valueinvestor Posted February 10, 2019 Share Posted February 10, 2019 I do not have any idea why Berkshire Hathaway invested in this stock, but the fact they invested in the IPO certainly made me pull the trigger when the stock went down 50% from IPO price. At the moment it is around a 30% discount from IPO price and valuation is subject to debate in my mind. I feel that there's a competitive advantage that I'm missing, such as health food snacks, where machines of traditional process snacks cannot manufacture, since the equipment is made solely for fructose syrup. Either way, I'm deciding whether I should sell, since it risen by almost 30% from my initial purchase. To my knowledge, they are a payment processing company that is growing incredible well, 100%+ yoy topline growth. Anyone has any insight to offer? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cameronfen Posted February 10, 2019 Share Posted February 10, 2019 I think the thesis is that payments are under penatrated in Latin America/Brazil. Basically a country like China is basically a cashless economy and everyone pays by smart phone apps. Credit cards are even rarely used. The reason is because phones are (slightly) more convinient, and because they dont need to link up to a bank account and build up the network like a credit card, the network is built by people downloading the app and linking there accounts. Thus the main reason payment apps are superior is because compared to credit cards that charge 200-300 basis points to merchants, Alipay (i.e. ant financial) charges merchants 55 bps. Thus for a developing country that doesnt have a history of credit card usage, smart phone apps are much more attractive. Meanwhile despite only charging 55 bp, Alipay generates over 40 billion in revenue is worth 150 billion dollars. Brazil's population is 1/6 of Chinas, so conceivably if it gets the same penatration, it could be worth 25 billion dollars. If you want to compare it to paypal which probably covers a geographical area that skews developed countries and maybe 2.5x the pop of brazil, you have a valuation of 40 billion dollars. At the same time this comparison is somewhat faulty bc paypal charges credit card like fees to merchants compared to 55 BP for alipay which is likely what stone co will roughly charge. other things going for it is it has the largest network in Brazil if I'm not mistaken, and so you have a virtuous flywheel with it having both the most number of merchants and consumers on the platform. The bear case is the valuation is very steep at 25x revenue. Additionally its unclear how profitable Alipay/Ant finicial will be. Variable costs are low, but so is what it can charge merchants. Although it seems like Stone seems to have high margins. I'm not sure what competitors to stone look like, but Ant does compete with tencent, which may mean Stone is in a better position. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dalal.Holdings Posted February 10, 2019 Share Posted February 10, 2019 Sounds like Buffett's buddy Jorge probably got him in on this. In fact, looks like 3G is involved (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-10-22/alibaba-s-ant-financial-joins-buffett-in-hot-brazil-fintech-ipo). Another richly valued payment processor. Certainly not traditional "value" investing, more like a VC bet if anything. Brazil not exactly stable either (ie. look at a 5 year chart of the Real to USD) and if EM's go south, it may not be a big winner in USD terms. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cameronfen Posted February 10, 2019 Share Posted February 10, 2019 This inspired me to do some more digging as this has interested me on and off, (this is what I get for writing a post based on research I did 3 or 4 months ago), and just to clarify stone is more like paypal and square than ant. But the idea is still the same, you want to undercut the cost and price of financial transactions by moving things over the internet instead of middlemen. Macro conditions in Brazil are definitely an issue. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Munger_Disciple Posted February 10, 2019 Share Posted February 10, 2019 IIRC it was a Todd Combs purchase. The position size is $300M, so inconsequential to Berkshire as a whole. Todd seems to invest in VC type deals recently. He also invested in Paytm, an Alipay like service in India in a private financing round. Paytm is backed by both Alibaba and Softbank. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gfp Posted February 11, 2019 Share Posted February 11, 2019 "Mr. Combs was introduced to Stone by fellow shareholders Madrone Capital Partners, an investment firm affiliated with the heirs to Walmart Inc. founder Sam Walton, and T. Rowe Price Group Inc., according to a person familiar with the matter. “We saw Berkshire as a very long-term investor,” said Thiago dos Santos Piau, Stone’s CEO, in an interview. Mr. Buffett declined to comment on the Stone deal. “It’s entirely Todd’s,” said Debbie Bosanek, Mr. Buffett’s assistant, in an email. “He never comments on anything that Todd or Ted do. They have total autonomy.”" https://www.wsj.com/articles/warren-buffetts-firm-invests-millions-in-fintech-1540807200 Sounds like Buffett's buddy Jorge probably got him in on this. In fact, looks like 3G is involved (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-10-22/alibaba-s-ant-financial-joins-buffett-in-hot-brazil-fintech-ipo). Another richly valued payment processor. Certainly not traditional "value" investing, more like a VC bet if anything. Brazil not exactly stable either (ie. look at a 5 year chart of the Real to USD) and if EM's go south, it may not be a big winner in USD terms. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RadMan24 Posted February 11, 2019 Share Posted February 11, 2019 Have you read the prospectus? You'd get more info there than anywhere else. All you need to know its the first time I've seen " no bull shit" in a filing. In all seriousness, I got interested for same reason. It took a while to get my head around it, but do the following: Read the prospectus and all recent filings and recent earnings call. Read about the big Brazil payment processors, just in general, the payment processor industry in the mid to small business market (i.e. neglected market, several years of recession, stoneco offers improved working capital management, lowers cost and friction with customers, boosts sales, keeps customers happy with excellent service, repeat). Read about Square. And watch for inflection point in earnings. StoneCo could earn $1b reals in the new fiscal year. Then sit back and think. It'll come to you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
valueinvestor Posted February 11, 2019 Author Share Posted February 11, 2019 Have you read the prospectus? You'd get more info there than anywhere else. All you need to know its the first time I've seen " no bull shit" in a filing. In all seriousness, I got interested for same reason. It took a while to get my head around it, but do the following: Read the prospectus and all recent filings and recent earnings call. Read about the big Brazil payment processors, just in general, the payment processor industry in the mid to small business market (i.e. neglected market, several years of recession, stoneco offers improved working capital management, lowers cost and friction with customers, boosts sales, keeps customers happy with excellent service, repeat). Read about Square. And watch for inflection point in earnings. StoneCo could earn $1b reals in the new fiscal year. Then sit back and think. It'll come to you. Haha, this is probably one of the best post I've read in CoBF. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jurgis Posted February 13, 2019 Share Posted February 13, 2019 Have you read the prospectus? You'd get more info there than anywhere else. All you need to know its the first time I've seen " no bull shit" in a filing. In all seriousness, I got interested for same reason. It took a while to get my head around it, but do the following: Read the prospectus and all recent filings and recent earnings call. Read about the big Brazil payment processors, just in general, the payment processor industry in the mid to small business market (i.e. neglected market, several years of recession, stoneco offers improved working capital management, lowers cost and friction with customers, boosts sales, keeps customers happy with excellent service, repeat). Read about Square. And watch for inflection point in earnings. StoneCo could earn $1b reals in the new fiscal year. Then sit back and think. It'll come to you. What do you think about competition? https://seekingalpha.com/article/4240488-comparing-pagseguro-stoneco-square Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spekulatius Posted February 14, 2019 Share Posted February 14, 2019 There is also Cielo, the large incumbent, which reports competitive pressure (presumably from Stoneco and Pagsugero. Seems like and interesting industry. https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/CIOXY?p=CIOXY Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RadMan24 Posted February 21, 2019 Share Posted February 21, 2019 The incumbents will be lowering price, but that's because they're being disrupted and don't have a solution. The SA article referenced above points out a few differences between Stone and Pags. 1.) Stone is lower priced but has better TPV (again reference STNE's growth rates in the coming quarters) 2.) Stone is built on customer service first, no one else is (why is this important?) 3.) Stone's ecosystem is more "open" resulting in other service providers offering solutions to on Stone's platform (also provides for potential vertical acquisitions) 3.) Stone's business model may end up being more stickier than incumbents and Pags. PAGS is nice, but I rather not have to worry about management focusing b/w consumer and merchant aspects. Square changed its business model which is often underrated how great of a strategic move it was. The PAGS to Square comparison isn't as strong as many believe it is (often cited for valuation reasons). Just for fun, StoneCo's explanation of culture from prospectus: * The Reason—Our culture is centered on the fundamental belief that our clients drive everything we do. We also emphasize to our clients that, like them, we have also worked hard to start and grow a new business. We believe that building and maintaining close and active relationships with our clients will improve our ability to innovate, expand our leadership in the market, and grow our business. • Own It—We expect that all employees present an “owner” mindset and use their intelligence to resolve problems with a primary focus on making our clients’ experience great. We constantly strive to recognize exceptional achievement. • No Bullshit—We encourage respectful candor in all interactions and aim to be straight to the point. We criticize ideas, not people. We expect our teams to always choose the correct path, not the quickest. • Team Play—We have learned that people achieve greater results together. We believe that more ideas flourish, are debated better, and questioned more effectively in teams. As a result, we strive to work together and constantly look for people with complementary skills to join our team. • Live the Ride—We believe we will evolve more effectively by trying new ideas and improving on them with energy and passion. New ideas need to be tested in a controlled way, and only scaled once they have demonstrated authentic promise. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1745431/000119312518309043/d580263d424b4.htm Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RadMan24 Posted March 19, 2019 Share Posted March 19, 2019 The inflection point appears to have arrived. I’d be damned if the stock was weighed down simply because of competition concerns, market may readjust. https://investors.stone.co/news-releases/news-release-details/stoneco-reports-fourth-quarter-and-fiscal-year-2018-financial Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scorpioncapital Posted March 19, 2019 Share Posted March 19, 2019 Most likely I'm missing something but they earned something like 75 million usd in 2018 and have a market cap of 10 billion or 133x earning? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cameronfen Posted March 19, 2019 Share Posted March 19, 2019 Most likely I'm missing something but they earned something like 75 million usd in 2018 and have a market cap of 10 billion or 133x earning? They are growing at 100+% a year. Fourth quarter earnings was around 40 million by itself. Valuation is high no way around it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
valueinvestor Posted April 18, 2019 Author Share Posted April 18, 2019 Down 18% Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cameronfen Posted April 18, 2019 Share Posted April 18, 2019 Down 18% You know of any reason why? Obviously it's very expensive and I think it's market value is close to the value of the company (discounted) when it saturates the market. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gfp Posted April 18, 2019 Share Posted April 18, 2019 Down 18% You know of any reason why? Obviously it's very expensive and I think it's market value is close to the value of the company (discounted) when it saturates the market. As far as 'reason why,' I imagine it is related to the Morgan Stanley comment on Itau - https://www.benzinga.com/markets/wiim/19/04/13559775/stoneco-shares-are-trading-lower-following-a-comment-from-morgan-stanley-highlighting-news-that-braz There may also be speculation about shareholder lockup expiring Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
valueinvestor Posted April 18, 2019 Author Share Posted April 18, 2019 Down 18% You know of any reason why? Obviously it's very expensive and I think it's market value is close to the value of the company (discounted) when it saturates the market. Not sure but increased my position by 20%, since markets typically overreacts either side of the swing. Also my cost basis was really low, which helps. As for the reason why, it may be a revaluation. I do not think it says anything about the business' intrinsic value. Just that the business' intrinsic value is way lower than the market price right now. However, I have a feeling it may be one of those situations like Netflix where valuation-wise it made no sense, but in hindsight it would've been a good investment and you're closer to seeing the endgame of these companies. In short, I do not have any tangible reason why this stock may not go to zero. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
freddy02 Posted April 18, 2019 Share Posted April 18, 2019 "Starting May 2, merchants processing credit-card transactions using a Rede POS and who agree to get paid through a Itaú bank account will get paid through a Itaú bank account will get the funds in just two days at zero cost " Leia mais em https://braziljournal.com/itau-has-just-escalated-the-war-against-stone-and-pagseguro-and-they-plan-to-react Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PLynchJr Posted April 18, 2019 Share Posted April 18, 2019 Roughly 50% of their revenue comes from financial income (interest on pre-payments to merchants). Seems like a big deal to me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cameronfen Posted April 18, 2019 Share Posted April 18, 2019 I was long stne and still long a tracking position, but shifted to PAGS due to valuation. Maybe not exiting after this drop as this seems like an over-response, but I think the market is close to valuing this correctly now. The retail market in Brazil has 1 trillion in sales a year (source: https://www.statista.com/statistics/233086/total-of-retail-net-sales-in-brazil/). I'd say 50% of sales roughly would be a target for payments processing. The others are too big or do different things. Although this is roughly in line with Squares TAM GPV over total US retail sales (see slide 8 here: https://d1g145x70srn7h.cloudfront.net/documents/investor-relations/presentations/2019-02-overview.pdf and google for total US retail sales), this is just a number I pulled out of my hat though keep in mind. The take is roughly 2% for both (or will be 2% soon enough), and so they would generate 10 billion in revenue. There margins are about 30%. So that is about 3 billion which supports a combined market cap of 30 billion at a 10 multiple. Discount it back 7 or so odd years and you get a combined MC for PAGS and STNE of about 15 billion which is where we are at. Some things this model is missing, other competitors like Itau and Cielo. Maybe fatter net margins as STNE is almost at 50% and they may gain more with scale. But I think to first order combined the companies are approximately fairly valued IMO. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
valueinvestor Posted April 18, 2019 Author Share Posted April 18, 2019 Roughly 50% of their revenue comes from financial income (interest on pre-payments to merchants). Seems like a big deal to me. Does not really bother me much, as typically when businesses do that it is because they are lazy or they think they will win by trying to undercut the competition. Which never works over the long term. I do not think the business is easy replicable, as one may think, nor destroyed because of lower/free prices. I was long stne and still long a tracking position, but shifted to PAGS due to valuation. Maybe not exiting after this drop as this seems like an over-response, but I think the market is close to valuing this correctly now. The retail market in Brazil has 1 trillion in sales a year (source: https://www.statista.com/statistics/233086/total-of-retail-net-sales-in-brazil/). I'd say 50% of sales roughly would be a target for payments processing. The others are too big or do different things. Although this is roughly in line with Squares TAM GPV over total US retail sales (see slide 8 here: https://d1g145x70srn7h.cloudfront.net/documents/investor-relations/presentations/2019-02-overview.pdf and google for total US retail sales), this is just a number I pulled out of my hat though keep in mind. The take is roughly 2% for both (or will be 2% soon enough), and so they would generate 10 billion in revenue. There margins are about 30%. So that is about 3 billion which supports a combined market cap of 30 billion at a 10 multiple. Discount it back 7 or so odd years and you get a combined MC for PAGS and STNE of about 15 billion which is where we are at. Some things this model is missing, other competitors like Itau and Cielo. Maybe fatter net margins as STNE is almost at 50% and they may gain more with scale. But I think to first order combined the companies are approximately fairly valued IMO. Not in that detail, but I had the same hunch and more than happy to be pay fair value for Stone. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Casey Posted April 19, 2019 Share Posted April 19, 2019 https://apnews.com/GlobeNewswire/efea9f06dc092e0a9c082184ef663a6e StoneCo Ltd. Releases CEO Letter to Shareholders. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vince Posted April 22, 2019 Share Posted April 22, 2019 I have only done a bit of work on this name after the price fell but it seems to me that they are trying to be much more than just a payments business. And their whole hub distribution strategy for a developing country and how they will try and cross sell software and banking products to a less sophisticated merchant that has been ripped off for ages is brilliant IMO. Incredible opportunity for them with recent growth rates that suggest they understand the end market needs very well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vince Posted April 22, 2019 Share Posted April 22, 2019 Also, I do think that competitive responses from large incumbent players will probably affect Stones growth rate but the differentiated way they support their clients makes cut throat pricing by competitors less relevant. Although it's early I see a successful model that can be applied to other developing nations in that part of the world Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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