JAllen

Would be great if you would let me know specifically what the value you get out of the site is.

Why didn't they grow the store base the last 6+ years when they had access to the PE owners capital? Surely they wanted to grow the company right? They had 39 stores in 2007 when they sold to Leonard Green. They now have 61 stores. They've grown their store base by more than 50% in the past 6 years. Right, I wonder why they didn't grow even more since then and why they only have 39 stores after 29 years. Home Depot was founded around the same time and has 1500 stores.

Why didn't they grow the store base the last 6+ years when they had access to the PE owners capital? Surely they wanted to grow the company right?

We used their adjusted EBITDA numbers for our comments above. Also, FCF was leniently calculated with EBITDA - Capex (or depreciation). Using OCF - capex/depreciation we would arrive at ~$15M for FCF resulting in an EV/FCF multiple over 150X.

This particular company trades at 25X+ EV/EBITDA (using $90M more than they generated during the past five years), with 17% of the EV as debt so if you think it's worth 10X EV/EBITDA there's some nice downside to the stock. The valuation is totally incredible to me. The EV/FCF is 45X+! I noticed this valuation insanity a few weeks ago, and let the idea gestate for a while to hopefully realize what I was missing but nothing's come up. The company is The Container Store; it just went public November 6. Prospectus: http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1411688/000104746913010187/a2217221z424b3.htm#di19401_capitalization Catalyst will be continued stock sales by insiders, especially the PE owners. They were happy to sell a huge portion of their holdings for $18. I predict they'll be thrilled to sell all at $40 in ~140 days when their lockup expires. Also, this insane valuation should come to light over the next few months as more people notice it. Short interest is almost nil offering quite a bit of downside once short sellers pick up on it as well. The IPO proceeds went straight to pay off the convertible; I don't believe the company received any of the proceeds. Note: it's not a horrible company as far as the operations go; but it's not great either and it sure is expensive!! There will be close to 49M shares outstanding when including the options (which the prospectus didn't do). EV is about $2370 using 48M shares out, $41 stock price and $400M for debt. I'd love to hear others' thoughts about the company. Please let us know why you think it should trade at these levels if you do. And we totally agree that a retailer that is this old doesn't have much expansion opportunity - this is probably about as big as it gets.

There's a company out there, and before we post the name we were curious as to what people think the company is worth after listing a few facts about the company. If you're already aware of this company, please refrain from posting the name for a while. Also, if you're not aware of the company, it would be great if you could think through this experiment before figuring out which company it is. Thanks for voting. 45 years old 60 stores Sales in line with economic changes Negative operating income two of last three years Consistent negative net income after interest Adjusted EBITDA margin ranging from 8-12% over last five years Products available many other places, though it specializes in one category and does a good job at what it does How much is this company worth?

This depends on each individual issue of debt. All loan docs must be sorted through to determine what exactly can be done, again for each issue of debt, not just each company.

I haven't read through all of these Eric (I have searched for what IB calls it though). IB most certainly will buy, at least stock shares from you, for a dollar. It's called 'dollar for lot' and I just did it last week. You just submit a form to them (after you request it of course) and they buy them from you for a dollar. Hopefully they do it with your options too...

Would you share your short thesis on AMZN, Zach? Thanks.

It could be way higher, so I voted 2...

Hello Everyone, We subscribe to a print+digital edition of Multichannel News and were wondering if anyone would like to trade other trade publications with us. We've found Multichannel to be quite valuable actually, with lots of detail we don't see following websites and reading about the industry online. We have at least three months of Multichannel sitting here and thought that it might be interesting to trade for another trade mag, as it generally costs hundreds of dollars to subscribe to these. Multichannel was $249 for 52 issues. We would be especially interested in InternetRetailer.com. I would probably want to return these to one another at some point, though we could talk about that. Other industries' publications might interest us as well. If we had a few people doing this we could end up reading all of these we wanted while only paying for one. And in case anyone thinks otherwise, we're only talking about temporarily trading two print versions of magazines, so there shouldn't be copyright issues with doing this.

There are familial restrictions as well: THE RULES AGAINST SELF-DEALING Self-dealing—where the IRA owner uses the account for personal enrichment or to satisfy self-indulgent financial objectives in a way that goes beyond the intent of the tax law—is a nebulous area. When an IRA transaction doesn’t fit precisely into preestablished guidelines, the IRS or the DOL scrutinizes the “facts and circumstances” to determine whether it passes muster. The IRA owner or a “disqualified person”—anyone with control over the assets, receipts, disbursements and investments or who has the ability to influence investment decisions, including members of the IRA owner’s family (spouse or lineal descendants)—can initiate a prohibited transaction http://www.journalofaccountancy.com/Issues/2000/Apr/TheDosAndDonTsOfIraInvesting.htm

The entire Bay Area is insane right now with costs of living because of housing supply constrained by mountains, water, and NIMBY issues. I would not move here unless you got a dream job or your wife gets into her dream medical school. That said, other than the cost of living, the Bay Area is fantastic.... There aren't too many uber-dense areas of the Bay Area (I live in SF and also could never stand living in NYC)

There's quite a discussion about Bezos buying the Post here at the link below. It's a discussion with Nate Silver and Malcom Gladwell. http://espn.go.com/espnradio/grantland/player?id=9549068

What have people found to be the best way to learn, preferably online? I've been interested in learning for years but haven't found an easy way to learn. Would prefer to learn online first before playing with people in real life.

You can always check airbnb.com as well.

My favorite quote is "I would much rather push a button than have my arm broken."

SWY too. Short some of their bonds.... 5-year yields at ~3.2%

I didn't know about the Washington State "Whoops" bonds; that story was worth it for me. As a fairly long time follower, I'm very familiar with everything I've read, so far.

Interesting that they have 305 long positions and 306 short positions...

I've been spending lots of time on it. Haven't bought any yet though. Need to determine the likely treatment of their unfavorable time-charter leases in bankruptcy (and also the amount that they will likely reject) - which I believe has a mixed treatment history. Note, I'm not talking about the stock, of course....

Whatever you do, don't get an HP. Bought two HPs last year and have been very troubled by both of them. One was a laserjet and one was an all-in-one.

I just had the first time the opportunity to watch the video. I was shocked to hear that after he wrote some truthful article about the financial crises titled "I Saw the Crisis Coming. Why Didn’t the Fed?" in 2010,... that the Washington political establishment did scrutinize him,... they did send the FBI, SEC, and auditors to look into all his office files. (watch the video at minute 14). He had over $1 million of legal and accounting costs only because he asked questions and they got jealous. I remember didn't such a thing once also happen to Mohnish in his earlier years that he was scrutinized by some jealous people. I just retread this famous article,... very interesting: April 4, 2010 I Saw the Crisis Coming. Why Didn’t the Fed? By MICHAEL J. BURRY -- Cupertino, Calif. http://investinginknowledge.com/info/category/berkshirehathaway/ What happened to Mohnish?

True, the very old ones were white. The one in his hands is too small to be an old macbook; plus, why would Buffett have a 4-5+ year old macbook?

Macbooks aren't white and glossy.