Gregmal Posted September 5, 2019 Share Posted September 5, 2019 https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190905006004/en/ This continues to be one of the most bizarre companies I've ever followed "Highlights First Quarter LaCroix’s 13 market bus tour and sampling experiences garnered over 25 million in impressions this summer (actual 25,192,955 source Vector Media). LaCroix Hi-Biscus Social Campaign reached influencers representing over 187 million impressions on Instagram (actual 187,206,444 source Instagram). LaCroix Pamplemousse has reached iconic status with numerous placements in the media including several appearances on the Tonight Show featuring Jimmy Fallon. The entire LaCroix line up is now led by Pamplemousse." These are highlights? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SHDL Posted September 5, 2019 Share Posted September 5, 2019 This continues to be one of the most bizarre companies I've ever followed I have come to regard that as part of the fun. Gotta love how the announcement starts by highlighting how they sold more soda as we went from spring to summer. Hopefully they keep that trend going. :P Jokes aside, the valuation does look like it’s at a level where we can expect very good upside if they start growing again, if only slowly. Probably a good buy if you think their recent issues are temporary. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mwtorock Posted September 6, 2019 Share Posted September 6, 2019 Buyback is a key message though - how many times you read about buyback in their releases? from the 10k: The Company is authorized under its stock buyback program to repurchase 1.6 million shares of Common Stock. As of April 27, 2019, 502,060 shares were purchased under the program and 1,097,940 shares were available for purchase. No shares of Common Stock have been repurchased during the last three fiscal years. So they have 200m cash on hand, and are generating positive cashflows every quarter. If they just buy back 100m worth of stock, it would retire about 2.5m shares. If i remember correctly, there are only less than 12m shares floating and half of that is short. And international expansion is highlighted again - from UK to Ireland to EU. Wondering who are their distribution partners there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gregmal Posted September 6, 2019 Share Posted September 6, 2019 I saw the bit about the buybacks, but I think you really need to handicap this thing framed around the fact that the CEO is a full blown liability. There is so much to potentially like about this company and setup at these prices. But never have I seen a company with so many obvious call options on value creation be so negligent. You have an orchestrated campaign of misinformation, and during which sales plummet. And all you've gotten from it so far is Capporella highlighting to new investors how crazy and unhinged he is. European expansion is an unnecessary risk at this stage of the game. La Croix is an American culture thing. A new phenomenon. In Europe they've been drinking this shit for ages and don't care about the La Croix "message". Sodastream learned this the hard way too. They've totally missed "hitting while the iron is hot" with several opportunities including spiked seltzer. Look at SAM... they've created a shit ton of value seeing a fad, buying into the market, milking it, and then reducing shelf space for the next one. All FIZZ has to do here is license the La Croix brand....Nope. Valuation is a no brainer, but mismanagement is hard to ignore. Even the buyback. Given the dynamics here, why not tender? Why not at least show shareholders you're not an entrenched owner and at the very least, RUN a strategic review process and see whats out there? Private market value is easily $100 a share or more. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gregmal Posted November 8, 2019 Share Posted November 8, 2019 https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/coca-cola-launches-its-biggest-new-drink-in-10-years-143007455.html Remove Coke from the list of suitors. I really haven't seen a company's CEO/majority owner neglect opportunities and purposely destroy value quite like Capporella has done. Seltzer water becomes a trendy new millenial/health fad, ride the wave up...great Competition marches in...close your eyes Fallacious hit pieces destroy the reputation of your company...act like an ever bigger lunatic in your quarterly letters Spiked seltzer becomes a craze...refuse to partner with an alcoholic beverage company Several large soda/drink companies want in to the bubble water craze....refuse to even entertain putting your company up for sale But hey, maybe he'll do another $2 special dividend. Since he's more or less just paying himself... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gregmal Posted December 28, 2019 Share Posted December 28, 2019 After continuing the rounds of holiday gatherings it continues to amaze me the share of right and/or left hands that White Claw possesses. To which my only thoughts continue to be, Nicholas Capporella, what the fuck are you waiting for? A LaCroix hard seltzer announcement would probably double the valuation here overnight. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gregmal Posted February 20, 2020 Share Posted February 20, 2020 https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200219005533/en/ Potentially huge implications from this. I bought some this morning Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest roark33 Posted February 20, 2020 Share Posted February 20, 2020 What are the implications? Other products have gained significant traction in the past year as this "lawsuit" and related PR caused people to try other products, most notably, Bubly and Spindrift. Just not sure someone retracting that lawsuit matters after the damage has already been done. Remember when Tilson said, whoops my bad on the accusations against Lumber and then Lumber became a 10B company in the following year as sales/profits recovered dramatically? Just kidding, that didn't happen. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gfp Posted February 20, 2020 Share Posted February 20, 2020 other products, most notably, Bubly and Spindrift. Most notably, Kirkland. Costco has a huge hit with the Kirkland version of LaCroix. I hope for FIZZ's sake that they are actually the manufacturer of the Kirkland stuff, but I doubt it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gregmal Posted February 20, 2020 Share Posted February 20, 2020 Others have gained market share for sure but at the end of the day La Croix is still the premier name is that space. This has been a MAJOR distraction for Caporrella. Clearing the skies cant undo market share losses, but it can let the brand recover. Sparkling water is a growing product category, there is plenty of money there for everyone. It would be one thing if this had 50% market share and a $10B market cap; it doesnt though. La Crox additionally should be launching several new flavors/products this year, which probably reinvigorate the brand a bit. But I think given the absurd level of focus and time spent by the company on getting this verdict, that the next logical step is to repair the harm done to shareholders. If anyone is familiar with the ownership breakdowns here, its not hard to see several very easy ways Caporella can make a lot of noise. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest roark33 Posted February 20, 2020 Share Posted February 20, 2020 Yeah, Kirkland too. Also, price compression at grocery stores has been a real thing as Bubly has just been endlessly discount happy. Not disagreeing with you completely and I own some shares, but I seriously doubt Nick does anything about this. he has owned the same percentage of this company for the past 10 years, probably longer than that. He is just happy to write his press releases and collect dividends every 2 years. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gregmal Posted February 20, 2020 Share Posted February 20, 2020 Hopefully this allows him to turn his focus. I dont think the current valuation is all that bad regardless. There was a ton of resiliency around $40 even with the overhangs and terrible results. Comps look somewhat favorable here, and you've also now largely gotten this whole ordeal put to bed. Given the still huge short interest and all, I think its somewhat compelling. A corporate action, some have discussed a large tender, would set this thing on fire. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gregmal Posted March 5, 2020 Share Posted March 5, 2020 https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200305005854/en/ Starting to see some improvements here, with some big product launches weeks away. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mwtorock Posted March 6, 2020 Share Posted March 6, 2020 Buyback actually did happen - 4.3m for 100k shares in the quarter. Still over 260m in cash. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gfp Posted March 6, 2020 Share Posted March 6, 2020 https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200305005854/en/ Starting to see some improvements here, with some big product launches weeks away. "“The numbers reflect the effects of a strategy that generated increased momentum of brand LaCroix. LaCroix has returned to positive growth in a much different sparkling water category that existed prior to October 2018, when litigation slowed the growth of LaCroix, which also affected the growth of the total sparkling water category." The CEO is just so odd... No LaCroix customer that I know was even aware of this litigation, much less let it influence their purchasing behavior. The CEO seems like the only one who cared about this litigation and thought it was a big deal. Competition is so much more of a factor than "winning" a lawsuit or remaining "authentic" or whatever else he is fixated on... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bilo Posted March 6, 2020 Share Posted March 6, 2020 It has been explained many times. The litigation itself had almost nothing to do with the harm done to the LaCroix brand. These types of lawsuits are a dime-a-dozen and are usually settled quietly. One of the ginger ail brands had a similar incident and literally no one heard about it. The actual cause of the damage to the LaCroix brand was the media firestorm that erupted in fall of 2018 when "click bait" media started running with language in the Law firm's press release that absurdly referenced, "cockroach poison" as an ingredient. This proved to be, and still is, the greatest attention the brand has ever received in its history, and it was revoltingly negative. Go to Google Trends and search, "LaCroix water" and look at 5 year data. The enormous spike you see is the week or two after the media-induced hysteria. This media hysteria triggered an -immediate- reaction in shelf-space allocation by retailers. They panicked at a truly horrendous time for FIZZ, as enormous levels of new competition was coming to market. It was an incredibly fortuitous bit of luck for Bubly and others. Regardless, the quarter was very good. Many companies would have been devastated by the "cockroach" pr event (Audi USA was almost destroyed by their "unintended acceleration" fiasco in the late 80's, which also turned out to be totally bogus media hysteria, for example.) In my view what occurred to FIZZ was one of the worst (both in terms of impact and the utter unfairness) PR disasters of all time. Yet here is FIZZ, chugging along throwing off tons cash flow. Technical float is only 25% of outstanding shares.. Looks to me like average price on repurchases (first in 17 years) was just over $40.. so if they (CEO, really) want to defend that level IMO its not sane to be short as if CEO sees value there, could be taken private at any time or cut float 25% or more, etc. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gregmal Posted March 6, 2020 Share Posted March 6, 2020 Very well said. FIZZ has very much been an investment reliant on narratives. The narrative just changed. Comps have inflected, and summer is coming with big new product launches. Given the setup and degree to which $40 has held throughout the worst of times, I like it. Massive short interest makes it all the better. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest roark33 Posted March 6, 2020 Share Posted March 6, 2020 I have never been one of the tin-foil hat conspiracy types, but the idea that Pepsi had something to do with the lawsuit is more than a 0% possibility. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gregmal Posted March 7, 2020 Share Posted March 7, 2020 Perhaps just a useless observation, but the noted volatility around 3:45 coincides with the exact time company buybacks must be pulled for the day. Wouldn't be shocked if they are now in the market @$45 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bilo Posted March 7, 2020 Share Posted March 7, 2020 Gregmal, agree the volatility was very odd last 30 minutes of the day - looked like a seller attempting to suppress new highs to me. Very interested to hear that about the buybacks. where can I find the other technical rules, if you happen to know? Thanks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gregmal Posted March 7, 2020 Share Posted March 7, 2020 Gregmal, agree the volatility was very odd last 30 minutes of the day - looked like a seller attempting to suppress new highs to me. Very interested to hear that about the buybacks. where can I find the other technical rules, if you happen to know? Thanks. Securities lawyers and scouring the SEC rule book lol. Yea I’ve dabbled down that long and arduous road before with many a small cap company. I forget specifically but as it relates to here, my recollection is that under $500k average volume 3:30 is the cut off for repurchases, which can not exceed 25% average daily volume. If it’s over, you’ve got til 3:45 with the same volume restrictions. Don’t quote me on the exact numbers but that’s the gist of it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bilo Posted March 10, 2020 Share Posted March 10, 2020 Incredible rally from the low to the close today, almost 22% - have to wonder if the Co. turned the buyback spigot on. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest roark33 Posted March 10, 2020 Share Posted March 10, 2020 There really wasn't any liquidity in the stock, the trades at 37 were really one-off. I tried to buy at 37 for over an hour and had to move the bid up to 39.5 to get it filled. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mwtorock Posted March 11, 2020 Share Posted March 11, 2020 https://www.wsj.com/articles/pepsico-nears-deal-to-buy-energy-drink-maker-11583893495?mod=hp_lead_pos3 PepsiCo Inc. on Wednesday agreed to buy Rockstar Energy Beverages, in a move that would expand the beverage giant’s presence in the fast-growing energy-drink category. PepsiCo is to pay $3.85 billion for Rockstar. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gregmal Posted March 12, 2020 Share Posted March 12, 2020 FIZZ you motherfucker. Tomorrow we'll rebound and you'll be -5%....Such is life. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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