Liberty

Oh, and it was also Elon Musk's birthday. Probably not a very happy one...

Very sad. But it's impossible to do something this hard while pushing forward so many parts of the tech without accidents. They've been through worse before... I just feel really bad for everybody who worked on this launch for so long. Must be a really bad moment to go through.

Here's how I look at it. How many people read and post on this forum? Probably hundreds of regulars, and many hundred more occasional posters, and then thousands of lurkers, right? Let's say that 99% of people are super diligent and double-check everything. You'll still have a few handful of people at any time asking questions that are answered 2 posts above or that have missed something. Heck, even if 100% of people are super diligent, even diligent people make mistakes or have bad days. I think it's fine to want to improve things, and we should all strive to do better, but it's not worth becoming angry and calling people names. This is impossible to avoid with scale. 1% of people being annoying in a 35-people community and 1% in a 1000-people community might not feel the same because our brains can't keep track of large number of people and we always measure against whatever our limit is (many say about 150) so it seems like a larger percentage, but it isn't.

I probably shouldn't comment, as I've mostly been watching Altice from afar and I'm not familiar enough with them. But from what I've seen, they seem less disciplined and more scattered than I would like. TCI stayed away from glamor assets (ie. out of cities for a long time), waiting to pick things up in downturns, built relationships in the industry and grew content assets organically via partnerships/joint-ventures, etc. Drahi certainly has read the Malone playbook, so that help, but I haven't really seen too much that made me excited about his approach yet. Kind of like on paper Endo is a smaller Valeant, but in practice I don't find the management or the assets as good. But I could be wrong...

I wasn't talking specifically about Suddenlink. They seem to be doing lots of questionable things, but maybe it'll all work out for them in the end. I just know that I'm more comfortable with Malone/Rutledge's more measured and systematic approach.

It also increases the acquisition prices of Altice's targets, so it does not seem like an effective strategy. For instance Altice paid full price for Suddenlink (almost 10 times EBITDA and no benefit from synergies since Altice does not own any other US Cable cos). Altice doesn't seem like a very rational player to me, which makes them extra dangerous.

http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1091667/000119312515236330/d948531dprem14a.htm#toc933267_43

Issuing the equity for Allergan would have hurt, but Allergan was arguably pretty undervalued itself, and there was a lot of fat to cut and synergies to be had, so it wouldn't have hurt as much as issuing equity for ZTS which seems a lot richer (though mitigating that a bit, VRX equity is less undervalued than it was). I've been playing with a few assumptions with ZTS (improving GMs, cutting SGA and R&D to VRX level, tax rate, etc) and while that would make ZTS worth a fair bit more than it is now, the price still wouldn't be anything close to as good as it was with the original AGN offer. So I don't see it, but I'm open to an explanation as to why ZTS is worth this much. I don't think Pearson would overpay, and Ackman (and Bill Doyle, his healthcare guy) is very smart. I wouldn't be surprised if they see something beyond the current numbers at ZTS, an opportunity to significantly improve profitability and growth. ZTS certainly seems to have a quality, durable portfolio, but I don't see how VRX could hit its 6-year payback target (which they might stretch a bit for very big deal, but even 7-8 years would be hard to see with my pf numbers). So I suppose I'm kind of glad that Faber is saying there's no deal, but if there was, I'd have waited to hear management explain its rationale and gone from there.

Now Faber is apparently on CNBC saying that he doesn't think there's a deal, that it might have been just an approach by Valeant.

Good. Then you can share your analysis of the company and tell us the flaws in the thesis of those who are positive on the company. No, I won't. See post by Merkhet. Good luck. Merkhet's post doesn't explain why you can't contribute analysis, but suit yourself.

Good. Then you can share your analysis of the company and tell us the flaws in the thesis of those who are positive on the company.

And the fanboys basically post that anyone with negative opinion is a moron, don't understand VRX/Pearson/etc. Pot calling kettle. Just curious, Jurgis. Have you read this thread?

So I'll assume that everything else I said was correct, since you didn't bother to quote it. I guess there was no "character assassination" after all.. The lack of symmetry is not interesting because there is no symmetry. The fact that someone thinks negatively about a company does not mean that they should or will short it. For example, some people don't short at all. Also shorting, as you might know, is not really "mirror image" of going long for variety of reasons. I agree. That's not what I was saying. I don't expect people to short everything they don't like or to run balanced long/short portfolios. Symmetry wasn't the right word; I guess I could just have said "the lack of conviction" is worth noting. I find it interesting that people who say very strong things about a company (not "it's too expensive for me" or "I don't understand it enough" or "I dislike the strategy", but rather "castles in the air", "ponzi", "fraud", etc) seem to lack the conviction to do anything about it. I mean, if it really is the next Enron or whatever, you'd think that some would see that as an opportunity. Even John Hempton has been fairly quiet on Valeant of late... You mean I should be careful about moving the price on an 80 billion dollar company? Guess I must be watch out for that... All I'm doing is trying to get to the bottom of what people are saying and challenging statements that I think are incorrect to see if there are arguments from the other side that can convince me. So far, I haven't seen anything of substance, but I'm always looking. You're welcome to change my mind if you have anything solid to contribute. But if what you're saying is that I should cheer unsubstantiated claims and not ask questions, then I disagree.

Not "character assassination". In what world would it be? ??? If you go back and read through this thread, you'll see the repeated refrain (without ever any smoking guns) that Valeant is just some big smoke and mirror show designed to fool unsophisticated investors who can't see through it. I was merely pointing out that many of the best and most sophisticated investors operating today, including two who have/had insider access (and board level accesss in one case) hold very big, high conviction positions (most of these have VRX has their top 1-2 holding). Many of them have for years. If that's "character assasination", then pointing out that the sky is blue must be too, because it's just a simple fact. As for the line about shorting, it's an honest question. Many of the people who are positive about the company have put their money where their mouth is, which is usually a good gauge of conviction. But those who claim it is a fraud, a castle in the air, a ponzi, a house of card, an unsustainable model, etc, don't seem to be doing the same. The lack of symmetry is interesting. If I run around saying that a company is the next Berkshire but I don't own it, someone asking me why don't I buy it would be asking a good question.

http://finance.wikia.com/wiki/Castle-in-the-Air_Theory http://reflexivityfinance.blogspot.com/2009/01/reflexivity-in-financial-markets-its.html http://financetrain.com/ma-earnings-per-share-the-bootsrap-effect/ ;D Why don't you short it? ;) I'm sure that Ackman, Sequoia, ValueAct, Glenn Grenberg, and Lou Simpson are all incapable of doing due diligence and looking through accounting to real economics...

WSJ: "Breaking: Valeant has made a preliminary takeover approach to animal-health company Zoetis." Never boring (if true). http://www.wsj.com/articles/valeant-makes-takeover-approach-to-zoetis-1435262327

It'll probably be uploaded later. Here's my recording. I didn't get the formal part of it, and there were a few technical problems at the beginning. This is Fries' presentation plus some Q&A: https://www.dropbox.com/s/rjpffg0usi29n3m/2015-june-AGM-LBTYA.m4a?dl=0

Isn't it here? http://www.libertyglobal.com/ir-presentations-webcasts.html

http://www.multichannel.com/news/policy/charter-files-application-twc-merger/391690

Don't forget that as EBITDA grows the debt capacity grows, even at a constant 4x. And if Liberty wanted to speed things up and SIRI share price was still reasonable, they could make leverage spike up temporarily (to 4.5x, say) just to push above 80% more quickly and then delever.

Can you explain your thinking behind your view that BRK is as oversold now as in 2009/2011? Thanks. BRK is now as oversold as it was in 2009 and 2011 on the multi-day money flow index, a good long term contrarian indicator how much capital flows in and out of a stock. Often times, this happens in a later stage of the bull market when a stock after a strong up movement becomes highly oversold after a 6 month consolidation or correction period, only to use this as a springboard for a rapid move upwards. BRK/B is definitely not as undervalued as it was in 2009 or 2011, but is still reasonably priced, with an intrinsic value around $167 per share. It should be noted that the p/b ratio becomes increasingly less relevant, since the percentage of BRK/B's free cash flow derived from non-insurance operations grows rapidly and will continue to do so in the future, so that using a 1.2x p/b multiple yardstick will cause many lost opportunities to buy the stock cheaply, as that particular ratio will only be reached during severe market distress. Thanks. The word "oversold" can mean many things, so I wanted to know which one you meant. Cheers.

Nate has an interesting post on Winland: http://www.oddballstocks.com/2015/06/winland-electronics-case-of-hidden.html

Awesome, congrats Keith!

So yesterday I was at Costco. They had Samsung tablets on demo stands. I just swiped right and left on the equivalent of the home screen, and there was a distinct lag to every action compared to my iPad. This is something that the Android and Samsung people say they're working on basically every year (been going on for years now), and they apparently still can't get responsiveness right, even on a brand new tablet with no extra third-party stuff to slow things down.

Can you explain your thinking behind your view that BRK is as oversold now as in 2009/2011? Thanks.