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IACI - IAC/InterActiveCorp


ni-co

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IACI sum of the parts is getting more and more interesting. Funny that the MTCH gain seemingly doesn't translate to IACI, even though its MTCH ownership is no worth ~$40 per IACI share.

 

Any thoughts on IACI here nico?

 

Well, it's cheap.

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Sorry I thought this topic switched to MTCH after the spin off. It has 1.23B of debt versus 99M of cash on a 2.34B market cap according to yahoo finance (I'm just quickly gauging whether this needs more research for now).

 

IAC's debt isn't visible on yahoo finance.

 

Do you think IAC/InterActiveCorp is more interesting for investment than MTCH?

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I'd always take such data out of the latest report.

IACI: http://ir.iac.com/secfiling.cfm?filingID=891103-15-16&CIK=891103

MTCH: http://ir.matchgroupinc.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=254224&p=irol-newsArticle&id=2134995

 

Yes I think IAC is the better deal since you're getting 84.6% of the MTCH market cap plus the rest of IAC very cheaply when you deduct the 1bn in net cash.

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I'd always take such data out of the latest report.

IACI: http://ir.iac.com/secfiling.cfm?filingID=891103-15-16&CIK=891103

MTCH: http://ir.matchgroupinc.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=254224&p=irol-newsArticle&id=2134995

 

Yes I think IAC is the better deal since you're getting 84.6% of the MTCH market cap plus the rest of IAC very cheaply when you deduct the 1bn in net cash.

 

Okay, but they own 84.6% of MTCH, so what do you think about Match's high amount of debt?

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I'd always take such data out of the latest report.

IACI: http://ir.iac.com/secfiling.cfm?filingID=891103-15-16&CIK=891103

MTCH: http://ir.matchgroupinc.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=254224&p=irol-newsArticle&id=2134995

 

Yes I think IAC is the better deal since you're getting 84.6% of the MTCH market cap plus the rest of IAC very cheaply when you deduct the 1bn in net cash.

 

Okay, but they own 84.6% of MTCH, so what do you think about Match's high amount of debt?

 

I think they'll survive it. It's ~4.5x EBITDA. But if you don't like the risk, short it out. Then you'll be paying 800m or so net cash for the rest of IAC, that's ~4x its current EBITDA – for this you get a business like e.g. HomeAdvisor that's been growing 27% Y-Y top-line.

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  • 2 years later...
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Anybody following IAC still? Seems really cheap here.

 

Match, which they own 81% of, is down 17% on guidance "reduction" from $454m to $440 to $450. However, results from Q3 beat. Tinder added another 300k subscribers and increased revenue 100% y/y. ARPU also grew by 24%. Tinder also released Tinder U for colleges and the "feed".

 

The feed is really interesting to me. 75% of tinder users don't use FB login -- younger demo's are increasingly distrustful of our zuckerberg overlord. Engagement and retention on the feed is supposedly high. People also are craving real world connection. The online to offline component is compelling. Could the feed pose a challenge to FB? Instead of the vacuous clickbait driven FB feed, feed actually provides some real connection. IDK

 

Operating leverage is starting to kick in given high retention and flat lining to falling marketing spend. Rev at Match group 30% y/y -- EBITDA grew closer to 40%.

 

They announced a $560m or $2 per share special dividend, which the market didn't love -- clearly. Seems really odd from my perspective. Any ideas why they'd do this? Are they trying to attract income investors?

 

Looks like they'll hit their top end of their EBITDA guidance of $650mm, and that theyre flexing marketing up in 4q as well.

 

All in all, MTCH is trading at 19x EBITDA, despite growing 40% last year. Not too shabby.

 

ANGi is growing a bunch too. But for brevity, I won't touch on that here. I really like the vimeo business as well. It's peanuts compared to the other businesses from a financial perspective, but has 40m unique visitors / mo, and growing subscriptions. They have >80million subs with around 900k paying. They broke $100m in rev with 50% international, on just a fraction of marketing spend that they plan to ramp up. They're also targeting enterprise clients which much larger ACV. Retention has been strong -- average lifetime is 5 years. And there's a really interesting OTT oppty here too. Theyre showing real traction with the SaaS product. And the best part is, you're getting this biz for free.

 

All in all, IAC is trading at a 15% discount to the public subsidiaries alone -- ANGI and MTCH. They're buying back shares. So you're effectively getting Vimeo, which is growing rapidly, and the publishing business -- which is surprisingly growing too -- for free. There's also around $200m of VC investments.

 

Diller has > 3 commas in this puppy ($1bn) and a great track record to-boot.

 

My perception is that the market is skeptical that the Tinder growth is sustainable. Across the board it seems like investors fear FB and AMZN will take over every industry. That just simply won't be the case. There's something to be said for focus.

 

Would love your guys thoughts.

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I am long $MTCH and a little bit of $IAC as a tracker. One of my concerns with IAC is capital allocation over a 10-year time frame. Barry Diller is 76 with a great track record. Who do we have as a potential replacement, and has succession ever been discussed?

 

The long thesis on IAC (unless you are trying to capture SOTP discount with a short on the publically listed entities, $MTCH $ANGI; a none-ergodic process, i.e. stupid) must include a succession risk and a potential for misallocation of capital.

 

This is one of the reasons $CSU $BAM are great longs, the great capital allocators still potentially have two decades left...

 

Does anyone have thoughts on the succession? Thanks.

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I am long $MTCH and a little bit of $IAC as a tracker. One of my concerns with IAC is capital allocation over a 10-year time frame. Barry Diller is 76 with a great track record. Who do we have as a potential replacement, and has succession ever been discussed?

 

The long thesis on IAC (unless you are trying to capture SOTP discount with a short on the publically listed entities, $MTCH $ANGI; a none-ergodic process, i.e. stupid) must include a succession risk and a potential for misallocation of capital.

 

This is one of the reasons $CSU $BAM are great longs, the great capital allocators still potentially have two decades left...

 

Does anyone have thoughts on the succession? Thanks.

 

It's a good question, but I'll counter that people still invest into BRK... (And I'm personally in the camp that Buffett is irreplaceable and his succession however well chosen is going to be subpar for a lot of reasons).

 

So maybe Barry can do a Buffett and be there for 2 decades?

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Of course he could live another 20 years, but conditional mortality tables put his life expectancy at around what another 5 to 6 years (maybe higher because he is a billionaire...).

 

I would disagree re Buffet. Don't get me wrong he is the GOAT, but he underperformed over the last 10/15 years because he didn't bet on the internet. The next capital allocators at Berkshire I think will do better.

 

Also, I am confident the Berkshire culture can be passed down from generation to generation, not sure I know enough about IAC to say the same thing.

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Of course he could live another 20 years, but conditional mortality tables put his life expectancy at around what another 5 to 6 years (maybe higher because he is a billionaire...).

 

I would disagree re Buffet. Don't get me wrong he is the GOAT, but he underperformed over the last 10/15 years because he didn't bet on the internet. The next capital allocators at Berkshire I think will do better.

 

Also, I am confident the Berkshire culture can be passed down from generation to generation, not sure I know enough about IAC to say the same thing.

 

OK. We have completely opposite views on Berkshire, but that's OK. Best.  8)

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I don't think it's possible to judge his abilities when you have someone like Barry Diller essentially making all the capital allocations decisions above him.

 

With BRK you can get a feel for Ted/Todd with their autonomy from Buffett.

 

Would be happy to be proven wrong though, if anyone can't point me to some information that suggests so.

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An unclear succession plan is far from a dealbreaker for me. Given it's trading at a 15% discount to the public co's alone -- not counting the fast growing publishing, mobile app biz and vimeo -- I look at the capital allocation side as pure optionality (unless you think their capital allocation is -EV).

 

Their existing businesses alone are enough to make IAC exciting in my opinion. Barry Diller has some say there, but each company's performance will more-so be predicated on their distinct CEOs.

 

Don't get me wrong, I'm a big fan of Barry. Which is why I'm excited to get the capital allocation side of the business for below nothing

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They announced a $560m or $2 per share special dividend, which the market didn't love -- clearly. Seems really odd from my perspective. Any ideas why they'd do this? Are they trying to attract income investors?

 

 

The dividend was likely forced on Match by IAC, otherwise it makes little sense and puts them in a tough spot. The likely reason is a MTCH spin for IAC shareholders. IAC gets some cash before letting it go. As for that cash, they could be gearing up for an acquisition but that seems unlikely given the environment and commentary. They could try to reduce the valuation disconnect via a big IAC buyback. However that gap has closed recently with the sell off (was $3b about a month ago, ~1.7b now). Management did not address it on the most recent call as they have in the past 2 or 3, perhaps a tell.

 

I think IAC overplayed their hand. The market clearly didn't like the MTCH dividend and it exacerbated whatever hit MTCH was going to take for every so slightly down guidance. ANGI turned in a nice quarter, but the stock has been trading all over the place. It gapped up 15% and by the end of the day was down quite a bit and now over 20% from that post earnings high.

 

I like all 3 companies and own IAC. I am not worried about a succession plan for Diller, it's Joey Levin and he's excellent. Read his quarterly letters to get a feel for his style, very shareholder friendly.

 

Couple of other variables with regard to MTCH, very high short interest and the upcoming dividend, float increasing if remaining shares are spun out.

 

 

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  • 2 months later...
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IAC turned in a good quarter. No updates on MTCH spin. Here is a long interview on CNBC where Joey Levin talks about the SOTP valuation disconnect:

 

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/07/ceo-of-iac-shares-why-he-thinks-the-vimeo-parent-is-undervalued.html (full interview near the bottom)

 

 

The interesting part of earnings was the growth of DotDash and Vimeo continuing to chug along.

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