The #Fintwit gods are good are presented me with an opportunity that deserves my full attention π€
Feel free to email me, bizalmanac@gmail.com π₯
Yβall know I love it here, and probably too much. Some thoughts on #Fintwit below π
(1/6)
This website is dripping with ideas. Value, growth, quality, international, special sits, microcap, REPE, REITs, technical analysis, crypto, energy, SAAS, SMIDs, dividend growth, income π§
What used to happen on VIC, G&D, Sumzero and idea dinners now happens here
(2/6)
The amount of skilled and talented investors, professionals and hobbyists, hanging out here is vast. If you share with the community, publicly or privately, you surely will receive back equal or more in models, notes and thoughts from many smart folks, often in DMs π€
(3/6)
If youβre young and/or looking to improve or for a job, share on fintwit. If you want to sharpen a thesis or identify bear cases, share the bull case on fintwit. If you want new ideasβ¦you get the idea! π‘
(4/6)
But it ainβt all good..
Noise overwhelms signal.
Even for accounts with high signal to noise ratio, you have to suffer through a lot of gif volleying, politrix, shitposting etc. π«΅
(5/6)
Latest tweets instead of home, blocking, muting accounts and keywords all help but only to a degree.
Twitter is a constant exercise in improving and optimizing your feed and is not for the faint of heart πββοΈ
(6/6)
Lasted almost a month
And I recently shared two snack-bite sized blog posts:
There are some very smart Apollo longs on this site. I am not one of them. I am fascinated by the business though. Rare ingredients:
Founding CEO Black leaves under dark cloud re. Epstein. Co-founder Rowan takes over and merges APO with Athene
(1/x)
Athene is an annuity business that Apollo created in 2009, was public but controlled until 01/2022 when it merged into APO
Now APO is a (1) pure-plays alts business focused on credit (2) an annuity business, Athene (3) and a capital markets business...
Maybe most interesting though is that Athene now boasts 16 different origination platforms that create the assets to match against the annuity liabilities.
Actually more, allowing Athene to sell those assets to other insurers, among other fee generating activities, naturally
I collected my thoughts on Couche-Tard, unpacking their M&A activity as a whole, a few of their big deals as well as a few significant KPIs / financial metrics
The result wasn't as rosy I expected,
(1/10)
You can't overstate how impressive Couche-Tard's M&A program has been over the past decade and change
over 12,000 stores bought across over 100 deals, across three continents, all paid for in cash
(2/10)
But, the vast majority of spend is concentrated on 'big deals'; I show nine below and unpack three of them in the post
Couche-Tard's post close motion is intricate, from selling off assets, achieving cost synergies throughout the P&L, improving debt stacks, etc.
I can feel the boos coming in now. Not another Constellation write-up! Not another Mark Leonard fanboi!
I agree.
The world doesnβt need another Constellation write-up nor does Leonard need or want mine or anyoneβs adoration. He wants his stock price to go down
(2/6)
But I wrote this for myself. Iβve been fascinated with Constellation since I first came across Leonardβs letters almost 10 years ago, which I found in my early days lurking around #fintwit incidentally
Cash bridge since inception. Litigation finance is an asset light business; requiring only 1.65B in equity and debt resulting in 2.7B in cash receipts so far
I'm leaving a partially completed $PX write-up on the cutting room floor as I found a better subject for my next blog post
PX high-quality and young business I recently built a position in
I am happy to share one section, In Defense of Funds of Funds, below.
Unlike many alternative asset managers who invest directly into operating businesses; 2/3 of P10βs investment vehicles are fund-of-funds, investing their LPs capital into private equity funds in the case of RCP and venture capital funds in the case of TrueBridge.
(1/14)
Many market participants scoff at funds of funds judging them as unnecessary middlemen. I disagree and see funds-of-funds as necessary for many investors to achieve their desired exposures and returns.