BG2008

During the time that Denny Meyer's operated in NYC, retail rent has gone through the roof. When you sign a restaurant lease from 10-20 years ago in NYC, it becomes a huge asset. That's why you see people simply closing up shop when their lease run out in NYC despite having booming sales.

If you were to start a business today, what would it be? Or just broad strategies?

Thanks for reminding me that TAST has year end tax loss selling dynamics.

2019 vintage is not as good as 2018 vintage for year end tax loss harvesting, but I'll try E&P in general - Antero Resources and Antero Midstream DuPont - Maybe? IDW Media Anyone notice any indiscriminate year end loss harvesting trading? Last year, Calumet experienced the most dramatic year end loss harvesting activity

I think DuPont falls into this category. The Dow/DuPont tie up and subsequent separation is playing out. Specialty chemicals stock prices in general has been very weak this year with volume down 1-3% across the board. This is a 35% return on capital business trading at 10.5x 2020 P/FCF after adjusting for $3bn of share buybacks in 2019 and 2020. This is DuPont's specialty business, think almost 30% EBITDA margin businesses that should grow GDP plus 2 once we get back on growth again. In growth years, they can trade to 20-25x P/FCF. If we go out 2-3 years and they keep buying back shares or start divesting units. DD starts to trend down to 9x P/FCF.

Spek, you've traded DD and CTVA better than anyone that I know

He's a collector. Like an old stuffy guy who collects model trains or Picassos except he collects real railroads etc. He's not going to split it up. I'll bet that the 331,000 share price is a reminder that it once traded at $7 or something for that crappy textile company. Still a great guy and can't thank him enough.

Aren't most of the S&P 500 going to be around? I bet that 50% of them will still be in the index. On average, there is a 4.4% change to the index each year according to this article https://www.businessinsider.com/sp-500-index-constituent-turnover-2015-6

Calumet - Deleveraging specialty chemicals business with short term catalyst to sell fuel refinery and get back to specialty chemical business. $237mm of market cap and $1.2bn of net debt. Debt paydown is about $100mm a year. Overall firm EBITDA is about $300mm. Selling fuel refinery will likely get net debt down to about $600-650mm by year end 2020. MLP structure. Nobody wants any of that. Specialty chemical business is quite good. Stable recurring business. Levered FCF yield is something like 35%. This is a MLP structure and you will get a K-1. No natural shareholder base. If you go out 4-5 years and if they did nothing but pay down debt, you are likely buying the business at 2x earnings of a pretty good specialty chem business in a MLP structure. This name is hated as they are paying for the sins of their past. This isn't a traditional compounder, the 15% 10 year upside comes from a levered situation and the 1.5-2x P/FCF looking 4-5 years out when the right price is likely 15x P/FCF. HHC - Won't go into the details. But it's cheap. Ashtead - Network density play. Look at the historical track record. It's a duopoly between Sunbelt and United Rental (20%) versus lots of mom and pops. Only 12x P/FCF. Growing EPS 15- 20% every year through organic and acquisitions. They will take share from mom and pop. Rentals vs buys is experiencing structural improvements. Con is that it's volatile and no one wants to own something that is economic sensitive at the tail end of a cycle. UK listed but 9% of business in US. They have better software than the mom and pops. They can send salesman into a job with a iPad app and close deals and customer can use apps to request for service. They have 20-30 locations in a geographic area so they are more likely to have the equipment in stock when a customer want it. Scale gives them purchasing power. I estimate that it is at least 30% cheaper than what a customer can buy at. They are really outsourced equipment leasing for their customers. Contractors don't want their employees using ladders taller than 6 feet. Contractors want someone else keeping good records in case there is a fire etc. At scale they can service and maintain the equipment better. They also act as a logistic arm for contractors. If you buy your own equipment, you have to store it somewhere and allocate an employee to tracking it and moving it around. It's a growing EaaS company (Equipment as a Service) company trading at an unassuming low teens P/FCF. The EaaS comment is a bit tongue in cheek.

Yes, that is why profit in commodity industries comes from having lower costs and sometimes other factors, such as regulations. To take your example, rocks are commodities, but rock pits are often great businesses because you can't economically transport rocks very far and NIMBYism makes it very difficult to permit a new rock pit in growing areas close to where rocks are needed. We all know that rock pits are unicorns, not blood sucking vampire commodity businesses

Sublet it to me. Not mine, I stayed at one. Awesome place, but reeks of weed!

Anyone has any suggestion for staying at an Airbnb where the place is awesome but it reeks of weed? This public/private message format is weird.

You can add United Rental and Sunbelt to the equipment rental business. It's a very good business and they are taking share from smaller mom and pop with less than 1% share.

Can you list more examples?

Same here, bought some more GRIF at a hair below $36. More thoughts on the GRIF thread

The issue with a REIT conversion is that it comes with a huge tax bill usually, as assets need to be valued to fair market value. I could be wrong with this and don’t know about CTO specifically, but that’s what I heard in other cases where a change in incorporation was discussed. May not be as big as you think. Not to rain on Greg's parade, but I just don't like the guys calling the shots at CTO.

Personally, the current bid of $17,000 is too rich for me. I don't consider myself enough of a high roller to bid on lunch with Monish. Maybe if there was an option for just coffee. Since this is supposed to be a value investor thread, I'd like to make a couple of points about what might be hidden value for some of you. First, I'd like to say that I am more impressed than ever with the wisdom of what Pabrai is doing with Dakshana. If you want your dollar to go a long way then Monish has found a very positive way of impacting the world. I also want to call out some people on this board who like to complain about the injustices of Hunter Biden starting life on third base, or the inequalities that the left concerns themselves with. Well why don't you put your money where your mouth is and give some money to an organization that actually does something about that sort of issue? Second, I think you could mock Pabrai for having this fundraiser and say that he is just copying Buffett. I might be tempted to do the same, but there's a problem with that. Buffett and Munger say that you can't pick and choose which parts of the system to copy. They say that if you want to adopt their system, you have to copy everything. I am guessing that Monish's interactions with Charlie, Warren and others in their universe have taught him something about that. There are too many people who say, "I'm going to be just like Buffett, except for the part about ethics" or "I'm just like Buffett, except for the part about living modestly, in fact I don't even want to live with my means, borrowing heavily to consume seems like more fun." Kudos to Monish for his efforts to copy ALL parts of the system rather than picking and choosing. It's probably better to risk being mocked for copying everything Buffett does than to leave out something important due to ignorance. It's probably also worth accidentally charging $8 dollars shipping or accidentally using your personal eBay account and exposing that your hobby is collecting beanie babies, either of which would obviously open you to ridicule. Finally, since I thought we were supposed to be analysts, here's an argument that the auction presents a bargain. Even if you don't think that speaking to Monish about investing or business has value to your particular situation, Monish has had the opportunity to spend time with Buffett and Munger and has become friendly with many people who are close to them. Even if you think the only value is that maybe some pixie dust fell off on to Monish, at 37 bps relative to the cost of lunch with Buffett, maybe it's not a bad deal? Even if you thought you should make adjustments for the relative scarcity of Buffett's time versus Monish's time, or maybe adjustments for the relative AUM amounts, etc I think someone could still make arguments that the lunch is cheap on a relative basis. Plus, I suspect we could learn something from Monish about marketing and self-promotion. Now Monish, I know you read CoB&F occasionally, and as a master marketer, I'm sure you check up on your online presence . . . so, about that coffee . . . feel free to message me. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glide_Foundation Event number Year Winning bid (USD) 20 2019 $4.57 million[9] 19 2018 $4.23 million[11] 18 2017 $2.68 million 17 2016 $3.46 million 16 2015 $2.35 million 15 2014 $2.16 million 14 2013 $1 million 13 2012 $3.46 million 12 2011 $2.63 million 11 2010 $2.63 million 10 2009 $1.68 million 9 2008 $2.1 million 8 2007 $650,100 7 2006 $620,100 6 2005 $351,100 5 2004 $202,100 4 2003 $250,100 3 2002 $25,000 2 2001 $18,000 1 2000 $25,000 The first 3 guys who had lunch with Buffet between 2000 and 2002 belong in the hall of fame of value investing. What the heck ever happen to the 2019 lunch? Did that crypto guy ever had a steak lunch with Buffet at Smith and Wollensky?

For Clarification, I have owned both Berry commons and the $45 puts when it was trading about $50. I paid $1.45 for the puts and just sold a portion at $8.30. I can elect to buy more shares or LEAPs or both. I should just quit picking stock and start buying puts.

Sold more BERY $45 puts which means I am long the stock at $37. Looking to turn around and buy some BERY commons as well with the put proceeds.

A value buy it seems as you got in before the spike to $100/ bro that’s some doomsters predict. I think it will be more like $2-5$/brl and quickly reverse. I doubt there much supply impact from the drone attack. FWIW, so many oil heated homes on the East coast. It would be a great green energy plan to have them all connected to natural gas. Does this Gregmal guy ever get his timing wrong? He's on some epic streak!

I'm traveling to Canada on Sunday and my passport expires in 10 days. I will be back in the US with 7 days left. Will this be a potential issue for me? I know that you can't travel to countries like China, with a visa requirement, if you have less than 3 or 6 months left on your passport. Thanks in advance.

Spekulatius, Do you remember what the degree of the revision is? This is a very healthy discussion of the risk factor. My theory on AM is that at a certain yield, 17%, a lot of this is actually priced in. AR is supposed to grow their production. AM is saying that they will grow coverage ratio and grow distribution in the next few years. The fact that they may be producing natural gas as an unintended byproduct is alarming. Again, this goes back to price vs value and I like that fact that you're getting 17% out every year. It is a bit like a bond investment. What is interesting is that AM is trading at 12x GAAP earnings. So this actually takes into consideration depreciation of these assets. As an investor of AM, we're receiving the non-cash depreciation as distribution while it acts as a tax shield. Maybe AM winds up being the equivalent of the B Mall mistakes that I will make. Look at the threads of CBL, Washington Prime, etc where I have been saying to stay away back in 2015/2016. But I think AM warrants another look.

Yeah gathering isn't the same quality as long haul pipeline and something like a Transco. At a certain yield, I think there is a cheap price for everything. Gathering is certainly a much better business than the E&P business.

Antero Midstream is yielding 17% Equitran is yield 14.5% Both are C Corps - Someone who is smarter in the E&P business than me, please tell me why this makes sense. I refuse to buy upstream companies trading at deep discounts to NAV because I don't believe that one will ever get that. But when you actually receives dividends, it's a different story. This is a sector that no longer has any investor interest.

Sold more of my $47.50 Berry Puts for $9.30 (vs $1.90 cost) I own shares as well. So I basically went long the stock.