Pitch Summary:
Pivoted from a potato farm to a failed bitcoin miner and then to a low-cost AI service provider; the stock promotion by a significant shareholder;
BSD Analysis:
Applied Digital develops data centers catering to high-performance computing and crypto mining. The short case points to overreliance on volatile crypto demand, questionable long-term contracts, and high capital intensity. Skeptics argue that its pivot toward AI hosting is...
Pitch Summary:
Customers are misled about the products' capabilities and volumes; overstated production capabilities; technical concerns regarding its upcoming Malaysian production plant.
BSD Analysis:
Enovix develops advanced lithium-ion batteries. The short thesis focuses on commercialization delays, capital needs, and unproven scalability. Execution risk is high, and competitors in solid-state batteries may leapfrog the technology.
Bull
Pitch Summary:
Finally, we have made an investment in the UK bowling sector. This is a niche sector controlled by two large operators (Hollywood Bowl and Ten Entertainment) which together hold a market share of over 50% and where the remaining operators are small independent companies without the financial strenth to be able to offer the level of service quality of the two leaders. On the other side, this sector has come out of the Covid crisis m...
Bull
Pitch Summary:
We have invested again in Restore, a British company dedicated to document management (storage, digitisation and destruction). Specifically, Restore provides document box storage services for law firms, universities, hospitals and other companies that need to retain documents for long periods. In addition to its core business of physical document storage, the company's other businesses include document scanning and shredding, recyc...
Bull
Pitch Summary:
Canadian Pacific Kansas City operates a virtually unrivaled 20,000-mile tri-national rail network spanning Canada, the U.S., and Mexico. The rail industry is protected by NIMBY dynamics that make building new railroads nearly impossible; North American rail miles have collapsed from 250,000 to <100,000 and Class I operators from 180+ to just six today. Deregulation and consolidation turned rail pricing from decades of decline in...
Bull
Pitch Summary:
Republic Services is the second-largest waste management company in North America with 19% U.S. landfill market share and an extensive physical network: 206 landfills, 240 transfer stations, 73 landfill gas and renewable energy projects, 72 recycling centers, and millions of daily pickups. Like Waste Management, RSG benefits from insurmountable NIMBY barriers, long-term supply destruction, and steadily rising demand. Landfill scarc...
Bull
Pitch Summary:
Waste Management is the largest waste management company in North America with 29% market share of U.S. landfill volume. Its unrivaled physical network—254 landfills, 337 transfer facilities, 135 landfill gas-to-energy facilities, 97 materials recovery facilities, 497 hauling operations, and over 15,200 collection routes—creates powerful physical network effects. The industry is protected by significant NIMBY (“not-in-my-backyard”)...
Bull
Pitch Summary:
In the second quarter we took a position in Sabine Royalty Trust (NYSE: SBR). Sabine owns royalty interests in over five thousand tracts of land containing over 2 million gross acres (over 200 thousand net acres) of producing and proved undeveloped oil and natural gas properties in Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas which include the Permian, Anadarko, Gulf Coast, East Texas, and Arkoma basins. Over ma...
Bull
Pitch Summary:
Toyota is referenced as a beneficiary of Japan’s governance reforms, improving capital allocation, and stronger shareholder return policies. The company continues to recover production volumes as semiconductor shortages ease and maintains leadership in hybrid powertrains. Management has demonstrated increasing willingness to improve transparency and engage on cross-shareholdings, which historically depressed valuations. Toyota’s pr...
Bull
Pitch Summary:
TSMC is noted as an attractive AI beneficiary given its unrivaled leadership in advanced process nodes, essential for both training and inference chips. Demand for 3nm and forthcoming 2nm nodes is expected to remain extremely strong, driven by hyperscaler investment in AI. Despite significant capex commitments, TSMC continues to deliver high ROIC and maintain pricing power due to its technological lead. Geopolitical tensions are ac...
Bull
Pitch Summary:
Mondrian highlights Samsung as an emerging-market AI beneficiary due to improving memory-market dynamics, with supply discipline and rising AI-server demand driving DRAM and HBM pricing inflection. The fund views Samsung as cyclically depressed but structurally advantaged, with operating leverage to a memory super-cycle supported by AI adoption. The company’s large net-cash balance sheet provides resilience and optionality for shar...
Bull
Pitch Summary:
Sony is highlighted as a Japanese beneficiary of AI-related demand, particularly in image sensors for smartphones and emerging applications like autonomous systems and robotics. The company continues to strengthen its content ecosystem through gaming and streaming, supporting recurring revenue streams. Sony’s capital allocation strategy has shifted toward shareholder returns, including buybacks, enabled by robust free cash flow and...
Bull
Pitch Summary:
Dell is identified as a beneficiary of surging AI-related infrastructure demand, particularly in high-performance servers and GPU-dense architectures. The firm has gained share in selected enterprise segments due to its supply-chain capabilities and strong relationships with hyperscalers. Recent earnings surprised positively, with AI-server backlog building meaningfully. Mondrian views Dell as an attractively valued beneficiary of ...
Bull
Pitch Summary:
Mondrian highlights Meta as a beneficiary of AI investments that materially enhance engagement, content personalization, and advertiser ROI. The company has driven a significant recovery in profitability following cost discipline initiatives and a focus on improving the efficiency of its data-center and model-training infrastructure. Meta’s scale advantages in AI-driven recommendation systems underpin accelerating time-spent metric...
Bull
Pitch Summary:
In this past quarter we have made one portfolio trade, swapping Equinor for Shell which, on our estimates, enhances the portfolio’s long-term earnings power significantly. We currently have two stocks in the energy sector and, as explained in previous notes, our investment thesis is one rooted in the capital cycle. We continue to track the reinvestment rates of global energy companies which, having fallen to a multi-decade low, are...
Pitch Summary:
In this past quarter we have made one portfolio trade, swapping Equinor for Shell which, on our estimates, enhances the portfolio’s long-term earnings power significantly. We currently have two stocks in the energy sector and, as explained in previous notes, our investment thesis is one rooted in the capital cycle. We continue to track the reinvestment rates of global energy companies which, having fallen to a multi-decade low, are...
Pitch Summary:
WMT exposed itself to significant business risk by rewarding $12 bil contract to SYM; lack of proper due diligence and conflict of interest for this contract; the company will have to invest more capex; projected FCF is lower;
BSD Analysis:
Walmart faces margin pressure from inflation, labor costs, and e-commerce competition. Shorts argue the scale advantage is offset by slowing comps, international drag, and potential multiple co...
Pitch Summary:
The shitco that is most overhyped coming into the Russell index (1,500% since its reverse merger; the company is underfunded; promotion of an old technology; no signs of economic validity; 95% downside; Update 7/12 - Follow-up report: More delays and the short thesis stays the same.
BSD Analysis:
374Water develops wastewater treatment solutions. Shorts highlight speculative valuation, reliance on government contracts, and slow com...
Pitch Summary:
The technology is not cutting-edge with no innovation and competitiveness; implemented only four systems since 2007; low retention ratio in the management team; inexperienced to fulfill WMT's contract obligations; Update 8/23 - NINGI tweeted that insiders sold $1.4bil of shares.
BSD Analysis:
Symbotic builds warehouse automation systems, with Walmart as both customer and investor. Shorts focus on customer concentration, high valua...
Pitch Summary:
The company has only 8-months of cash even after its recent cash infusion; its Jet is capable of flying for only a few minutes; the claimed battery technology is unable to be verified; unrealistic project pipelines; Update 10/24/24 - The company announced that it is facing a near-term insolvency. After nine years, its jet is unable to fly for more than a few minutes; misrepresented battery specifications;
BSD Analysis:
Liberty Lat...