Telecom Italia, Korea Telecom & Bakkafrost (Salmon)
Bill Ackman Sells Berkshire; Healthcare Investing with RA Capital
Seemed like May flew by (along with the rest of 2020!) didn’t it?
The markets continue to confuse professional managers. Robinhood investors are minting money. Riots in the streets, S&P futures up pre-market. Nothing really makes sense.
If there’s one shred of consistency in your life, it's a fresh new copy of Breezy Briefings in your inbox everyday.
Here’s what we cover this week:
Massif Capital Long Thesis on Bakkafrost (BAKKA)
Bonhoeffer Capital Q1 Letter
Interview with RA Capital on Healthcare Companies
Bill Ackman Sells Berkshire
Let’s dive in!
Investor Spotlight: Bonhoeffer Capital & Maran Capital
This week’s Investor Spotlight features Bonhoeffer Capital Q1 Letter and Massif Capital’s latest long idea: Bakkafrost (BAKKA).
Bonhoeffer Capital (-33.7% in Q1)
Keith Smith of Bonhoeffer Capital returned -33.7% in Q1. It was a rough quarter for value investors. I love reading Keith’s letters because his fund is so different. As of the letter, his top countries (by allocation) are:
South Korea
Italy
South Africa
Hong Kong
United Kingdom
Philippines
Don’t see the US on that list do ya? That’s because Keith fishes where the fish are!
Keith spends most of the letter discussing Strategic Framework Investing.
What is Strategic Framework Investing?
Here’s Keith’s take: “Valuation models have evolved over time from valuation multiples—which work well with mature companies (Graham)—to discounted cash flow models—which work better for growth companies (Buffett)—to distress-weighted models for declining businesses (Damodaran), and finally to strategy/business models—which focus on market size, growth (including network effects), customer lock-in, economies of scale, and probability of survival for young growth companies (venture capitalists).”
Valuation changes over time. So, the framework through which we view our valuations should change with it.
It doesn’t make sense to value a money-losing start-up company based on P/E ratios. An investor that only uses one valuation method is the same as a man wielding only a hammer. To him, every company looks like a nail.
Why does it matter that we adjust and adapt to the constantly changing business environment? Let’s tap-in Keith for this one:
“With the introduction of disruptive internet capital-light models by young growth companies, current profitability (under the assumption of the presence of either large non-reproducible investment or network effects) has been less important than future profitability supported by a business model that can generate strong customer growth, recurring revenue with small amounts of customer attrition due to customer lock-in and/or creating network effects.”
Issues With New Business Models
Keith reels off a few issues with these new network-effect businesses:
LTV, CAC and Churn are hard to estimate
Some of the business models are dependent upon outside financing when they are in the growth phase of development
The letter shifts focus to discuss the multiple (P/E, EV/EBITDA) valuation method and mean-regression. I encourage you to read the whole thing - it’s great.
But we’ll end with two ideas from the letter: Telecom Italia (TIT.IT) and KT Corporation (KT.US).
Telecom Italia (TIT.IT)
Business Description: Telecom Italia S.p.A., together with its subsidiaries, provides fixed and mobile telecommunications services in Italy and internationally. The company operates through Domestic, Brazil, and Other Operations segments. - TIKR.com
What’s To Like:
54% Gross Margins
Long history of profitability
~$2B 3YR FCF average
Trades <6x EBITDA
Owns most extensive telecom network in Italy
What’s Not To Like:
Low normalized net income margin
Net Debt/EBITDA is 3.69x
France’s Illiad may cause price war
What’s It Worth:
Let’s assume the company grows to $17.2B euros by 2024. Using historical EBITDA margins (40%) we get almost $7B euros in EBITDA, 2.5B euros in FCF and $37B in Enterprise Value.
Subtract net-debt and you’re left with around $12.7B in market cap (0.60 euros/share). That’s assuming a 9% discount rate and 3% perpetuity growth. If you take a multiple approach (EBITDA or FCF) you’d realize a higher per-share value.
Chart Analysis:
TIT’s showing sideways consolidation below the 50MA. Our price-action base case is a breakdown below support and further price decline. But we’re looking for a reversal given the fundamental background.
KT Corporation (KT)
Business Description: KT Corporation provides telecommunications services in Korea and internationally. The company offers local, domestic long-distance, and international long-distance fixed-line and voice over Internet protocol fixed-line telephone services, as well as interconnection services; broadband Internet access service and other Internet-related services; and data communication services, such as leased line and broadband Internet connection services. - TIKR.com
What’s To Like:
Strong FCF generation
40%+ Gross Margins
Declining SG&A % of Revenue
Improving Current Ratio
Net Debt/EBITDA: 1.18x
Largest amount of 5G Infrastructure in South Korea
What’s Not To Like:
Legacy business still dominates revenues
Tensions with North Korea
Declining real estate values in KT’s portfolio
Failure to spin-off non-core (non-telecom) businesses
What’s It Worth:
KT is a sum-of-the-parts (SOTP) story. They have a hodgepodge of businesses, each with varying degrees of value.
Keith summarized his view on KT’s value in a 2018 post with MOI Global (emphasis mine):
“The shares recently traded at a “look-through” FCF multiple of 5.8x, and look-through EV/EBITDA of 1.5x … If the shares traded at 6x EBITDA with a holding company discount, the stock would be more than a triple, not including dividends, buybacks or cash flow gains from a growing telecom business.”
Someone call Dave Waters, he loves this stuff.
Chart Analysis:
There’s nothing we can glean from this chart right now. Look for the 50MA to act as resistance over the next few weeks.
Massif Capital: Bakkafrost (BAKKA) Long Thesis
Massif Capital’s back with their latest long thesis: Bakkafrost (BAKKA). You can read their entire report here.
Let’s dive in.
Business Description: P/F Bakkafrost, together with its subsidiaries, produces and sells salmon products under the Bakkafrost and Havsbrún brands in the United States, Europe, China, and internationally. The company operates through four segments: Fish Farming FO; Fish Farming SCT; Value Added Products; and Fishmeal, Fish Oil, and Fish Feed. - TIKR.com
What Massif Likes:
Family owned and operated with 19% ownership
Consistent 70% Gross Margins
Ideal location for growing salmon
Commands 15% pricing premium against global competitors
20%+ Operating Margins
Risks:
Long-term erosion of salmon prices
New diseases / pandemics affecting salmon health
Consumer taste changes
What Massif Thinks It’s Worth: BAKKA's balance sheet has a long-term interest-bearing debt of 𝑘r2.3 billion vs. a cash balance of ~𝑘 r1.3 billion. Gross margins are remarkably steady at around 70%. A discounted cash flow analysis, assuming a 10% discount rate, results in a valuation of ~𝑘r 741 NOK per share, producing an expected return of 32% at current prices.
Chart Analysis:
BAKKA broke out of its ascending right triangle last week. A brief pullback has us up against the new-found support line. Price remains above the 50MA and 200MA, a bullish sign.
Movers & Shakers: Bill Ackman Sells Berkshire!
Bill Ackman isn’t afraid of the spotlight. We’ve heard his name referenced numerous times during this COVID crisis. Who could forget his live-action sob story on CNBC?
This time, he’s in the news for selling Berkshire Hathaway (among other investments).
My reaction: Who cares? There’s tons of ideas out there that are better than the BRK thesis.
Ackman brought up some good points during the interview (emphasis mine):
The one advantage we have versus Berkshire is relative scale . Berkshire has the problem, if you will, of deploying $130 billion worth of capital … Pershing Square, on the other hand, has about $10 billion of capital to invest and therefore can be more nimble … We should take advantage of that nimbleness, preserve some extra liquidity, in the event that prices get more attractive again.”
And that’s my biggest issue with the BRK bull thesis. Buffett is so capital constrained it makes it damn near impossible to find deals. Meanwhile, there’s plenty of opportunities for less capital constrained investors/funds. Look at Poland, Egypt or Italy (to name a few).
Interview: Healthcare Investing with RA Capital’s Peter Kolchinsky
GIFs by tenor
Evercore describes RA Capital as, “one of the leading dedicated healthcare investment funds and has been built over nearly two decades with a unique approach to analyzing therapeutic categories.”
My circle of competence in the healthcare space is pitifully small. This interview helped expand it a bit.
Let’s dive into the meat of the interview (emphasis mine on the responses).
Q: How have your private company investments changed your view of the field?
RA Capital: “The public markets don’t get to see how the sausage 4 is made, which is just as well because it can be harrowing. But we have come to appreciate the way driven, talented people can work through most any challenge to keep programs going. That makes us more patient public investors.”
I loved this quote. We’ve heard similar things from Scott Miller in some of his past interviews. Working in the belly of a company makes you a better investor. Period.
Q: How do you choose which companies or fields to drill into?
RA Capital: “We’re always mindful of the risk that we might overlook a great investment and are constantly refining our methodology to minimize that risk. For example, because we have someone tracking everything that’s going on in lupus, we know which companies in that landscape are working on something potentially compelling.Either we’ll reach out to those companies about financing them, even if they aren’t talking to investors yet, or, when they reach out, we’ll know to assemble a team of people, including senior members of our investment team, to get a deep update and make a rapid decision.”
Q: What do you see as the biggest risks/opportunities for the sector?
RA Capital: “I think that the risks of drug development are shifting from probability of technical or clinical success, which quantify the risks of – for example – a clinical trial failing, to those of strategic complexity. Historically, the chessboards have been so empty that making any drug that works has been considered a win. However, with more and more drugs coming to market, it’s no longer enough to make a drug that simply works.”
If this interview made me realize anything, it’s that I will always be the patsy at the poker table in that space.
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Brandon Beylo is a value investing specialist for over 13 years spending his time in small to micro-cap companies, spin-offs, SPACs and deep value liquidation situations.