Investment Pitches

Pitch Summary:
Ascendis is a biotech company leveraging its proprietary TransCon™ platform to develop differentiated therapies that address unmet medical needs. This technology enables sustained and predictable drug release while preserving the drug’s original mechanism of action. The launch of Yorvipath®—the first and only hormone replacement therapy for adult hypoparathyroidism—has exceeded expectations, generating revenues of €103 million in Q2 2025, more than double the prior quarter, with over 3,100 patients and 1,500 US prescribers. This strong uptake reinforces our confidence in both Yorvipath® and Ascendis’ broader pipeline.

BSD Analysis:
Ascendis Pharma is what happens when a biotech gets its science right but the market only focuses on every speed bump along the way. SKYTROFA’s launch is gaining traction, the pipeline is stacked with long-acting hormone programs that reduce patient burden, and the company’s TransCon platform is proving it can repeatedly deliver improved pharmacokinetics over standard therapies. Yes, regulatory delays and capital concerns spooked investors, but Ascendis has navigated worse and shown it can execute when it matters. Once the cash burn narrative fades, what’s left is a platform company with multi-billion-dollar potential across endocrinology, oncology, and rare disease. The risk profile is still biotech-normal, but the payoff — if consecutive readouts break their way — is far from priced in. Ascendis is one of those names where sentiment swings wildly, but the underlying science and market need are far more stable than the stock chart suggests.

Pitch Summary:
Pure Storage is redefining enterprise data storage by sourcing raw NAND flash memory and building custom all-flash systems, which enhances cost efficiency. The company is gaining share in core enterprise markets, and its collaboration with SK hynix for hyperscale data center environments supports its efforts to expand its addressable market. During the quarter, Pure Storage reported revenue rose 13% year over year to $861 million, driven by enterprise demand and strong performance in its subscription services and next-generation product portfolio. While cloud and hyperscaler traction are still early, core business metrics remain solid.

BSD Analysis:
Pure Storage has gone from being a “nice-to-have” flash vendor to a full-blown AI infrastructure enabler — and the market is only beginning to price in the shift. Its all-flash arrays are exactly what hyperscalers need as datasets explode and latency tolerance evaporates, and Pure’s subscription-heavy model turns that demand into sticky, high-margin recurring revenue. Competitors are still pushing hybrid storage like it’s 2015, while Pure is delivering performance-per-watt metrics that make legacy arrays look prehistoric. The company’s new FlashBlade and Evergreen architectures offer the kind of scalability AI workloads require, giving Pure a seat at the table with giants it has no business intimidating — yet it does. Free cash flow is accelerating, gross margins are expanding, and the customer win rate in large enterprises is trending in the right direction. This is no longer a niche flash play — it’s a stealth AI infrastructure compounder hiding behind a modest valuation.

Pitch Summary:
Modine is a global leader in thermal management solutions. The company is experiencing strong growth, driven by increased business with existing hyperscale customers and the addition of new accounts in the hyperscale segment. Rising demand across newer geographies, particularly in the US and Southeast Asia, and Modine’s expansion into advanced product lines, such as rack-level and modular data center cooling solutions, have further fueled this momentum. As a result, the company has significantly raised its revenue expectations for the year.

BSD Analysis:
Modine is a scorching-hot, high-conviction bet as a true AI data center picks-and-shovels winner within the thermal management space. The company is experiencing exponential growth fueled by surging demand from hyperscale customers, with new accounts and newer geographies like Southeast Asia accelerating revenue expectations. Its technical expertise in high-value, rack-level and modular cooling solutions is directly tied to the capital intensity of the AI build-out. To meet this unprecedented demand, Modine is committing $100 million in CapEx over 12-18 months to double its capacity by 80%, a move that should guarantee multi-year revenue visibility. Trading at an attractive valuation with an EV/EBITDA of ~9-10x and Net Leverage under 1x, the stock is poised for explosive margin expansion as mix shifts to higher-value systems and scale builds.

Pitch Summary:
Brandes initiated a position in SMC Corporation, the world’s largest manufacturer of pneumatic components with nearly 40% market share. The stock fell 50% from its March 2024 peak due to margin compression and slower growth following capacity expansion. Despite this, SMC retains a strong balance sheet with net cash exceeding 25% of market cap and consistent profitability. The firm’s global scale, product breadth, and distribution network support its competitive moat. Management’s capital discipline, dividend growth, and automation exposure underpin long-term appeal.

BSD Analysis:
SMC remains the gold standard in industrial pneumatics and precision automation, with a scale, distribution network, and product breadth that competitors simply can’t replicate. While global manufacturing softness has weighed on near-term volumes, SMC’s pricing discipline and mix shift toward higher-value components have preserved margins admirably. The company's R&D engine continues to push deeper into electric actuators and advanced motion control, giving it leverage to secular automation trends across semiconductors, life sciences, and logistics. Balance sheet strength provides ample room for strategic investment and opportunistic buybacks, enhancing per-share value. Despite a temporary industrial slowdown, SMC’s long-term algorithm—steady mid-single-digit growth plus elite margin resilience—remains fully intact. As industrial activity stabilizes, SMC should reassert itself as a high-quality compounder trading below its intrinsic consistency premium.

Pitch Summary:
Patrick is a manufacturer and distributor of components and materials for RV, marine, manufactured housing, and residential construction markets that is benefiting from an ongoing outsourcing trend across these end markets. Tariff and inventory concerns caused a pullback in shares to a valuation we found attractive.

BSD Analysis:
Patrick Industries is the underappreciated backbone of the RV and manufactured housing supply chain — the company that gets hit every time the cycle turns but always comes out stronger. After a brutal RV downturn, Patrick has trimmed fat, cleaned up inventory, and doubled down on higher-margin components and aftermarket products. Now, with volumes stabilizing and dealer inventories normalizing, even a modest recovery could drive outsized profitability thanks to the company’s aggressive cost discipline. Management’s M&A engine is still very much alive, targeting niche suppliers with sticky OEM relationships and high cash conversion. The balance sheet is stronger than people realize, and Patrick’s diversified exposure reduces the boom-bust risk investors assume. At its current valuation, the market is pricing in perpetual weakness, ignoring how violently this name can rebound once cycle turns. For investors with a pulse, Patrick is exactly the kind of high-beta cyclical that snaps back harder than consensus ever models.

Pitch Summary:
Montage Technology. The company reported surging revenue and net profit growth, and our research indicated that it has continued to enlarge its presence in the scale-up networking market, while maintaining stable growth in its interface integrated circuit business.

BSD Analysis:
Montage is becoming a quiet force in the semiconductor stack, leveraging its leadership in memory interface ICs and scale-up networking silicon to ride the AI and hyperscale compute wave. Revenue acceleration and surging profit growth show the firm executing well as DDR5, CXL, and high-bandwidth interconnect demand ramp across data centers. Its expanding footprint in switch/accelerator connectivity positions Montage as a core enabler of next-gen server architectures—an area where bottlenecks, not compute, increasingly dictate performance. Operating leverage is improving as new product ramps gain traction and customer adoption widens across both domestic and global manufacturers. Despite these tailwinds, the stock still trades at a discount to peers with similar AI exposure, reflecting outdated assumptions about end-market cyclicality. With structural demand for networking silicon rising, Montage’s growth profile remains underappreciated relative to its strategic positioning.

Pitch Summary:
Delta Electronics. Positive earnings surprises and strong performance in electric vehicles and data centers lifted shares. The company raised earnings forecasts, reflecting confidence in its growth trajectory. We believe Delta, a key supplier of AI power, is benefiting from global electrification trends and AI infrastructure expansion.

BSD Analysis:
Delta Electronics is the power-management powerhouse hiding in plain sight — the company’s components sit inside the data centers, EVs, and industrial systems that make modern electrification possible. As AI data centers guzzle power at unprecedented rates, Delta’s high-efficiency power modules and thermal solutions are becoming mandatory upgrades, not discretionary add-ons. The company’s edge comes from decades of obsessive engineering in power conversion, giving it efficiency wins that hyperscalers care about far more than they admit publicly. EV and industrial automation growth offer additional legs to the story, supported by Delta’s global manufacturing footprint and conservative financial management. Despite its strategic positioning, the stock still trades like a steady industrial rather than a high-leverage AI and electrification supplier. As power density requirements surge, Delta is positioned to capture recurring, high-margin design wins across multiple megatrends. This is the kind of boring-but-critical business that compounds quietly until suddenly it doesn’t look boring anymore.

Pitch Summary:
Arkema underperformed as continued weakness in its Coatings and Intermediates segments pressured margins. The company also underwent a leadership change, which added uncertainty regarding integration of recent acquisitions amid soft global demand.

BSD Analysis:
Arkema is the kind of specialty chemicals name that always trades like a boring industrial… right up until investors realize it’s quietly tied to some of the highest-growth materials markets on the planet. The company’s shift toward adhesives, advanced polymers, and high-performance materials has completely changed its earnings quality — but the market is still valuing it like a cyclical commodity shop. Margin expansion is being driven by specialty products with pricing power, not volume chasing, and Arkema’s portfolio mix is becoming increasingly insulated from raw-material shocks. The balance sheet is clean, capex is disciplined, and management continues to prune low-return businesses in favor of higher-margin engineered materials. With exposure to EVs, batteries, electronics, and next-gen coatings, Arkema is sitting right in the slipstream of multiple secular growth curves. If the specialty pivot continues to execute, the stock’s valuation gap versus U.S. peers is going to look increasingly irrational. This is a stealth compounder hiding inside a French chemical wrapper.

Pitch Summary:
Daimler Truck detracted from performance after lowering sales volume guidance amid concerns about a newly announced 25% U.S. tariff on heavy-duty truck imports. The company faces near-term headwinds from demand softness and tariff exposure, offsetting otherwise resilient operations.

BSD Analysis:
Daimler Truck presents a cyclical value opportunity, with its stock price facing near-term pressure from volume softness and newly announced US tariffs on heavy-duty truck imports. The long-term thesis, however, is supported by its essential role in the electrification and hydrogen adoption progress across the heavy-duty commercial vehicle sector. The company is implementing structural cost savings and efficiency programs, targeting a 15% fixed-cost reduction by 2025 (versus 2019), which provides a floor to downside risk and enhances margin resilience in a downturn. Daimler Truck maintains a strong European market share and offers a dependable dividend, and its valuation at a discounted 11x forward earnings is appealing relative to its mid-cycle earnings power. Upside is significant as the eTruck and fuel-cell segments scale beyond 2026 and macroeconomic concerns abate.

Pitch Summary:
Alibaba was a top contributor in Pzena’s International Value ADR portfolio for the third quarter of 2025. The market grew more optimistic about Alibaba’s cloud and AI divisions, following robust growth reports in both segments. The company also stabilized its share in e-commerce and regained momentum in quick commerce. These improvements, alongside disciplined cost management, positioned Alibaba as a central beneficiary of China’s digital recovery.

BSD Analysis:
Alibaba’s recovery is accelerating as cloud growth reasserts itself and early monetization of AI solutions provides a clearer catalyst path than the market expected. E-commerce share has finally stabilized, with improving execution in core marketplaces and momentum in quick-commerce channels. Cost discipline and segment simplification are restoring margin credibility after years of regulatory and competitive overhang. The company’s AI chip launch and cloud resurgence reposition Alibaba as a central node in China’s digital infrastructure push, not a fading incumbent. Trading at roughly 10× forward earnings with a fortress balance sheet, sentiment remains far too depressed relative to fundamentals. With regulatory clarity improving and multiple growth engines re-accelerating, BABA represents one of the most asymmetric risk-reward setups in global large-cap tech.

Pitch Summary:
The fund’s CLO allocation represented approximately 8% of total assets and returned 2.0% during the quarter, contributing 17 bps. Exposure is concentrated in high-current-income tranches with strong structural protections. While price appreciation is limited, this allocation provides reliable, high-yielding carry.

BSD Analysis:
The CLO mezzanine tranches (Collateralized Loan Obligations) are strategically favored for providing an attractive risk-adjusted carry within a diversified fixed-income portfolio. Exposure is concentrated in high-current-income tranches with strong structural protections, which helps to mitigate downside risk, even if price appreciation is limited. CLOs are actively managed, floating-rate instruments backed by diversified pools of senior secured corporate loans, offering a crucial low-correlation hedge against rising rates and corporate credit risk. The sequential payment waterfall and inherent coverage tests provide structural safety, ensuring that cash flows are diverted to senior tranches if the collateral pool deteriorates. As spread dispersion normalizes, active manager selection within the shorter-duration tranches becomes paramount to sustaining mid-single-digit returns. The mezzanine tranches, rated typically from AA down to BB, offer a higher yield premium versus similarly rated corporate bonds as compensation for the complexity and the embedded call options.

Pitch Summary:
The fund maintained overweight exposure to non-agency RMBS, including 19% in non-qualified mortgage bonds, up 1% from the prior quarter. The segment returned 3.0% in Q3 and contributed 27 bps to overall performance. Angel Oak highlighted strong collateral quality supported by record home equity, solid wage growth, and persistent housing supply constraints.

BSD Analysis:
Non-QM securitizations remain one of the more compelling pockets of structured credit, offering yield premiums that still outstrip the underlying risk. Strong borrower equity, tighter underwriting standards, and conservative loan-to-value profiles have kept delinquencies benign despite macro noise. With housing supply structurally constrained and wage growth keeping consumer balance sheets healthy, collateral performance continues to outshine market perception. Spread tightening reflects improving sentiment, but valuations remain attractive relative to agency paper and other forms of securitized credit. The segment’s carry profile is durable, and seasoning in recent vintages provides additional credit enhancement as borrowers build equity. For investors willing to lean into a misunderstood asset class, Non-QM remains a high-quality source of income with asymmetric upside as fundamentals hold firm.

Pitch Summary:
The fund reported that Energy was one of the largest positive contributors to performance, returning 3.05% versus 2.88% for the benchmark. Sector overweighting (15.4% versus 10.6%) and strong selection added value, led by a shallow-water jack-up driller currently being acquired and exposure to energy producers like Chesapeake. The allocation benefited from higher yields and spread tightening as investors sought high-quality credits positioned for lower rates.

BSD Analysis:
Chesapeake is no longer the shale-cowboy cautionary tale investors remember — it’s quietly become one of the most disciplined, cash-focused gas producers in the U.S. The balance sheet has been cleaned up, capex is tight, and management finally behaves like they care about free cash flow instead of production heroics. With gas fundamentals tightening and LNG export capacity set to surge, Chesapeake is perfectly positioned to ride the next leg of the gas cycle without blowing up its cost structure. Declining leverage and shareholder-friendly capital returns show this is a very different company than the pre-bankruptcy version. Credit spreads staying tight reveals what equity holders haven’t fully priced in yet: this is now a high-quality, low-drama producer with real torque to a gas recovery. If natural gas prices even flirt with normalization, Chesapeake’s cash flow upside will look significantly better than the market’s stale, backward-looking expectations.

Pitch Summary:
Alliance Entertainment is poised for a significant turnaround as it transitions from a period of declining revenues to renewed growth. The company has strategically cut costs and expanded margins, and with new licensing deals and a favorable outlook for the video game cycle, it is set to capitalize on upcoming growth opportunities. The stock is undervalued at current levels, trading at ~5x EBITDA, with potential upside as high as 80-100% as it rerates closer to 7-8x EBITDA.

BSD Analysis:
Alliance Entertainment has navigated a challenging period marked by declining revenues due to industry-wide struggles in gaming and consumer products. However, the company has effectively managed costs and expanded its margins, positioning itself for a return to growth. Key catalysts include a strong music release schedule, new licensing deals, and expansion into the collectibles market. The recent Paramount deal is expected to significantly boost revenues and margins, and the company's strategic shift away from lower-margin gaming products towards higher-margin segments like vinyl and DVDs/Blu-Ray is promising. With a strong management team and high insider ownership, Alliance is well-positioned to capitalize on these opportunities. The market has yet to fully appreciate the company's potential, presenting a compelling buying opportunity.