saltybit

If money/cost was not a barrier, which existing investing tools or data sources would you want to have and why? I'm particularly interested to hear about examples that everyday investors don't have access to.

Nice writeup on the idea http://yetanothervalueblog.com/2019/08/quickie-idea-adt-might-not-be-secure-but-it-is-cheap.html

some notes from their S-1: https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1764925/000162828019004786/slacks-1.htm Financial statements show that Slack’s biggest expense by far is sales and marketing, which accounted for $233 million in fiscal 2019, equivalent to 58% of revenue. Slack has been spending heavily on advertising and “brand marketing.” Raising the profile of Slack’s brand name will be important when the company goes public, to ensure investors know what the company does. • General and administrative costs doubled in the year to $112.7 million, which Slack attributed to expanded finance, accounting, legal and HR employees. That increase may reflect Slack’s preparation to become a public company. • Slack’s net loss was roughly flat in the most recent year, at $138 million. • The company’s paid customers use Slack on an average workday for more than 90 minutes. • About 40% of its fiscal 2019 revenue came from just 575 paying customers, each of whom generated more than $100,000 in annual recurring revenue for Slack.

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/04/26/slack-releases-s-1-for-ipo.html https://www.cnbc.com/2019/04/25/slack-valued-at-17-billion-on-secondary-market-ahead-of-public-debut.html Some comparable enterprise Saas companies.. Okta https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/OKTA/key-statistics/ EV/revenue - ~28 yoy revenue growth - 49% zendesk https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/ZEN/key-statistics/ EV/revenue ~15-16 yoy revenue growth - 41.3% Slack's revenue was 400M and grew by 82% yoy. They have ~850m in cash. Shares have been trading in the secondary market for 17B, which would be an EV/revenue of ~40. (if I did the calculation right) What would you buy it at?

Up 5% on more concrete acquisition news https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwjv0P2nnsbhAhXymOAKHQkAC0oQzPwBegQIARAC&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.reuters.com%2Farticle%2Fus-zayo-m-a-digitalcolony-exclusive%2Fexclusive-eqt-digital-colony-stonepeak-group-near-deal-to-buy-zayo-sources-say-idUSKCN1RM1XH&psig=AOvVaw2xTos9c5GGqCUvxLj5T14s&ust=1555010137028121

Some movement on the sale front https://www.google.com/amp/s/seekingalpha.com/amp/news/3448221-zayo-plus-4-percent-report-sale-process-moving-multiple-bidders

https://skift.com/2019/02/27/booking-and-airbnb-are-now-in-a-homesharing-dead-heat/

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/12/google-cloud-ceo-thomas-kurian-google-will-compete-more-aggressively.html Thomas Kurian’s first public comments as Google Cloud CEO.. His reputation in the industry is somewhat mixed - would be interesting to see what happens

Drago (the engineer) did get asked about his thoughts on how the future might look like.. it sounds like waymo will take a very measured approach

Handling the long tail of self driving cars - lecture from a waymo ML engineer

https://www.wsj.com/articles/fdr-weighs-in-on-the-buyback-debate-11549644054 if paywalled: https://outline.com/xMruPT

A fantastic memoir of coming from China to America https://www.amazon.com/Out-Gobi-Story-China-America/dp/1119529492 WSJ review https://outline.com/wNdFFp author interview

https://www.theinformation.com/articles/amc-ceo-warns-that-big-media-deals-wont-work?eu=pzrFesTZTjUcuooD5mUMsQ&utm_medium=email&utm_source=sg&utm_campaign=article_email UUnder pressure from Netflix and Amazon, the entertainment industry is slowly consolidating. But one of the smallest of the publicly traded entertainment firms, AMC Networks, is resisting the trend. And in an interview, AMC CEO Josh Sapan warns that some of the big deals underway may prove to be more challenging than anticipated and may need to be undone. “I think there has been a rush at the moment toward big, and I think there is a default notion that big covers sins and that big provides insurance,” he said. “I don’t believe that to be the case, and sometimes big in the past worked, but notably it hasn’t worked and has had to be deconstructed.” He cited cultural differences as among the problems that big mergers sometimes encounter.

https://www.teekay.com/blog/2019/02/08/teekay-offshore-partners-reports-fourth-quarter-and-annual-2018-results/ https://seekingalpha.com/pr/17406351-teekay-offshore-partners-reports-fourth-quarter-annual-2018-results Q4 2018 results

In addition, the Partnership announced its intention to launch a Substantial Issuer Bid (“SIB”) to repurchase up to an aggregate of $500 million of BPY units and Class A shares of Brookfield Property REIT Inc. at a price of at least $19.00 per unit but not more than $21.00 per unit. — Does anyone know why there’s a price floor ($19) for the buyback. Isn’t it even better to buy back if it’s < $19?