Yet Another Value Podcast

Ryan Bunn (Reference Equity) has a public proposal for CBIZ ($CBZ): stop buying back stock at 9x earnings and restart the M&A flywheel that compounded revenue at 13%/year and took EBIT margins from 9% to 14% over the last decade. For someone like me who has always been a sucker for share buybacks, "stop the buybacks and issue equity" lands like a knife right in the gut, so I make him defend every piece of it.
We get into whether the $2.3B Marcum deal (the largest accounting acquisition ever, with the stock down ~70% since) deserves a mulligan, whether the multiple got crushed by 3.4x leverage or by AI headline fear, whether AI lets the Big Four come downmarket and eat CBIZ's middle-market lunch (or lets superstar producers hang their own flag), and whether long-term investors would really put primary equity onto the balance sheet at no discount. Ryan's math: the market prices credit risk, small 6-9x EBITDA bolt-ons restart the compounding machine, and a delevered, re-rated CBIZ has 100%+ upside.
Ryan's Restarting the Flywheel site (proposal + deck): https://cbizflywheel.com/
This episode is sponsored by AlphaSense. Most AI tools are very good at sounding right; the summary is clean, but can you trace it back to the filing, the transcript, the exact passage that drove the answer? AlphaSense owns the content (over 500 million curated documents, from broker research and expert transcripts to filings and earnings calls) and the retrieval layer on top of it, so every answer links back to an exact, verifiable source. Try a free trial at https://alpha-sense.com/yavp
Chapters:
(0:00) Intro: an activist pitch to STOP the buybacks
(1:15) AlphaSense
(2:31) What is CBIZ ($CBZ)?
(5:01) Ryan's proposal: restart the M&A flywheel
(7:44) Buybacks at 9x earnings vs. getting back to M&A
(10:38) Post-Marcum, are there even deals left to do?
(12:52) The AI risk: offshoring and the Big Four coming downmarket
(19:24) Does AI let superstar accountants hang their own flag?
(23:41) The Marcum deal: mulligan or strategic masterstroke?
(28:59) Private equity competition and winner's curse
(31:38) Valuation: 9x free cash flow at 3.4x leverage
(40:00) Does delevering actually re-rate the stock?
(45:47) Management, the board, and alignment
(49:58) Why issue equity now? The FMC example
(56:57) Ryan's real ask: end the muddled capital allocation
(57:38) Wrap
Ryan Bunn / Reference Equity: https://cbizflywheel.com/
Links:
Yet Another Value Blog - https://www.yetanothervalueblog.com
See our legal disclaimer here: https://www.yetanothervalueblog.com/p/legal-and-disclaimer
Production and editing by The Podcast Consultant - https://thepodcastconsultant.com/

Adam Wyden runs one of the most concentrated books I know, and he came on to make the case for two stocks the market has basically left for dead: Stagwell ($STGW) and Driven Brands ($DRVN). On Stagwell, his pitch is that this is not a dying ad agency but a marketing-services and data business compounding toward $700M of EBITDA by 2028, sitting at a 20%+ free cash flow yield because it came public through a no-fanfare reverse merger and carried a dual-class and TRA overhang that kept institutions out. On Driven, he thinks the sum of the parts (Collision, Autoglass, and a 50-year-old franchise stub around Take Five) is worth far more than a low-teens stock, and he has been loud enough about it that the company started disclosing numbers within 48 hours of one of his letters.
I push back on both. On Stagwell I keep coming back to the agency model itself: WPP, IPG and the rest have trailed the S&P for 20 years because the human capital walks out the door every night and takes the economics with it, and AI arguably makes that worse. On Driven I press him on why a business this cheap has stayed cheap for four years running, and whether the corporate cost and the leverage ever get fixed without a private-equity owner. Adam's answer, more or less: the market doesn't care until it cares, and the best money he has ever made is buying someone else's five-year pain right before the aha moment.
This episode is sponsored by fiscal.ai: https://fiscal.ai/yav. Fiscal.ai is a modern financial data provider for global equities and one of the leading data connectors for Claude and ChatGPT, so you can pipe real-time fundamental data straight into your LLM. I signed up with my own money to plug it into my Claude cowork setup: more than 20 years of statements, ratios, segments and KPIs, updated within minutes of earnings, not days. Use my link fiscal.ai/yav for 15% off.
Chapters:
(00:00) Intro: Adam Wyden and two names, Stagwell and Driven
(02:44) Stagwell $STGW: the bull case on a marketing-services roll-up
(05:00) Mark Penn and how modern Stagwell came together
(08:40) Does AI break the ad agency model?
(12:50) The data moat and Stagwell's agentic operating system
(19:00) Is Stagwell a jockey bet on Mark Penn?
(24:20) Free cash flow, buybacks, and a stock priced to die
(28:20) Undervalued for four years: what is the market missing?
(32:15) Adam's activist stake and the August 14th tease
(37:00) Driven Brands $DRVN: the auto aftermarket bull case
(41:30) EVs vs ICE and why the aftermarket keeps compounding
(45:20) Sum-of-the-parts: Collision, Autoglass, and the franchise stub
(51:30) Activism at Driven, Roark, and where this business belongs
(58:30) Closing: the AI losers that become AI winners
Links:
Yet Another Value Blog - https://www.yetanothervalueblog.com
See our legal disclaimer here: https://www.yetanothervalueblog.com/p/legal-and-disclaimer
Production and editing by The Podcast Consultant - https://thepodcastconsultant.com/

$VEON trades like a busted emerging-markets telecom, but it owns 84% of Ukraine's Kyivstar and a Pakistani fintech, JazzCash, that already moves 15% of the country's GDP. Samit Umatiya of UIG Funds lays out the sum-of-the-parts case for why the holdco could be worth roughly 4x today's price, and Andrew pushes back hard the whole way: a not-so-storied history of value destruction, a sanctioned 45% shareholder, capital controls, and a long graveyard of telecoms that bungled every growth opportunity they ever had. The result is one long push and pull on whether the upside is real this time.
This episode is sponsored by Fiscal.ai. Fiscal.ai is a modern financial data provider for global equities, with a web terminal plus a self-serve API that plugs real-time fundamentals straight into Claude and ChatGPT. Andrew uses it himself. Get 15% off at https://fiscal.ai/yav
Chapters:
00:00 The setup: a sum-of-the-parts EM telecom nobody talks about
01:31 Sponsor: Fiscal.ai
02:35 Who is Samit Umatiya and what is VEON
04:19 Vimpelcom to VEON: the history and the Russia exit
08:14 Why is the market asleep on this name?
11:31 The sum of the parts: Kyivstar plus four frontier markets
13:59 Bridging the EV gap: Andrew's $8B vs the bull's $3B holdco
16:36 Valuing a telecom on revenue: the "it's a tech company" case
17:54 JazzCash: 15% of Pakistan's GDP, never independently valued
21:00 The bridge to ~$1B of free cash flow and a 4x
23:40 Organic vs. bolt-on digital growth
24:34 Capital controls and getting cash out of the op-cos
27:11 What the market is missing: demographics and under-penetration
31:09 Starlink: competitor or partner in Ukraine's rebuild?
35:31 Digital stickiness and retention
37:42 The Kaspi problem: a dominant super app that never re-rated
39:25 The AI 1440 strategy and a sovereign-AI moat
42:31 Is telecom just structurally bad at capturing growth?
45:11 Capital allocation and the next catalyst: a JazzCash spin
49:38 The elephant in the room: LetterOne's sanctioned 45% stake
54:05 Geopolitical turmoil as a feature, not a flaw
55:24 Is that 45% block actually an opportunity?
57:09 Founder DNA, CEO Kaan Terzioglu, and the spin-off playbook
1:01:56 Wrap
UIG Funds (Samit Umatiya) - https://uigfunds.com
Links:
Yet Another Value Blog - https://www.yetanothervalueblog.com
See our legal disclaimer here: https://www.yetanothervalueblog.com/p/legal-and-disclaimer
Production and editing by The Podcast Consultant - https://thepodcastconsultant.com/

MSA Safety ($MSA) is the "OG pick and shovel" of worker safety: a century-old, pure-play maker of gas detection and firefighter equipment that the Pershing Square Challenge 2026 finalist team argues is a quality compounder the market is underrating. The bull case has three legs. Portable gas detection is shifting to a recurring, higher-margin subscription model, the "canary" that now sings to the whole worksite instead of just the worker wearing it. A legally mandated SCBA replacement cycle is coming that consensus barely credits. And a 2023 divestiture of product liabilities freed up the roughly 17% of EBIT that used to leave the building every year at a zero return. Base case: a double to about $350 by 2030 from roughly $160 today.
EJ Karobath, Craig Larkin and Bob McGrane walk through why MSA's owned-sensor hardware is hard to copy (Blackline got taken private, and its devices break if you drop them), how winning a tier-one fire department like LA or Memphis pulls the surrounding towns along on interoperability, and why 50-plus years of dividend growth and a record $500 million buyback point to real capital-allocation discipline. I push back on the obvious tension: this is a roughly 20x compounder that does not scream alpha, the CFO is guiding mid-single-digit growth, and most of the thesis only pays off in 2028 to 2030. Is the market that inefficient, or is this just a very good business priced about right?
Team MSA's pitch deck is linked here: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/gv1oj18pawqrmeq7lai4j/MSA-Pershing-Square-Challenge-vYAVP.pdf?rlkey=8l5vkpkr7r26oi0k7wx5fcf0h&st=g4ow2fxo&dl=0
This episode is sponsored by Trata: trata.com. Trata is recorded, anonymized conversations between two buysiders who actually follow the same company, about an hour each, with a full transcript. When you are getting up to speed on a name, there is nothing like hearing two people who research it talk it through. Check them out at trata.com.
Chapters:
00:00 A quality compounder hiding at a market multiple
01:24 Sponsor: Trata
02:47 Meet Team MSA: EJ, Craig and Bob
05:50 Why they picked MSA: an underfollowed, simple business
07:50 What MSA is: the "OG pick and shovel" of worker safety
10:24 The three segments, and why detection leads
11:51 Fixed vs portable gas detection
13:15 The subscription shift: the canary that sings to the whole worksite
16:40 The moat: durability, owned sensors and a long replacement runway
17:21 Market share, and why Blackline got taken private
21:32 Fire safety: the G1 and the mandated SCBA replacement cycle
23:38 Valuation: a double to ~$350 by 2030, and the reverse DCF
25:43 My pushback: a 20x compounder that doesn't scream alpha
27:00 Why management sandbags the connected and SCBA upside
28:46 A stock for the patient: the J-curve and the long horizon
31:47 Primary research: site visits, IR access and r/firefighting
36:18 Becoming a tech company: 40% of engineers now in software
38:10 The tier-one halo: win LA or Memphis, win the region
42:08 Capital allocation: the liability divestiture, dividends and a $500M buyback
44:13 Wrap: where to find the team and the deck
Team MSA (Columbia Business School): pitch deck linked above
Links:
Yet Another Value Blog - https://www.yetanothervalueblog.com
See our legal disclaimer here: https://www.yetanothervalueblog.com/p/legal-and-disclaimer
Production and editing by The Podcast Consultant - https://thepodcastconsultant.com/

Fox's stock is down about 25% since it agreed to buy Roku for $22 billion, and the market has decided the deal is a blunder. Simeon McMillan of Accrued Interest thinks the market is wrong. His case: Roku controls roughly 44% of how Americans reach streaming on the big screen, about 3x the next platform, so Fox just bought the "front door" to streaming and around 100 million connected TVs in North America. Look under the surface and the deal is closer to 16-17x free cash flow once you account for Roku's barely-tapped ad levers and synergies.
We get into the homepage that became the new "Netflix homepage," why Fox keeps making the smartest M&A bets in media, the Tubi sleeper Simeon is most bullish on, why he loves Roku but is bearish on Spotify, and why Google and Meta look like "true value stocks" to him. I push back hard on whether Fox plus Roku is really better than Roku staying neutral Switzerland for every bidder.
See Simeon's post on Fox / Roku here: https://www.accruedint.com/p/the-strait-of-roku-how-fox-seized
This episode is sponsored by my upcoming AI webinar with AlphaSense.
The AI landscape has never been more crowded or more confusing. Everyone's telling you to adopt AI, but almost nobody's telling you which tools actually give you an edge. I'm sitting down with Dave Wang of Wall Street Prompt and Ben Collins of AlphaSense to break down the modern AI stack for investors, from horizontal platforms like OpenAI and Claude to agentic workflows and finance-specific intelligence tools, and where each one actually fits in a real research process.
Register here: https://www.alpha-sense.com/resources/webinars/choosing-your-ai-stack-a-framework-for-institutional-investors/?utm_source=pt_YAVP&utm_medium=sponsored&utm_campaign=SWB_DG_06-25-26_IMP-GENAI_CORPFS_YAVP-AI-Solutions
Chapters:
00:00 What's coming: Fox-Roku, plus Spotify, Google and Meta
01:08 Sponsor: my AI webinar with AlphaSense
02:24 Guest intro: Simeon McMillan, Accrued Interest
03:05 The Fox-Roku deal and why Simeon thinks it makes sense
05:30 Roku as the "Strait of Hormuz" of streaming (44% of viewing)
06:25 Why Fox has the smartest M&A team in media
07:55 Buying the "front door": ~100M connected TVs
10:03 The Roku homepage as the new "Netflix homepage"
13:44 The ad-sales levers hiding under the multiple
16:31 Valuation: 22x EBITDA, ~16-17x free cash flow with synergies
18:01 My pushback: Fox down 25%, winner's curse, thin synergies
19:35 The real risk of staying pure-play (Viacom, Paramount)
24:51 Rebundling and why everyone's partnered up by 2028
26:08 Is Fox+Roku actually better, or could anyone have bought this?
28:01 Cord-cutting, YouTube TV, and the Disney bloody nose
32:07 The Fox bet Simeon likes most: Tubi
38:30 Why now? The 50% streaming inflection and a shrinking buyer pool
42:21 Does AI slop break or boost the distribution thesis?
48:06 The gotcha: bullish Roku, bearish Spotify (the Pokemon theory of media)
52:22 Google and Meta as "true value stocks"
56:55 The complexity discount, Meta's enterprise tools, and founder control
59:13 Wrap and where to find Accrued Interest
Simeon McMillan / Accrued Interest: https://accruedinterest.substack.com
Links:
Yet Another Value Blog - https://www.yetanothervalueblog.com
See our legal disclaimer here: https://www.yetanothervalueblog.com/p/legal-and-disclaimer
Production and editing by The Podcast Consultant - https://thepodcastconsultant.com/