JayGatsby

Anyone here still following? What's the bear case to the earnings report? Seems like things are working.

Anyone still following Hamilton Beach? Definitely not a great company... competition from all sides, but at a PE of 6 and stable revenue / earnings it seems like a good buy. Would be a decent company for PE to take private at this multiple. Their products are cheaper, but solid.

Is 80% clean even feasible outside of nuclear? I guess you could also get there with massive solar + battery investments, but don't think we've really built any scale battery projects

Slightly different company, but is anyone following FNF? It seems like a solid business as the biggest business in the title insurance industry. If you annualize their earnings this week their PE is ~5. Based on this thread it seems like they've done ok by shareholders historically. Trying to understand the bear case. It popped up from a tweet from Asif Suria, based on insider buying.

https://www.powermag.com/pennsylvania-site-latest-gas-plant-online-in-building-surge/ https://www.eia.gov/dnav/ng/hist/n3045us2m.htm Are there any indications that natural gas consumption by power plants is going down?

The whole world blows up if interest rates go up fast, no? There's debt everywhere. So government options are either keep interest rates low, or print money (inflation), or both. Is there anything different about the risk to KMI than every other levered real estate company and individual? I guess long-term contracts lock in pricing for some of their volume. The cancellation of the Keystone XL pipeline is probably a neutral. Upside is consensus is no new interstate pipelines will be built (which makes no sense since they're the cleanest way to transport, but oh well), downside is growth opportunities will be limited.

Decent quarter it seems, but the share repurchase authorization is just getting annoying and stupid.

On page 1 of the thread I posted about the deals they were doing back then. The deal were amazing on an economic basis and they executed even better than one would have hoped. They've done other deals along the way but FBR was really the one that changed the business. Edit: This article was pretty good: https://seekingalpha.com/article/4395255-b-riley-financial-undiscovered-gem-impressive-5-year-growth-rates-trading-3x-ebitda-over-100 IMO it overestimates their near term (liquidations will decline in 2021 I'd guess, and equity cap markets issuance will decline at some point), but understates their deal making (doesn't factor in tax assets... FBR was basically free) and execution.

I thought about that, but even assuming a decline across the board in operating and investing performance (which I mostly expect), it's still hard to make a case that shares are overvalued. The first 2 weeks of Jan have been good, they announced their 3rd spac, National will add both scale and some profit from the existing business, and they have the recent Justice and Lingo transactions. Plus they say insiders are buying.

Thoughts on the equity issuance? Doesn't make a lot of sense unless they have an acquisition in mind. They don't need cash for anything else

Good call here: https://ir.brileyfin.com/2021-01-11-B-Riley-Financial-to-Acquire-National-Holdings $45M market cap * 45% = $20m cash outflow With $230M of LTM revenue added, RILY should do really well here. Looks like National's AUM/person is way lower than RILY's which I guess is why their margins historically have been basically nothing. If RILY can get up to their existing 30% margin it's a home run.

The companies they own are pretty diverse (capital markets, liquidations, retail/brands, internet isp, magicjack). So I dont think they're really constrained in where they can reinvest capital. That's just a function of there being good deals out there. They've done great and reinvested, but I don't think it's really a rapid growth company. They've steadily reinvested cash, but in 2020 equity capital markets volume exploded immediately after liquidations exploded. So I don't really see those as true growth, as both are episodic in nature. They're good at seizing those opportunities though, as valudontlie said. No idea on valuation. It just depends how long equity capital markets volume is strong. It could collapse in 2 weeks, it could go another year. If it collapses in 2 weeks, RILY is probably overvalued. If ECM goes another year, RILY is an easy double.

That's interesting. I hadn't really paid much attention to National Holdings. I just assumed they were profitable, but didn't realize they were another FBR (lots of revenue, no profit even with a massive ECM boom). Do you know what drove National Holdings up in November? Looks like RILY has made a few offers at $2.75 and they get rejected.

Between a strong year of retail liquidations and a blowout year for equity capital markets, RILY's Q4 is pretty insane (current share price is ~$40): https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/b-riley-financial-releases-guidance-for-fourth-quarter-and-full-year-2020-301195006.html Partly driven by investment gains. Unclear how repeatable it all is. With these bigger stimulus checks maybe it's a decent play if the spac bonanza continues. They're good operators so at least you don't have to worry about them squandering the gains.

So they swapped their interest in Coastal Gaslink for full interest in Trans Mountain, which was then immediately terminated?