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Valens Research

Valens Equity Insights and Inflections - 2021 10 26

Cracker Barrel (CBRL) is set up to not just survive the pandemic, but to thrive because of it, and the market isn't pricing this in. Uniform Accounting highlights that market expectations are for a permanent disruption to Cracker Barrel's business, indicating equity upside as the business returns to full strength and even higher.

Before 2020, the company had already steadily begun improving Uniform ROA thanks to its strategy of optimizing its restaurant and store business model. Now, Cracker Barrel is rolling out new strategies, including the introduction of alcohol sales and off-premise dining options, which could turbocharge the business as it recovers from the pandemic.

Cracker Barrel's management is closely aligned to focus on improving ROIC while profitably growing the business, which focus the team on both ROA and asset growth.

Additionally, management's continued confidence about off-premise sales, staffing, and cost management highlight that they are executing in the right areas to fully recover post-pandemic.

FOXF Q2 2021 Embedded Expectations Analysis – Market expectations are for Uniform ROA to expand, but management may have concerns about supply chain constraints, acquisitions, and demand

GM Q2 2021 Embedded Expectations Analysis – Market expectations are for Uniform ROA to remain muted, but management is confident about EBIT, pricing, and zero-emissions initiatives

EL Q4 2021 Embedded Expectations Analysis – Market expectations call for record-high Uniform ROA, but management may have concerns about the pace of the retail recovery, China, and online business

CBRL, EL, FOXF, GM, AMED, AMGN, AMT, CHTR, CMCS.A, COP, COTY, DKNG, FISV, IONS, LOW, MMM, SBUX, TWLO, UPS, WCC, XOM
Underlyings
3M COMPANY

3M is a technology company. The company has four segments: Safety and Industrial, which consists of personal safety, industrial adhesives and tapes, abrasives, closure and masking systems, electrical markets, automotive aftermarket, and roofing granules; Transportation and Electronics, which consists of electronics, automotive and aerospace, commercial solutions, advanced materials, and transportation safety; Health Care, which includes medical solutions, oral care, separation and purification sciences, health information systems, drug delivery systems, and food safety; and Consumer, which consists of home improvement, stationery and office supplies, home care, and consumer health care.

Amedisys Inc.

Amedisys is a healthcare services company focused on providing care in the home. The company's operations involve servicing patients across the United States through its operating divisions: home health, hospice and personal care. The company's Home Health segment provides healthcare to help its patients recover from surgery or illness, live with chronic diseases, and prevent avoidable hospital readmissions. Hospice care is designed to provide comfort and support for those who are dealing with a terminal illness such as heart disease, pulmonary disease, Alzheimer's or cancer. Personal care provides assistance with the activities of daily living.

American Tower Corporation

American Tower is a holding company. Through its subsidiaries, the company is a real estate investment trusts and an independent owner, operator and developer of multitenant communications real estate. The company's primary business is the leasing of space on communications sites to wireless service providers, radio and television broadcast companies, wireless data providers, government agencies and municipalities and tenants in a number of other industries. The company also provides tower-related services, including site acquisition, zoning and permitting and structural analysis, which primarily support the company's site leasing business, including the addition of new tenants and equipment on its sites.

AMGEN INC.

Amgen is a biotechnology company that discovers, develops, manufactures and delivers human therapeutics. The company's products include: Enbrel? (etanercept), which is used in indications for the treatment of adult patients with moderately to severely active rheumatoid arthritis, patients with chronic moderate-to-severe plaque psoriasis who are candidates for systemic therapy or phototherapy and patients with active psoriatic arthritis; and Prolia? (denosumab), which is used for the treatment of postmenopausal women with osteoporosis at high risk of fracture or multiple risk factors for fracture, or patients who have failed or are intolerant to other available osteoporosis therapy.

Charter Communications Inc. Class A

Charter Communications is a holding company. Through its subsidiaries, the company is a cable operator and a broadband communications company providing video, Internet and voice services. The company also provides its mobile service to residential customers. In addition, the company sells video and online advertising inventory to local, regional and national advertising customers and communications and managed solutions to enterprise customers. The company also owns and operates regional sports networks and local sports, news and community channels. The company owns and operates a two-way telecommunications network which passes various households and small and medium businesses across United States.

Comcast Corporation Class A

Comcast is a media and technology company. The company's segments are: Cable Communications, which provides internet, video, voice, and security and automation services in the United States individually and as bundled services at a discounted rate over its cable distribution system to residential and business customers; NBCUniversal, which includes a portfolio of national cable networks that provide a variety of entertainment, news and information, and sports content, regional sports and news networks, international cable networks, and cable television studio production operations; and Sky, which owns a portfolio of pay television channels that provide entertainment, news, sports and movies.

CONOCOPHILLIPS

ConocoPhillips is an exploration and production company engaged in exploring for, producing, transporting and marketing crude oil, bitumen, natural gas, liquefied natural gas and natural gas liquids. The company's segments include: Alaska, which operates in Alaska; Lower 48, which operates in the United States and the Gulf of Mexico; Canada, which operates in Alberta and British Columbia; Europe and North Africa, which consists of operations and exploration activities in Norway, the United Kingdom and Libya; Asia Pacific and Middle East, which operates in China, Indonesia, Malaysia, Australia, Qatar, and Timor-Leste; and Other International, which operates in Colombia, Chile and Argentina.

Coty Inc. Class A

Coty and its subsidiaries are a beauty company. The company manufactures, markets, sells and distributes beauty products, including fragrances, color cosmetics, hair care products and skin and body related products. The company is organized into three divisions, which is also its operating and reportable segments: Consumer Beauty, Luxury and Professional Beauty. Consumer Beauty is primarily focused on color cosmetics, retail hair coloring and styling products, body care and mass fragrances. Luxury is primarily focused on fragrances, skincare and cosmetics. Professional Beauty is primarily focused on hair and nail care products for salon personnel.

Cracker Barrel Old Country Store Inc.

Cracker Barrel Old Country Store is principally engaged in the operation and development of the Cracker Barrel Old Country Store? concept. The format of the company's stores consists of a trademarked rustic old country-store design providing a restaurant menu that features home-style country food and a variety of items such as rocking chairs, holiday and seasonal gifts, toys, apparel, cookware and foods. The company's restaurants serve breakfast, lunch and dinner daily. Lunch and dinner items include southern fried chicken, chicken and dumplings, chicken fried chicken, meatloaf, country fried steak, pork chops, fish, steak, roast beef, vegetable plates, sandwiches and a variety of salads.

DraftKings Inc Class A

Estee Lauder Companies Inc. Class A

Estee Lauder Companies is a manufacturer and marketer of skin care, makeup, fragrance and hair care products. The company's products are sold under a number of brand names including: Estee Lauder, Clinique, Origins, MzAzC, Bobbi Brown, La Mer, Jo Malone London, Aveda and Too Faced. The company is also the global licensee for fragrances, cosmetics and/or related products sold under various designer brand names. The company's products include skin care, makeup and related items such as compacts, brushes and other makeup tools, fragrance sold in various forms, hair care, and other ancillary products and services.

Exxon Mobil Corporation

Exxon Mobil operates or markets products in United States and other countries through its divisions and affiliated companies. The company's business involves exploration for, and production of, crude oil and natural gas and manufacture, trade, transport and sale of crude oil, natural gas, petroleum products, petrochemicals and other products. In United States, the company's development activities are focused on the onshore United States, in the Permian Basin of West Texas and New Mexico and the Bakken oil play in North Dakota. Gas development activities are also focused on the Marcellus Shale of Pennsylvania and West Virginia, the Utica Shale of Ohio and the Haynesville Shale of East Texas and Louisiana.

Fiserv Inc.

Fiserv is a provider of financial services technology. The company provides account processing systems, electronic payments processing products and services, internet and mobile banking systems, and related services. The company's segments are: First Data, which provides merchant acquiring, e-commerce, mobile commerce, and other business solutions; Payments and Industry Products, which provides electronic bill payment and presentment services, internet and mobile banking software; and Financial Institution Services, which provides financial institutions with account processing services, item processing and source capture services, loan origination and servicing products, and cash management, among others.

Fox Factory Holding Corp.

Fox Factory Holding is a holding company. Through its subsidiaries, the company is a designer, manufacturer and marketer of products and systems used on bicycles, side-by-side vehicles, on-road vehicles with and without off-road capabilities, off-road vehicles and trucks, all-terrain vehicles, snowmobiles, specialty vehicles and applications, motorcycles, and commercial trucks. In its powered vehicle product categories, the company provides products under the FOX, BDS Suspension, Zone Offroad, JKS Manufacturing, RT Pro UTV, 4x4 Posi-Lok, and Tuscany brands. The company's bike product offerings are used on a range of mountain bikes and road bikes under the FOX, Race Face, Easton Cycling and Marzocchi brands.

General Motors Company

General Motors designs, builds and sells trucks, crossovers, cars and automobile parts. The company also provides automotive financing services through its subsidiary, General Motors Financial Company, Inc. (GM Financial). GM Financial provides retail loan and lease lending across the credit spectrum. GM Financial provides commercial lending products to dealers including new and used vehicle inventory floorplan financing and dealer loans, which are loans to finance improvements to dealership facilities, to provide working capital, and to purchase and/or finance dealership real estate. Other commercial lending products include financing for parts and accessories, dealer fleets and storage centers.

Ionis Pharmaceuticals Inc.

Ionis Pharmaceuticals is engaged in discovering and developing RNA-targeted therapeutics. The company has two commercial medicines, SPINRAZA and TEGSEDI. SPINRAZA (nusinersen) injection for intrathecal use is a survival motor neuron-2, directed antisense oligonucleotide indicated for the treatment of spinal muscular atrophy in pediatric and adult patients. TEGSEDI (inotersen) injection is a Generation 2+ antisense medicine and an approved subcutaneous RNA-targeting medicine designed to treat people with polyneuropathy caused by hereditary transthyretin amyloidosis.

Lowe's Companies Inc.

Lowe's Companies is a home improvement retailer. The company provides home improvement products in lumber and building materials, appliances, seasonal and outdoor living, tools and hardware, fashion fixtures, rough plumbing and electrical, paint, millwork, lawn and garden, flooring, and kitchens categories. The company provides installation services through independent contractors in product categories, including appliances, flooring, kitchens, lumber and building materials, and millwork. The company also provides extended protection plans for various products within the appliances, kitchens, fashion fixtures, millwork, rough plumbing and electrical, seasonal and outdoor living, and tools and hardware categories.

Starbucks Corporation

Starbucks is a roaster, marketer and retailer of coffee. The company's segments are: Americas, which is inclusive of the United States, Canada, and Latin America; International, which is inclusive of China, Japan, Asia Pacific, Europe, Middle East, and Africa; and Channel Development. The company's Americas and International segments include both company-operated and licensed stores. The company's Channel Development segment includes roasted whole bean and ground coffees, Seattle's Best Coffee?, Starbucks- and Teavana-branded single-serve products, a variety of ready-to-drink beverages, and other products sold worldwide outside of the company's company-operated and licensed stores.

Twilio Inc. Class A

Twilio provides a cloud communications platform that enables developers to build, scale and operate communications within their software applications via the company's Application Programming Interfaces (APIs). The company's platform consists of three layers: Engagement Cloud, which provides functionality for a specific purpose, such as two-factor authentication or a contact center; Programmable Communications Cloud, which provides a range of products that enables developers to embed voice, messaging and video capabilities into their applications; and Super Network, which contains a set of API's giving the company's customers access to components of its platform.

United Parcel Service Inc. Class B

United Parcel Service provides transportation services, primarily domestic and international letter and package delivery. The company reports its operations in three segments: United States Domestic Package, which includes the time-definite delivery of letters, documents and packages throughout the United States; International Package, which includes delivery to several countries and territories worldwide, including shipments wholly outside the United States, as well as shipments with either origin or destination outside the United States; and Supply Chain & Freight, which includes the company's Forwarding, Logistics, Coyote, Marken, UPS Mail Innovations, UPS Freight and other aggregated business units.

WESCO International Inc.

WESCO International is a distributor of products and provider of supply chain management and logistics services used primarily in industrial, construction, utility and commercial, institutional and government markets. The company is a provider of electrical, industrial, and communications maintenance, repair and operating and original equipment manufacturers products, construction materials, and supply chain management and logistics services. The company's primary product categories include general supplies, wire, cable and conduit, communications and security, electrical distribution and controls, lighting and sustainability, and automation, controls and motors.

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In 2009, just as the dust was settling from the last major equity and credit market crises, we launched a boutique research firm with the intention of breaking Wall Street’s biases and broken incentives:

  • GAAP and IFRS have failed to provide rules for reliable financial statement reporting
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