Yet Another Value Podcast

School is starting, which means a dozen college and MBA teams are about to email me asking how to win their stock pitch competition. So I made the answer. The core of it: a pitch is a game, and most people lose it before they open their mouth by picking an idea that does not fit the contest rules or the judges in the room.
From there it is three things. Design the pitch for the timeframe the contest actually asks for and for the people judging it, because what wins with a concentrated-book judge is not what wins with a pod shop. Lead with the one thing only you know, not a sell side price target or a multiple that has compressed. And make your bull case the base case instead of hedging yourself into a 15% price target that reads as average. Then the three traps I see every single year: burning five slides on a DCF nobody will ask about, drowning the room in risk factors, and death by background. I also walk through the La Quinta pitch that won me Ira Sohn in 2018, and why the CSL and DoorDash teams at the Pershing Square Challenge won on legwork rather than modeling.
Fair warning: I had AI build the slides, so do not hold the exact wording on any of them against me.
If you are pitching to get hired rather than to win a contest, the companion episode is here: https://www.yetanothervalueblog.com/p/how-to-get-a-job-in-investing-podcast
This episode is sponsored by Trata: https://trata.com. Trata is two buysiders swapping thoughts on a stock they are both involved in. If you are prepping a pitch, go on and say you are thinking about pitching company XYZ, and they will find you someone to talk to about it. It is a very good way to hear the other side of your idea before a judge hands it to you.
Chapters:
(00:00) Why I made this one alone, with a deck
(01:57) Disclaimer and a word from Trata
(03:02) Why this matters even if you never enter a contest
(05:20) Who am I to talk about stock pitches
(07:18) Why a pitch is a free lottery ticket
(08:51) Rule one: know the game you are playing
(10:12) Know your judges: concentrated books, event funds, pod shops
(12:19) Rule two: tell a story, and lead with something only you know
(14:14) The La Quinta pitch that won Ira Sohn
(16:07) Be bold: make your bull case the base case
(18:04) Do the legwork: hard hats, expert calls, customer checks
(21:43) What to avoid: excessive modeling
(23:17) What to avoid: drowning in risks
(25:08) What to avoid: death by background
(26:22) Formatting is table stakes
(27:48) Go win the thing
Links:
Yet Another Value Blog - https://www.yetanothervalueblog.com
See our legal disclaimer here: https://www.yetanothervalueblog.com/p/legal-and-disclaimer

El Al ($ELAL), Israel's flag carrier, has spent three years as close to a monopoly on flying in and out of Ben Gurion as an airline ever gets. Turkish and Pegasus left and aren't coming back, Ryanair lost its Terminal 1 slots, Delta and United keep pushing their return, and El Al has used the windfall to go from a levered balance sheet to net cash, buy nine planes off lease, and start returning capital. It trades at about 2x EBITDA. Adam Buckstein of ASB Partners (back after his Stride episode) thinks you're buying a hard-asset-backed airline (roughly $1.3B net cash, $1B+ of owned planes, a $700M-ish loyalty program valuation) for less than the parts, with two more quarters of gushing profits still to come.
My pushbacks: every "delevered on wartime profits" story I can remember (steel, energy after 2022) didn't work as a stock; a chunk of the cash is customer float that vanishes if flights get canceled; the $40M competition-authority fine for wartime pricing plus the state's right to make them fly uneconomically looks like the worst of both worlds; and El Al flies 24/6 (no Sabbath, no holidays), so should you haircut the EBITDA, or does that create a moat nobody else can copy? We close with a Stride ($LRN) update: the abrupt CEO exit, the Canvas LMS disaster, the lost Texas school, why fall enrollments are the fulcrum, and whether AI is a real threat to virtual public schools.
Adam's El Al write-up: https://adambuckstein.substack.com/p/el-al-israel-airlines-ltd-elal-write
This episode is sponsored by Fiscal.ai: https://fiscal.ai/yav. Fiscal.ai is the modern financial data provider for global equities, and it's what I actually use: their fund-letter database is wired into their API, so the first thing my AI does when I prep a podcast is pull every recent letter on the name, and every line in the models it builds links back to the source filing. Use fiscal.ai/yav for 15% off their AI connector.
Chapters:
(00:00) Intro and Fiscal.ai sponsor read
(02:33) Adam Buckstein / ASB Partners joins
(03:38) What is El Al: flag carrier, October 7, a monopoly on Ben Gurion
(05:52) What the market is missing: underfollowed, delevered, Turkish and Ryanair gone
(09:36) My pushback: delevering on wartime profits, and the customer-float problem
(11:48) The balance sheet: $2B liquidity, air traffic liability, 2023 as the clean year
(14:22) Valuation: net cash, owned planes, loyalty program vs a $2B EV
(16:49) Slots: the New York City analogy for Tel Aviv
(19:28) State of Israel risk: golden share, the $40M pricing fine, mandated security
(24:23) The right comps: Wizz, Jet2, United at 6x vs El Al at 2x
(26:12) Flying 24/6: should you haircut EBITDA, or is it a moat?
(30:38) Stride ($LRN) update: the CEO exit and the prelim guide
(34:01) Fall enrollments as the fulcrum, Canvas LMS, the lost Texas school
(37:47) Pearson's read-through and in-year enrollment
(40:16) The new CEO's contract and expert-call feedback on the old one
(41:32) AI risk to virtual public schools, Alpha School
(46:02) Long school choice; would Stride get taken private?
(49:29) Disclaimer
Links:
Yet Another Value Blog - https://www.yetanothervalueblog.com
See our legal disclaimer here: https://www.yetanothervalueblog.com/p/legal-and-disclaimer

Nubank ($NU) has 140 million customers, roughly 60% of Brazil's adult population, an efficiency ratio around 20% versus 40-60% at the legacy banks, and ROEs in the 30s. Evan Vanderveer of Vanshap Capital has owned it for four years and thinks the market is still treating it like a risky EM bank instead of what he thinks it is: a tech company that happens to hold deposits, with a founder (David Vélez) who controls it and a runway that runs through Brazil's $100 billion banking profit pool, Mexico, Colombia, and eventually the US.
My pushback is the Capital One question. Capital One was the smartest data-science lender in the room, IPO'd in 1994, went up 13x in 12 years, and then spent the next 20 as a mature bank that lagged the market. Nubank was built by ex-Capital One people, so is this 1994 or 2006? We also get into what the right cost of equity is for a Brazilian bank trading at high-teens earnings with a 30% ROE, whether MELI and Kaspi tell you EM fintech never gets a big multiple, the 13,000-customers-per-employee stat, Brazil NPLs at 15-year highs, the wave of senior departures, whether any banking fintech has ever expanded across borders, Vélez joining OpenAI's board, and my bigger worry that AI eventually commoditizes every financial product and competes away the 30% ROE.
This episode is sponsored by Trata: https://trata.com/nu. Trata is two sharp buy-siders hopping on an anonymized call to talk through the risks and upside of a stock, and it's the closest thing to this podcast in written form. Go to trata.com/nu for a free Trata transcript on Nubank that I read and used heavily prepping for this call.
Chapters:
(00:00) Intro and Trata sponsor read
(01:55) Evan Vanderveer / Vanshap Capital joins
(02:50) What is Nubank: 140M customers, 60% of Brazil, 20% efficiency ratio
(06:11) What the market is missing: deepening relationships, Mexico's ARPAC
(08:05) The Capital One DNA: QED, Nigel Morris, data science
(10:38) My pushback: is this Capital One in 2006, not 1994?
(13:00) Brazil's $100B profit pool, payroll loans, David Vélez's control
(15:09) Valuation: 30% ROE, high-teens P/E, and the right cost of equity for a Brazilian bank
(18:47) MELI and Kaspi: does EM fintech ever earn alpha?
(21:59) Fintech or bank? SoFi 2021, lending competition, too big to fail
(23:55) 13,000 customers per employee vs 1,300 at legacy banks
(26:15) Brazil risks: NPLs at 15-year highs, the Selic, October's election
(27:45) How much of the value is Brazil vs Mexico, Colombia, and the US
(29:42) Can a banking fintech expand across borders? The Citibank precedent
(31:03) Senior departures, the new CFO from Visa, capping US investment
(33:47) Buybacks in the low $12s and the risk of losing local expertise
(36:32) Valuation bet, business bet, or jockey bet?
(38:52) David Vélez joining OpenAI's board
(40:46) AI inside Nubank: 60% of inquiries, Devin agents, faster credit models
(42:44) Does AI commoditize banking and compete away the 30% ROE?
(46:54) The US expansion: God kings or a real niche?
(50:35) Closing thoughts
(52:07) Disclaimer
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/

DNOW spun out of National Oilwell Varco at $35 in late 2014. A year later it was $13. Today it is around $16. Steve Gorelik's argument is that ten years of that chart is one long headwind rather than a broken business: 1,800 US rigs at the spin, under 600 now, global oil and gas investment 40% below 2014 in real dollars, and DNOW still grew margins and bought companies at 4 to 5x EBITDA the whole way through. Rigs have started ticking back up. The MRC Global merger brings $75m of synergies to two businesses that earned $325m of EBITDA apart in 2024. Management has soft-targeted $350m of EBITDA for 2027 against roughly a $3.5B enterprise value, which Steve gets to about $300m of free cash flow on a $3B market cap.
My pushback is that 10x is not deep value, and the double comes almost entirely from multiple expansion back to the 5 to 6% free cash flow yield the market used to pay. Why is 10x the wrong number and not 12 or 14? We also get into the acquisitive compounder paradox, whether the incremental drilling actually shows up in US shale or somewhere else, the Oracle implementation they inherited from MRC and why they are now running it alongside SAP on purpose, the $50m of stock they bought back in the middle of that mess, and whether a business private equity would happily lever to four or six turns belongs in the public market at all. Steve's 2029 case is $30 to $32 per share.
This episode is sponsored by Fiscal.ai: https://fiscal.ai/yav. I am a customer and I pay for their API with my own money. Two things I use it for constantly. First, they have a huge database of fund letters wired into the API, so when I am prepping a podcast or looking at an event my agent pulls every recent letter on the name and tells me what the bull and bear cases actually are. Second, financials with sourcing attached: I ask for a model and every line links back to the company specific KPI, segment, or ratio it came from, so I can click through and see exactly where the number is from. Use my link, fiscal.ai/yav, for 15% off their AI connector.
Chapters:
(00:00) Nobody gets excited about a distributor
(03:48) What DNOW actually sells
(05:29) The roll-up playbook, without the leverage
(07:13) Why the 2014 spin never worked
(12:47) My pushback: does the drilling come back in the US?
(14:23) Shale payback periods and rigs getting less efficient
(16:50) The MRC Global deal
(18:04) Upstream plus downstream: what the combination buys you
(21:24) The ERP implementation they inherited
(24:39) Why 2027 guidance sits below what the two did apart
(28:16) Free cash flow yield as the North Star
(32:40) Buying growth at 4 to 5x while trading at 8 or 9
(34:42) Paying down debt and buying back stock at the same time
(35:38) $50m of buybacks in the middle of the mess
(37:15) Running SAP and Oracle side by side on purpose
(39:49) 1,907 rigs at the spin, 571 today
(40:40) The 2029 case: $30 to $32 per share
(41:01) Should this company even be public?
(42:56) Would private equity lever it up?
(43:31) Water, utilities and data centers
(45:21) Why boring distributors compound
Steve Gorelik / Firebird Management: https://fbird.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/

Paul Cerro was long Hims & Hers in 2024, short it through the compounded GLP-1 unwind, and covered when the stock broke $14 after Q1. He's long again, and his thesis has almost nothing to do with peptides, testosterone, or the international launches everyone else is excited about. Those, he says, are table stakes. Hims has never had a problem acquiring customers. It has a problem keeping them, and subscriber counts have barely moved in three quarters. His argument is that labs and patient data are what push retention and LTV up, and that is the part the market isn't paying for.
I push back in three places. The data play doesn't look unique to me: Whoop and Oura own a wearable and a daily interaction, Hims owns commoditized blood work, and if Hims does unlock it, Apple or Amazon can walk in on top of them. The 2030 targets ask you to double trust management, once on 4x-ing EBITDA and again on a very heavily adjusted EBITDA number, from a CEO Paul says he wouldn't trust to walk his dog. And when peptides go legal, I think a hundred Instagram churn-and-burn startups compete away the customer acquisition edge. Paul's answers are worth the hour, especially the balance-sheet argument for a price war and the Ro story. We close on what to watch in the August 10 print.
Paul's Hims & Hers write-up: https://www.cedargroveresearch.com/p/hims-whoever-controls-the-data-controls-the-industry
This episode is sponsored by Trata: https://trata.com/hims. Trata is two investors who hop on and talk about a stock they're both in, sometimes one long and one short, sometimes both on the same side, but always about what actually drives the stock up or down. Trata now has an MCP, so you can point your AI agent at a company and pull the transcript, which is one of the first things I do when I start looking at a name. They have four HIMS calls, all less than a year old and one about a month old, and if you follow the link you can get their most recent HIMS coverage as a free trial.
Chapters:
(00:00) Long it, shorted it, now long again
(02:57) Paul on the setup right now
(04:17) What he learned building Ro
(05:19) How cash-pay healthcare actually works
(11:54) The original 2024 Hims thesis
(13:26) The compounding loophole and its expiration date
(15:58) Covering the short and going long again
(18:54) Acquisition was never the problem, retention is
(20:35) Why the money in healthcare is chasing data
(22:33) My pushback: what is unique about Hims' data?
(26:32) Hims versus Whoop, Oura and the Apple Watch
(29:21) Valuation: 30x 2026 EBITDA, 6x 2030
(32:56) Why international makes the targets conservative
(34:12) Double trusting a heavily adjusted number
(36:16) Icarus, Napoleon and the Teflon Don
(40:05) On putting too much faith in regulators
(43:49) Peptides and the market nobody has priced
(45:36) Chinese peptides and what is in the vial
(50:12) Can a hundred Instagram startups undercut Hims?
(54:40) Why the balance sheet decides a price war
(56:13) What to watch in the August 10 print
(57:40) CVS, Walgreens, Walmart and Amazon
(1:00:49) Closing thoughts
Paul Cerro / Cedar Grove: https://www.cedargroveresearch.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/