The Evolution Of A Hypothetical Start-Up
I’ve been pretty busy lately on a couple of projects. As always, inspiration strikes at the strangest of times and I have been assembling some thoughts on the challenges faced by growing businesses, from the perspective of an investor who has followed a couple of reasonably large ones like Nearmap and Xero through their many …
The Challenge Of Selling A Managed Fund
I have a friend who is starting a funds management business. I joked with him that, in order to market to investors, he should say that he is a long-only value investor that believes in Warren Buffet, only holds high quality stocks for the long term, real money is made in the holding, lower prices …
Argentina
I have a strong interest in emerging markets. When Turkey blew up, I looked at Turkish stocks. The Argentine stock market vomited the other day, so most recently I have been looking there (some might also remember my Despegar posts). Argentina now holds the title of the second greatest single-day stock market meltdown in history (in …
Revenue Is A Trailing Metric
An interesting discussion I heard recently was “how can we enhance an organisation’s ability to hit its targets”? The natural response is to ask “how do you hit a target” and the answer of course is that you can’t. You can’t go out and hit a target because the target (sales, in this case) is a …
Despegar: Too Hard
I’ve sold my 10 shares in Despegar. I wrote about the company here and here and wanted to like it but couldn’t get comfortable. There were a few key issues: High margins and commission rate relative to mature global peers Among the most aggressive revenue recognition in the industry Terrible working capital 3a) Growth likely driven …
BYND: Beyond Multiples
I have been thinking about Beyond Meat, a recent US IPO that basically tripled from its $25 IPO price to $66 in a short period of time. It is possible that the new era business model of delaying profitability in favour of maximising growth proves me wrong, and I want to get down some thoughts …
Change of plans
Just a quick note to disclose that I’ve sold (almost) all of my stocks in the past few days to make an investment outside the stock market. (I won’t be writing about that one). I don’t think I’ve not had almost all my money in stocks since I was 17, so I feel a bit …
Quarterly Review: Q3 (March) FY 2019
The end of March marks two years of the 10foot portfolio. It has not gone as expected and I have been doing a lot of thinking in the past few months. There are also some big changes to the portfolio, most notably converting it to a unit basis (measuring value per fictional “unit” instead of …
Private Markets Hide All Manner Of Sins
A number of notable companies and investors today appear largely unaware of the relationship, and potential disconnect, between growth and financial sustainability. It is all well and good to own part of a technology firm that is growing revenue and users rapidly and burning cash. It is also fine to systematically bet on small tech co’s …
Down 95%: Oliver’s Real Foods
There’s been some water (mostly radioactive) pass under the bridge since I last wrote about Oliver’s Real Foods (ASX:OLI). I’m sitting on I believe my first ever position that is down 95%. It’s worth a brief recap of how things got to this point. After my earlier presentation, I felt that the company was on the …
