Investment Pitches

Pitch Summary:
UTZ Brands is the largest independent pure-play salty snack food company in the US with a portfolio including potato chips, pretzels, cheese snacks and others. Its popular brands include Utz, Zapp’s, On the Border and Boulder Canyon. The company operates in a historically attractive segment with top-line growth potential. Further, its geographic distribution expansion supports growth even as some food categories have softened recently, and it has an attractive margin-expansion opportunity via supply chain optimization and earnings-improvement potential via debt reduction. Given UTZ’s attractive positioning relative to its peer group and historically, as well as relative to the inherently stable and growing snack-food sector, we capitalized on the opportunity to introduce a position to a high-quality company trading at an attractive discount.

BSD Analysis:
UTZ is a pure-play salty snack company riding the shift toward branded, flavor-forward chips and pretzels. The category is growing faster than many other packaged foods, and UTZ has carved out strong regional positions it’s now taking national. Distribution gains and innovation are the key drivers, supported by strategic partnerships with big retailers. Input cost inflation has pressured margins at times, but UTZ has shown it can manage pricing and mix over a full cycle. The balance sheet is not spotless, yet the underlying cash generation is decent. If management keeps executing the “from regional favorite to national brand” playbook, there’s room for multiple and earnings expansion. This is a snack story with real legs, not a tired legacy brand.

Pitch Summary:
Insperity provides human resources (HR) and business solutions primarily to US-based small- and mid-sized businesses. Shares were pressured in the quarter as higher-than-expected health care costs impacted the company’s insurance book, and the company’s worksite employee count grew at a tepid rate. Our confidence in the company’s execution across multiple fronts — including its Workday partnership, ability to grow worksite employees, manage its health insurance book of business and improve margins — has increasingly weakened. Further, the potential for AI disruption is a longer-term risk to Insperity’s worksite employee base. With these factors pressuring the share price and limited visibility into a meaningful turnaround over the course of our investment horizon, we exited our position during the quarter, redeploying the proceeds to more attractive risk-reward opportunities.

BSD Analysis:
Insperity remains one of the most resilient ways to play the U.S. SMB economy, offering outsourced HR, benefits, and compliance services that small firms struggle to handle alone. Its professional employer model creates sticky relationships and recurring fees, making customer churn extremely low. The wildcard is always healthcare claims — medical loss variability can swing margins even when the core business is fine. Over a full cycle, though, Insperity’s pricing discipline and scale allow it to normalize those fluctuations. The company continues to add value through tech-enabled services while preserving the high-touch model clients appreciate. As regulation gets more complicated, SMBs increasingly turn to outsourced solutions rather than juggling point tools. Insperity isn’t glamorous, but it’s a quietly compounding services business in a category competitors can’t easily commoditize.

Pitch Summary:
Ducommun is a critical Tier 1 and Tier 2 supplier of advanced material aerostructures and electrical components to the defense and commercial markets. Shares rose in the quarter as the company is experiencing and expects continued strength as aerospace original equipment production grows. Further, the demand outlook among its customers remains robust, and while commercial volumes have been pressured amid ongoing destocking, management anticipates growth should accelerate in the medium term, which should, in turn, contribute to margin expansion in the period ahead.

BSD Analysis:
Ducommun is a small-cap aerospace and defense manufacturer making structural components, electronics, and engineered systems. It wins by being sticky in programs that last for years, often as a sole or key supplier. As commercial aerospace recovers and defense budgets remain robust, Ducommun has a multi-year backlog to work through. Operational execution and margin improvement are the key levers, as the company integrates past acquisitions and streamlines plants. The balance sheet is manageable for its size, and management has been pushing toward higher-value, more engineered products. Liquidity is not huge, so the stock can move hard on news. It’s a classic under-the-radar supplier leveraged to long-cycle aerospace and defense.

Pitch Summary:
Nuclear fuel and services provider Centrus Energy is well-positioned to benefit from the revitalization of nuclear energy industry growth following four executive orders issued by President Trump in May, which many have cited as the most pro-nuclear actions of the last 50 years. Centrus’s position as a nuclear fuel broker with burgeoning enrichment capabilities makes it an essential company for our domestic energy independence.

BSD Analysis:
Centrus is a niche but increasingly interesting player in the nuclear fuel supply chain, especially around advanced enrichment capabilities. As governments wake up to the need for secure, non-Russian uranium enrichment, Centrus’ technology and capacity become more strategically valuable. The company has a mix of legacy contracts and newer, higher-value work tied to advanced fuels. The business is small and policy-sensitive, which means earnings can be volatile and dependent on government behavior. But if nuclear power gets real political tailwinds, Centrus is one of the few ways to play the fuel side directly. This is not a widows-and-orphans stock, but the optionality is significant.

Pitch Summary:
FTI Consulting provides business advisory services to manage change, mitigate risk and resolve disputes. It has a robust, balanced services lineup spanning procyclical (e.g., M&A advisory work), countercyclical (e.g., restructuring advisory) and acyclical (e.g., forensic accounting and litigation consulting) engagements. The company has improved its scale, geographic reach and service breadth over the past decade or so as the CEO and management team have successfully seeded and grown service areas and geographies while generally reorienting the company’s culture toward organic growth. Near-term disruptions over the past several quarters — which we believe will prove to be largely noise in the long term — gave us an opportunity to initiate a position in what we consider a healthy, solid business run by a capable management team at a compelling price.

BSD Analysis:
FTI is the consulting firm that thrives when things go wrong — restructurings, disputes, investigations, and corporate crises. Its work is highly specialized, high-margin, and in constant global demand as regulation tightens and litigation grows more complex. The model is lean and people-intensive, but utilization stays strong because FTI operates in areas where in-house teams are rarely equipped. Unlike strategy consultants, FTI is plugged into the messiest, most time-sensitive problems, giving it steady pricing power. Results can be lumpy, but the long-term trajectory is upward because corporate complexity never reverses. The balance sheet is clean, capital returns are disciplined, and the brand is strong in every segment it plays in. FTI is a quiet, professional beneficiary of global disorder.

Pitch Summary:
Shares of industrial distributor WESCO rose amid a solid demand environment, particularly among data center customers. Long term, we expect WESCO to leverage its significant scale advantage to capture market share and improve margins. Further, the company is well-positioned to benefit from several secular tailwinds aside from data centers — all factors which the market has not yet fully appreciated.

BSD Analysis:
WESCO has turned itself into a critical infrastructure distributor powering the electrification, automation, and data-center build-out cycles. The Anixter acquisition transformed the company from a basic industrial wholesaler into a scale leader across electrical, utility, and communications networks. That scale shows up in better supplier terms, larger project wins, and deeper technical expertise. Secular trends like grid hardening, EV charging, and hyperscale data centers mean WESCO’s end-markets are more resilient than old-school industrial cycles. Integration has been smoother than expected, with margins steadily improving as synergies roll through. It’s still a cyclical business, but the mix now skews toward essential infrastructure rather than purely discretionary capex. WESCO is becoming a strategic partner to modernization efforts across the economy.

Pitch Summary:
On an individual holdings’ basis, top contributors to return in Q2 included Red Rock Resorts and WESCO. Red Rock Resorts, a casino operator controlling over half the Las Vegas locals market, has demonstrated the resilience of its business model via a strong start to the year. Coming into Q2, the valuation was attractive — and investors responded accordingly, giving a boost to shares.

BSD Analysis:
Red Rock is essentially the house casino operator for the fast-growing Las Vegas suburbs, a market with far better demographics and loyalty dynamics than the tourist-driven Strip. The company has leaned into premium locals properties where recurring visitation matters more than big-spend tourists, creating a more stable revenue base. New developments like Durango show Red Rock’s ability to build high-return assets without stretching the balance sheet. Population growth and high-income migration into the Vegas Valley are long-term demand tailwinds. The moat here is geographic and cultural — locals genuinely prefer Red Rock’s properties and reward them with repeat traffic. The company consistently returns capital and maintains disciplined expansion. It’s not a global gaming brand, but it’s one of the cleanest regional gaming stories with real structural growth.

Pitch Summary:
FTI Consulting provides business advisory services to manage change, mitigate risk and resolve disputes. It has a robust, balanced services lineup spanning procyclical (e.g., M&A advisory work), countercyclical (e.g., restructuring advisory) and acyclical (e.g., forensic accounting and litigation consulting) engagements. The company has improved its scale, geographic reach and service breadth over the past decade or so as the CEO and management team have successfully seeded and grown service areas and geographies while generally reorienting the company’s culture toward organic growth. Near-term disruptions over the past several quarters — which we believe will prove to be largely noise in the long term — gave us an opportunity to initiate a position in what we consider a healthy, solid business run by a capable management team at a compelling price.

BSD Analysis:
FTI is a specialist consulting firm that feeds on complexity, distress, and corporate drama. It makes money in restructuring, disputes, investigations, and strategic communications—areas that tend to thrive when the economic or regulatory environment gets choppy. The business is people-heavy but highly billable, with strong margins when utilization is good. FTI has built a global footprint and strong brand in high-stakes situations, making it a go-to adviser for boards and creditors. Revenue can be lumpy, but over time, there is no shortage of crises to monetize. The balance sheet is clean, and the company has been disciplined with capital. It’s a quietly attractive way to own volatility and corporate dysfunction.

Pitch Summary:
Shares of regional airline Alaska Air Group were pressured meaningfully in the quarter following the tariff announcements, which raised questions among investors about the overall macroeconomic outlook. This gave us an attractive opportunity to reestablish a position in a business we know well — and which we had recently exited after it reached our estimate of intrinsic value — at a compelling valuation.

BSD Analysis:
Alaska is one of the better-run airlines in a structurally tough industry. Its focus on the West Coast and strong loyalty partnerships (including with a major global alliance) give it a defensible network. Cost discipline has historically been a differentiator, even as labor and fuel pressures bite. The company tends to avoid the worst excesses of capacity arms races that plague larger peers. Any airline stock comes with macro and shock risk, but Alaska’s balance sheet and brand are relatively strong. As corporate and leisure travel patterns stabilize, it can get back to delivering respectable returns. You don’t buy airlines for safety, but if you must own one, Alaska is among the saner choices.

Pitch Summary:
Specialty chemical manufacturer Ashland faces the potential for a weaker European macroeconomic environment and Chinese construction industry — sentiment-related factors which have weighed more on the share price than they have on fundamentals, which have deteriorated more modestly. For now, we are maintaining our position and believe the company could at some point become attractive to potential acquirers given the discount at which it is currently trading.

BSD Analysis:
Ashland is a specialty chemicals company that pivoted away from commodity businesses into additives, coatings, and ingredients for pharma, personal care, and industrial uses. These are small-volume, high-value products where performance matters more than price. That shift has improved margins and reduced earnings volatility. The company continues to simplify its portfolio and return cash, while selectively investing in higher-growth niches. End markets are not immune to macro slowdowns, but the value proposition is tied to formulation performance, which gives Ashland decent pricing power. It’s not the flashiest chemicals story, but it’s a cleaner, more specialty-driven one than it used to be. Over time, that usually earns a better multiple.

Pitch Summary:
Among our bottom Q2 individual contributors were ICON and Post Holdings. ICON’s shares declined during the quarter, as contract research organizations (CROs) broadly underperformed amid ongoing uncertainty around the pace and timing of recovery in biotech and pharmaceutical order volumes. Investor sentiment weakened as visibility into normalized growth trajectories remained limited.

BSD Analysis:
ICON is a pure-play contract research organization running clinical trials for big pharma and biotech globally. As drug development becomes more complex and expensive, outsourcing to large CROs like ICON becomes almost mandatory. The company benefits from multi-year relationships, deep therapeutic expertise, and a global site network that smaller players cannot replicate. Biotech funding cycles can affect near-term demand, but big pharma’s development budgets provide a solid base. Scale and data from thousands of trials give ICON an informational edge in designing and running future studies. Margins are healthy, and the business is asset-light with good cash generation. It’s one of the cleaner ways to play the long-term growth in R&D without taking direct drug risk.

Pitch Summary:
Other top Q2 individual contributors included Regal Rexnord, Mr. Cooper Group and Huntington Ingalls Industries. Power transmission components manufacturer Regal Rexnord has held up well against an uncertain macroeconomic backdrop. Merger synergies, its 80/20 growth initiative and continuous improvement efforts are driving strong margin improvement and better-than-expected organic growth. While somewhat elevated leverage could leave the company vulnerable to further near-term macroeconomic weakness, we believe Regal Rexnord’s self-help initiatives should contribute to ongoing margin improvement and organic growth faster than peers’ — which we don’t believe the current share price reflects.

BSD Analysis:
Regal Rexnord is an engineered industrial play on motion control, power transmission, and automation. Its components show up in everything from HVAC systems to factory equipment, often in mission-critical roles that customers don’t like to swap out. The company has been reshaping its portfolio toward higher-margin, more technologically differentiated products. That mix shift, plus cost actions, has driven margin expansion and more resilient earnings. As factories modernize and energy efficiency standards tighten, Regal Rexnord’s content per system tends to rise. This is not a household name, but it sits in attractive niches with real pricing power. Over time, it behaves like a quiet compounder tied to automation and efficiency.

Pitch Summary:
Shares of industrial distributor WESCO rose amid a solid demand environment, particularly among data center customers. Long term, we expect WESCO to leverage its significant scale advantage to take share and improve margins. Further, the company is well-positioned to benefit from several secular tailwinds aside from data centers — all factors which the market has not yet fully appreciated.

BSD Analysis:
WESCO is an industrial and electrical distributor that quietly became a powerhouse after combining with Anixter. It now sits at the intersection of electrification, data centers, and grid modernization, supplying the cables, components, and gear that make those themes real. Distribution is a scale game, and WESCO has it—along with vendor relationships and project expertise that smaller rivals simply cannot match. The company is also moving up the value chain into services, project management, and integrated solutions. Cycles in construction and capex will always matter, but secular demand for power and connectivity provides a solid baseline. Integration and leverage were concerns after the big deal, yet the synergy capture has been better than skeptics expected. WESCO looks more like a strategic infrastructure enabler than a traditional wholesaler now.

Pitch Summary:
On an individual holdings basis, top contributors to return in Q2 included Red Rock Resorts and WESCO. Red Rock Resorts, a casino operator controlling over half the Las Vegas locals market, has demonstrated the resilience of its business model via a strong start to the year. Coming into Q2, the valuation was attractive — and investors responded accordingly, giving a boost to shares.

BSD Analysis:
Red Rock is a focused play on the Las Vegas locals market, not the tourist Strip circus. Its properties are embedded in neighborhoods where repeat visitation and loyalty matter far more than one-off high rollers. Population and income growth in the Vegas suburbs provide a structural tailwind that most casino operators elsewhere would love to have. Red Rock has been disciplined on new development, focusing on high-return, well-located projects rather than empire-building. The balance sheet is manageable, and the company returns a fair chunk of cash to shareholders. This is not a global gaming brand, but a targeted regional one with a very clear niche. As long as Vegas keeps expanding outward, Red Rock has room to grow.

Pitch Summary:
Despite the markets’ relatively sharp bounce following April’s downward volatility, we were able to initiate a new position in Adobe at what we consider a compelling valuation. Adobe is the largest provider of creative content software by a wide margin, offering a robust suite of tools used by design professionals across various verticals, including graphic designers, video editors, and web and mobile app creators. The company also has strong positions in marketing and direct customer engagement software and owns the near-ubiquitous Adobe Acrobat platform. Although investors have seemingly weighed the potential for greater competition and AI disruption in the period ahead, we believe the current valuation largely reflects these concerns, particularly given the breadth and diversification of Adobe’s solutions, its incumbency and strong market positioning and its ongoing willingness to innovate. For example, over the last few years, it has infused more AI into its existing products. Consequently, we believe Adobe can deliver solid fundamentals over the next several years. So, we capitalized on what we consider an attractive discount relative to our estimate of intrinsic value to initiate a position in Q2.

BSD Analysis:
Adobe has essentially become the operating system for digital creativity and marketing, with Creative Cloud and Experience Cloud deeply embedded in workflows. Its subscription transition is long complete, which means a steady stream of high-margin recurring revenue. The company is now leaning into AI as a co-pilot for creatives, adding features that speed up content creation without trying to replace the creator entirely. That balance is key to maintaining trust with a user base that is understandably sensitive about automation. Experience Cloud gives Adobe another growth leg in digital marketing, although that space is more competitive and subject to budget cycles. Pricing power remains impressive, and churn is low. If Adobe executes its AI roadmap well, it can defend its moat and even expand it.

Pitch Summary:
Other top Q2 contributors included Walt Disney, Ferguson Enterprises and Capital One Financial. Plumbing and heating products distributor Ferguson Enterprises is capitalizing on its competitive advantages to scale in large projects and the HVAC market. Furthermore, commodity deflation, a recent headwind, diminished in the quarter, providing a boost to shares. Given the still-fragmented industry and Ferguson’s status as a high-quality distributor in an industry where scale matters, we believe there is ample room for further margin expansion.

BSD Analysis:
Ferguson is a scale distributor of plumbing, HVAC, and infrastructure products that quietly sits at the center of construction and renovation trends. It wins on logistics, breadth of inventory, and deep relationships with contractors who care more about reliability than saving the last penny. As housing and commercial construction ebb and flow, Ferguson’s mix of new build and repair/remodel smooths out the ride. The company has been disciplined on bolt-on M&A in North America, strengthening its footprint in attractive local markets. Its size gives it vendor leverage and the ability to offer value-added services that smaller distributors can’t match. This isn’t a hyper-growth story, but the returns on capital are consistently solid. When people finally accept that the world still has to fix buildings even in a slowdown, Ferguson tends to rerate.

Pitch Summary:
Among our top individual contributors in Q2 were Regal Rexnord and Texas Instruments. Power transmission components manufacturer Regal Rexnord has held up well against an uncertain macroeconomic backdrop. Merger synergies, its 80/20 growth initiative and continuous improvement efforts are driving strong margin improvement and better-than-expected organic growth. While somewhat elevated leverage could leave the company vulnerable to further near-term macroeconomic weakness, we believe Regal Rexnord’s self-help initiatives should contribute to ongoing margin improvement and organic growth faster than peers’, which we don’t believe the current share price reflects.

BSD Analysis:
Regal Rexnord fits the manager’s pattern of owning self-help industrials where internal initiatives, rather than macro tailwinds, drive value creation. The company’s broad portfolio of power transmission and motor products positions it to benefit from secular trends in electrification, automation and energy efficiency, which should sustain mid-single to high-single-digit organic growth over a cycle. Margin expansion from merger synergies and 80/20 productivity programs can compound earnings even if volumes are choppy. While leverage is higher post-merger, free cash flow should allow steady de-levering without sacrificing disciplined bolt-on M&A. Relative to other high-quality electrical equipment names, the stock’s valuation appears reasonable given its improving margin profile and self-help levers, making further rerating and de-risking of the balance sheet key catalysts.

Pitch Summary:
Hindustan Aeronautics is India’s leading aerospace and defense company, offering essential services such as the design, manufacturing and maintenance of military aircraft and helicopters. The company’s large order backlog is driven by India’s strategic move toward defense self-reliance and higher defense spending. Short-term market concerns from operational setbacks created an attractive entry point into this fundamentally strong business with clear long-term earnings prospects.

BSD Analysis:
HAL sits at the center of India’s push for defense self-reliance, with a sizable and visible order book across aircraft and helicopters. Government backing and domestic content requirements underpin multi-year revenue visibility and margin stability. Near-term operational hiccups are unlikely to derail the long-term trajectory but have created valuation volatility and entry opportunities. Capital intensity is manageable, and returns on capital should improve as production scales. Risks include program delays and procurement politics, but structural defense budget growth and localization priorities are strong tailwinds.

Pitch Summary:
Merit Medical Systems designs, manufactures, and markets single-use medical devices for interventional, diagnostic, and therapeutic procedures, primarily in cardiology, radiology, oncology, and endoscopy. The stock lagged due largely to tariff concerns following the Liberation Day announcement, impacting sentiment given its global footprint and exposure to China. While earnings results beat expectations, earnings per share (EPS) guidance was lowered due to increased tariff-related costs. Management expects to mitigate about half of this impact by 2026 through manufacturing and operational initiatives. Despite this near-term margin pressure, we believe nothing has fundamentally changed with the company as it continues to exceed revenue guidance. We remain confident in the company’s long-term outlook.

BSD Analysis:
Merit Medical is a steady performer in minimally invasive medical devices, with a portfolio that spans cardiology, oncology, and diagnostic intervention. The company wins by being reliable, specialized, and deeply embedded in clinician workflows. Innovation tends to be incremental rather than flashy, but that’s exactly what hospitals want for procedural consistency. Margin expansion efforts are paying off as manufacturing consolidation and product mix improve profitability. International growth is accelerating, providing another leg of support. The business is sticky because switching devices in procedural medicine is costly and risky for hospitals. Merit isn’t a hype-driven medtech name, but its consistency makes it a compelling compounder.

Pitch Summary:
BellRing produces and sells protein-based nutritional beverages and bars for health- and fitness-oriented consumers. The stock delivered lackluster performance as guidance for the upcoming quarter came in below expectations. We feel the slower growth rate is temporary and a reflection of inventory adjustments at the company’s warehouse club channel partners, and not a sign of more pervasive slowing at BellRing or in the protein shake category.

BSD Analysis:
BellRing is a pure-play on the booming protein shake and nutrition category, with Premier Protein leading the charge. The company benefits from strong brand loyalty, mass retail distribution, and a category growing faster than most packaged-food segments. Supply-chain disruptions and recall issues are largely behind it, restoring margin momentum. Protein continues to penetrate mainstream consumers who view shakes as convenient meal alternatives. BellRing’s asset-light model generates strong cash flow that can be reinvested in marketing and innovation. Pricing power remains strong as consumers prioritize health and convenience. This is a growth CPG story hiding inside a sector usually known for sluggish trends.