Papua New Guinea, New Zealand, and Guam. He is a graduate of the University of Queensland in Australia with degrees in Law (2001) and Business (Management) (1999).

 

 

Notes:

 

Deep Value – what drives returns in investing, picking stocks is half the battle

Concentrated Investing – interviews with fund managers

Acquirers Multiple – summary of previous books, giving the best lessons

Built Models to back test investing styles and value investing techniques 

 

Warren Buffet is looking for Wonderful Companies at Fair Prices vs a Good Company at a Wonderful price (Deep Value)

 

Not a great business, but still a good business, that is being priced like it is going out of business. The market will realize this later, as it rebounds and grows slowly over time.

 

Contrarian’s contrarian like Carl Icahn

 

Value Trap – buy a cheap company (stock) that just keeps going down, but still looks cheap

Corporate Raider or LBO (Leverage Buyout)

Activist Investor or Shareholder Activism – forces management to make changes and unlock that value

Solutions - Buy back stock, sell assets, spin off a division

 

Value Investor has to be patient, can take years for the market is too realize the value

 

Lots of cash $ on the balance sheet, low debt, and business is generating free cash flow

Cash Flow is the life blood of a business, without it the business runs out of options

 

Buffet was a Liquidator in his early days, buy the company and liquidate the assets to make a profit, but decided to change his strategy because of pushback from company employees

 

Acquirers Multiple: think like an Acquirer (like Private Equity), buying the whole business or the Enterprise Value - what is the equity value of the business, how much debt, how much cash – forensic analysis of the balance sheet, and determine all assets and all liabilities

 

Enterprise Value = market cap plus debt plus preferred stock plus minority interest minus cash.

Enterprise Value compared to the operating income

EBITDA – operating income / cash flow of the business

 

Magic Formula - Joel Greenblatt investing has 2 formulas to calculate:  

Return on invested capital (ROIC) = EBIT / (net working capital + net fixed assets)

Earnings yield = EBIT / Enterprise value.

 

Average Small Business gets valuation that is 1 – 2x cash flow multiple, because it is owner centric

Big Business gets better Valuation (could be 6 – 12x cash flow) because it is robust and not dependent on 1 or few people 

 

Tech Company with great secular growth, and a Moat could have a multiple of  20x free cash flow

Ie - Google, Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, Facebook, Visa , Mastercard

 

Mean Reversion – companies or stocks go down over time, because completion comes after the main players in a an industry and chip away

 

13F – follow 13 F of Super Investors for stock ideas, Toby does not use this method, even though he pays attention. Toby likes: Carl Ichan (Catalyst), Warren Buffet, David Einhorn, Dan Loeb (Third Point), Seth Klarman  

 

Baupost Group – Seth Klarman is a deep value investor, buying into distressed companies 

 

I Press – David Einhorn of Greenlight Capital made an activist push at Apple in 2013 to unlock value by creating share levels

 

Buffet’s buy of Apple stock in 2016, put in $36 Billion

 

Buy the stock cheap, even when the value is going down to cash in on the opportunity, when the stock is rising again, it’s too late 

 

Howard Marks – no bad stocks, just bad prices, it’s all about what price you pay

 

 

Acquires Multiple Checklist –

• strength to survive short term problems
• market size of mid cap or bigger ($2 bill +)
• plenty of cash on balance sheet & cash flow
• some acknowledgement of undervalue - paying down debt buying back stock, offloading asset, or sell business
• companies that buy back stock ROI do well, if issuing more shares = bad, look at share base compensation of managers
• Big Shareholder is engaged and pushing mgmt

 

 

 

 

Investing Topic:

https://brt-show.libsyn.com/category/Investing-Stocks-Bonds-Retirement

 

 

‘Best Of’ Topic: https://brt-show.libsyn.com/category/Best+of+BRT

 

 

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