Sportgamma

Hopefully they'll start repurchases after the conversion is completed.

We both agree that Shopify is a fantastic business model and that finding an entry point is tricky. Let's assume that Shopify is a $500 billion company in 10 years. How many +$500 billion companies are there? 10, maybe 12? Not sure. Microsoft trades at about 10x sales, Facebook also about 10, Visa is at about 14 times sales. So, let's assume that by the time that SHOP trades at $500b the PS ratio is around 12. At about $2.5b in revenues, they would need a CAGR of 33% for 10 years to do that. Then you need to factor in the increased share count from SBC over those 10 years, so the required growth rate required for 5x on a per-share basis is probably a bit higher. 5x in 10 years is an annual return of 17.5%. My concern would be that Microsoft, Facebook, Visa, et al, have historically not traded at +10 times sales. In fact, Microsoft was trading at 5 times sales less than two years ago. To a large extent, an investment in these companies is a bet on interest rates staying low. So I guess what I am saying is that for Shopify to be a +15% return per year investment, the company needs to execute their growth plan perfectly, become one of the most 20-40 valuable companies in the world and it also requires interest rates to stay low to keep multiples up for the foreseeable future. I just don't like the risk-reward at these multiples. Tech is the mother of survivorship bias and we forget the names of the fallen angels all too easily.

Why is Shopify the only option? Shopify is not aggregating data (a la Google and Facebook) or inventory (a la Amazon). Shopify is not an intermediary between the consumer and the merchant. In fact, one of the biggest value that Shopify brings to the table for merchants is that it is easy for them to integrate and optimize through those platforms. The biggest risk, that I think is often overlooked when analysing SHOP, is that they seem to be destined to lose their most successful customers. Shopify is an amazing and totally unrivalled product if you are starting out and you want to hit the ground running. It's also very good if you are a brick and mortar retailer who is trying to integrate eCommerce to your existing business model. Imagine there is a new emerging category in online retail. 1,000 startups launch through Shopify. By the nature of search engine optimization and other factors, outgrow the rest by orders of magnitude. Being on Shopify, is not going to give any of those 10 competitors any competitive advantage. At this stage, things like page loading speeds are starting to critically matter, because the top 3 places in Google searches are going to give 10 times more traffic than the places below. The needs of these companies are going to outgrow the commoditized nature of the Shopify business model. Not saying that Shopify is not a great product or that SHOP cannot become a $500 billion company in the future. Just saying that at $112 billion in market cap, an awful lot of expectation is already priced in.

It's a beautiful business model, no doubt about it. But it is hardly misunderstood. Shopify has gone from trading at a price to sales ratio of 15 to 45 in less than two years. I'd say the Shopify thesis is plenty understood by now...

Wow...I read the release and this is a head-scratcher. So, they take out 60,012,419 Class A units of Manning & Napier Group for $90.8 million cash ($1.51 per unit). Post transaction, cash per Manning & Napier, Inc share is ~$3.49. I must be missing something here?

Insider stock was convertable into stock in the public company, so the insiders didn't necessarily sell.

Manning & Napier was crazy cheap at $1.02. I kick myself for not pulling the trigger. What I didn't like at the time was that the structure seemed deliberately unfriendly to public shareholders. If I remember correctly the insiders own +80% of the operating company through a seperate co and the public investors own a piece of a another holding which also has a super voting shares that are held by the Manning family, or something like that. If you are interested in active asset managers that are bleading out slowly, you should take a look at Gamco Investors.

And at the same time, the prefs aren't moving.

Here in Iceland there have been tests made by random sampling of the population. Based on random sampling, around 0.3% of the population tests positive. Obviously, this is not representative for other countries or populations. In Iceland most of the effort has gone to tracing infections and quarantining people who have been in contact with infected people. By now, over 50% of people who test positive are already in quarantine when tested. https://www.covid.is/data Yeah, Iceland seems to be doing well, but a small country with a concentrated population in a small area (like Singapore) would be much easier to manage w something like this. The random sampling showing only 0.3% infected obliterates the "this disease has been widespread for a long time" thesis. Makes you realize how impossible achieving herd immunity will be (without having large magnitude of deaths/healthcare overload). That's excellent. From Iceland link: Confirmed infections: 1417 Total samples: 23640 (1417/23640) * 100 = 5.99%. How are you getting 0.3%? Assuming your random sampling comment is correct, 6% of Iceland being infected with a swab test that does not even tell people who are already infected, nonsymptomatic and cleared of virus in a country we dont consider to have Covid outbreak is pretty high. The Iceland data is really interesting for testing (understand the virus and compare testing strategies globally). There are two vectors for testing: one is targeted and looks similar to many countries, the other is "random" although the methodology does not reach the pure random definition. At first, for the 'random' part, people self-selected and more recently people can accept to be tested after a random call. In the 'random' group, the positive rate has recently been reported at 0.9% and it may be around 1.0% now but is unlikely to be too far from the 'true' number related to the prevalence in the population. There are limitations: sensitivity and specificity of the test, a negative test today does not mean a negative test tomorrow. Although they report a large number (about 50%) of asymptomatic people in the 'random' group, they may catch the disease before the onset of symptoms. However, this (and the age group profile they show) suggests that most people who get CV have mild or no symptoms, especially if young. The 'random' sampling is done by a genomic sequence entity and the analysis is revealing potentially very potent analytical aspects: -the virus mutates to a degree so that it becomes different from other CV virus elsewhere once it has reached a country or a region -the genetic makeup (and possibly previous exposures to other or more benign forms of CV) of the individual appears to be a key independent variable vs risk of becoming really sick -the virus mutates relatively slowly (good) but it's spreading quite effectively (bad) which makes it quite 'unique', in a way. There are actually three vectors for testing if you look at the self-selected group and the random sampling as two separate ones. If you take the self-selected testing out of the Decode data, the infection rate of the random group is around 0.3%, although the latest published numbers are only from a sample of 950. https://www.visir.is/g/2020139435d/slembi-ur-tak-is-lenskrar-erfda-greiningar-synir-0-3-prosent-smit-uti-i-sam-fe-laginu

Here in Iceland there have been tests made by random sampling of the population. Based on random sampling, around 0.3% of the population tests positive. Obviously, this is not representative for other countries or populations. In Iceland most of the effort has gone to tracing infections and quarantining people who have been in contact with infected people. By now, over 50% of people who test positive are already in quarantine when tested. https://www.covid.is/data

What fiduciary duty does Bruce Flatt have towards Guy Spier as a Teekay shareholder? What fiduciary duties did Warren Buffett have toward the shareholders in Dempster Mill? I'm not familiar with the case, is BAM as a controlling shareholder willingly trying to depress the price of Teekay. Otherwise, this is just a risk of investing alongside a vulture in a deep value situation...

Lucas Bols N.V. (AMS:BOLS) is a Dutch public company in the business of production, distribution, sales and marketing of alcoholic beverages. Its portfolio of over 20 brands includes names such as Bols, Galiano, Passoã, Damrak Gin and Vaccari Sambuca. The company was formerly owned by Remy Cointreau but through a management buyout in 2006 and went public in 2015 at €15.75 per share or at a valuation of €192 million. The company has a book value of €192 million and €124 million in financial liabilities (+ €40 million in deferred tax liabilities). On the asset side, €307 million out of €381 million in total assets are intangible. Revenues around €90 million. The company delivered a net profit of about €16.5 million in 2018/19 on NOA of about €21 million and €20.4 the year before. Currently trades at around €12 per share or a market cap of €150. Trailing P/E of 8.8 and 5% dividend yield. Here is a short write-up on Lucas Bols NV (AMS:BOLS)

https://s1.q4cdn.com/579586326/files/doc_financials/2020/Fairfax-Financial's-Shareholders'-Letter.pdf

I get you, but to me, this situation is not about whether Maffei is a capital allocator or not. Capital allocation at TRIP has been atrocious since the spin-off and they were totally outmanoeuvred by Booking. The hope is now on Viator but what happens when Booking acquires Get Your Guide or Klook? But at this stage, Maffei will be forced to do something. If TRIP drops much further, LTRIPA must be getting close to a margin call. The leverage cuts both ways. I haven't quite dipped in yet, but it's getting very tempting.

This situation is getting super interesting. The TripAdvisor value erosion has been emense. It befuddles me that Maffei has tolerated Kaufer for this long. If this is not a special situation, then I don't know what is. Whatever happens from now on will be driven by the needs of Maffei and LTRPA.