CorpRaider

Whelp.

BAC

Haha! I was just looking at that. Terry Considine is CEO/founder (old guy). Internally managed... AIR will hold stabilized/developed apartments and AIV will take development ops. Lots of cross rights of refusal (to develop properties; right of first refusal to buy developed properties, etc). Watched a couple of youtube talks he gave...comes off as a good guy, but is that a toupe'? Edit: wow they are doing a reverse (taxable) spin; citing potential changes in tax law...no vote and they are sending people a tax bill. I don't get why they are doing the spin. Their combined estimated NAVs in the presentation are $7.8 billion for AIR (with a woooo 5% increase in distribution) and $1.2 billion for AIV; current EV (admittedly after a ~7% move on announcement) is ~10B. CEO/Founder is going with AIR (apartment holdco). Also going to be on board of AIV.

Anyone know how Kraven is doing? I was just thinking about him earlier today. I was re-reading some quant stuff which led me to some antitrust legal canon concerning how Porter's Five Forces is basically bunk. I had a similar personal realization with M. Gladwell's stuff. I think my journey toward quant-esque investing has been probably kind of similar to his. I dont think I was here while he was an active poster, but we exchanged messages a little bit ago. He can chime in if he's still following but the gist was similar to what a lot of us have acknowledged the past few years. There is not a ton of unique investment related discussion here, and the investment related discussion that does take place, is often in the same trite names and largely an echo chamber...BRK, FFH, etc. Yeah, he was more evidence-based quant-esque in style (in the tradition of like Graham and Schloss) unless memory escapes me so it's not like there was ever a ton of discrete exchanges of narrative on particular names (that I recall). Probably going to take a real bloodbath for the galaxy names and some mean reversion to bring back a lot of interesting nuance/opportunity.

Anyone know how Kraven is doing? I was just thinking about him earlier today. I was re-reading some quant stuff which led me to some antitrust legal canon concerning how Porter's Five Forces is basically bunk. I had a similar personal realization with M. Gladwell's stuff. I think my journey toward quant-esque investing has been probably kind of similar to his.

JBGS, VNO, SLG, EQC, PGRE

That WSJ op ed from the Related Cos exec was very Randy Duke, "Turn those machines back on!" Scariest thing I've seen. haha. Some activist should take a run at SLG or VNO with a nice spread deck on converting to industrial (ghost kitchens and fulfillment), data storage, and trailer parks in the sky.

Thanks for head's up on this JGBS. I am thinking about their focus on walkability. In my ideal personal scenario, I have enough personal capital to justify an office space (maybe with a BBG) a couple of blocks away from my home, where I can walk or bike when I want (and store my junk, some books, and other stuff there). As a compromise, working for someone else, I still like having that space, preferably with a view and some people standing by that I can get to help do stuff when I want/need. If they are going to take that away, I'ma need a raise dawg (or I'm likely to look to hop to somewhere that does offer it that....all else being equal).

Don't ask me. I wrote a post about Buffett's AAPL investment in almost real time that was really kind of gushing with enthusiasm. Then I went off and probably bought like freaking Viacom or Wells Fargo or some such.

A lot of that seems very macro brained and requiring clairvoyance for him to make a big bet (I acknowledge he does mess around with that stuff to keep out of the bars, as Munger put it). Almost no chance the GOLD is his position, in my opinion. Does he even get out of bed for half a billion?

Yeah Towers is discussing the Gulf Canada and abitibi stuff right now. The book is kind of dragging for me, but in fairness, I keep jumping around to other books.

Yeah, given the sort of odd percentages and the selling PNC, BK, MTB, and USB, (but like not blowing completely out of any of them...as he does) etc... seems like he might be farting around with tax loss harvesting and keeping exposure to the sector via BAC. -$6B in sales and then +$2 billion just in reported BAC purchases.

I'm reading Towers of Debt, which is also about them, right now.

Imagine the opportunity created by everyone saying the cash drag is insurmountable and then he retires or leaves the stage and the stock trades below book or something and Greg goes half General Dynamics on the thing.

Alright, I'ma buy a little EQR.

Yeah at the time a lot of people thought he might be exiting but since he filed a 13 with no more sales. Would have been better to exit in the 50's of course.

Yeah, it seems like he either dumped Wells or JPM (or a lot of both). Sold 2% of JPM as of last 13F, so could be continuation of that. I think JPM basis is $6 billion and some change. The Wells would have triggered like a billion realized gain this quarter, I think if he closed out the position. The special dispensation he sometimes gets from SEC to defer reporting on positions under accumulation would not apply to the Q would it? Wells issued like 2 billion shares incident to the GFC (versus almost 8 billion from BAC).

Yeah if they had sales of $13.6 billion - $6.5 billion for the airlines; So the sales couldn't be the whole WFC stake (in the quarter), could it? Not sure what else it could be besides Wells. Let's see, he sold 3% of JPM in prior quarter (one of the few big banks where he was nowhere near the 10% mark). If he sold all of that and BK (I mean he was buying that while Scharf was the CEO) that would get near the 7 billion in sales but no idea about the basis.

Yikes. I could see the WFC dropping out of the "big 5" based on stock price movements (his stake would only be worth ~$8 billion without any sales so just another of several holdings in the size range) but the basis reporting....

Mild form of mental illness is the most likely reason. Charitable explanation: same reasons Buffett is buying BAC except I'm unfettered by public perception and/or a huge commercial banking relationship with Wells leading to additional regulatory hurdles. I also think it has better franchises (or at least mix of businesses) and more hidden earnings power (like BAC in 2012, but maybe even more).

WFC

Man I've been thinking about buying a beach house on the east coast, but based on my lazy due diligence it seems like they don't really cash flow typically. I suppose that makes sense with the non-economic buyers who just want to own a beach house and have the costs defrayed and/or are banking on appreciation. Take rates for property managers seem to be quite high. Like 20- 30% from what I gather, but I suppose they have to do a lot more work turning basically a hotel versus a long term rental.

My (casual/tourist to the space) understanding is that EQR is perceived as more exposed to the urban flight risk/covid impacts and MAA is more exposed to second and third tier cities in the sun-belt which are perceived to be increasing in desirability if remote work truly comes to pass. I haven't yet figured out who, if anyone, is in control/behind MAA. I don't love rolling with organizations controlled by hired hand, sales guys. I agree with the general sentiment in the thread that the sector ain't cheap enough now. In my opinion, this covid, remote work, protests combo could really touch of a feedback loop of urban flight (maybe like in the 70's); this could include clobbered state and local budgets and ham handed (or otherwise) attempts to fix that with taxes combined with "eating the rich." The covid thing and protests are almost worst case scenario for cities...like almost every reason to live there is moot right now, but we will just have to see if it touches off a little (or big) feedback loop. All that said, I guess I'm saying I could see it being an "intermediate term" problem; but I wouldn't bet against the power of the network effects of cities long term. Can you imagine how awesome they could be with real live-work-play design and no commuter car infrastructure? Oh yeah, sort of like Europe, but bigger and more functional.

Man if you think about the requirements for these 40 act mutual funds, combined with the tax inefficiency, and the negative institutional factors (such as the need to report activity and talk about your "ideas" and demonstrate your intelligence and worth so often and related costs), I don't see how any of them beat the market. I would much rather just buy like VTV or VIG if I'm going to stray from the cap weighted index but do something so diversified.

I've searched the Investment Ideas forum, and TD does not pop up in my searches. Why is it so? [i remember posts from CorpRaider and Uccmal about Canadian banks here on CoBF.] Good question. If I ever buy any I will post. Canadian banks and rails sure are fine bidnesses.