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Valens Research

Valens Credit Weekly Insights - 2019 11 13

Valens Credit Research Team highlighted ideas for AL, LEN and RAD. They have also provided recent analyses for KBH and DAL while DF topped the quantitative outlier report for the week.
Underlyings
Adient plc

Advanced Micro Devices Inc.

Advanced Micro Devices is a semiconductor company. The company primarily provides x86 microprocessors, as standalone devices or as incorporated into an accelerated processing unit, chipsets, graphics processing units (GPUs), data center and personnel GPUs, and development services; server and embedded processors, semi-custom System-on-Chip products, development services and technology for game consoles. The company also licenses portions of its intellectual property portfolio. The company's segments are: Computing and Graphics, which consists of desktop, notebooks, commercial, and chipsets products; and Enterprise, Embedded and Semi-Custom, which includes server processors, and embedded P\processors products.

Air Lease Corporation Class A

Air Lease is an aircraft leasing company. The company is engaged in purchasing new commercial jet transport aircraft directly from aircraft manufacturers, such as The Boeing Company and Airbus S.A.S., and leasing those aircraft to airlines. In addition to its leasing activities, the company sells aircraft from its operating lease portfolio to third parties, including other leasing companies, financial services companies, airlines and other investors. The company also provides fleet management services to investors and owners of aircraft portfolios. The company provides aircraft to airline customers in Asia, the Pacific Rim, Latin America, the Middle East, Europe, Africa, and North America.

AMAG Pharmaceuticals Inc.

AMAG Pharmaceuticals is a pharmaceutical company focused on bringing products to patients in the areas of maternal and women's health, anemia management and cancer supportive care, including Feraheme? (ferumoxytol injection) for intravenous use, Makena? (hydroxyprogesterone caproate injection), Intrarosa? (prasterone) vaginal inserts and MuGard? Mucoadhesive Oral Wound Rinse. The company's portfolio also includes three product candidates, Vyleesi? (bremelanotide), which is for the treatment of hypoactive sexual desire disorder in pre-menopausal women, AMAG-423 (digoxin immune fab (ovine)), which is for the treatment of preeclampsia, and ciraparantag, which serves as an anticoagulant reversal agent.

AutoNation Inc.

AutoNation, through its subsidiaries, is an automotive retailer. The company provides a range of automotive products and services, including new vehicles, used vehicles, parts and service, which includes automotive repair and maintenance services as well as wholesale parts and collision businesses, and automotive finance and insurance products, which include vehicle service and other protection products, and the arranging of financing for vehicle purchases through third-party finance sources. The company owns and operates new vehicle franchises from stores located in the United States, in main metropolitan markets in the Sunbelt region. The company has three segments: Domestic, Import, and Premium Luxury.

Avis Budget Group Inc.

Avis Budget Group is a provider of mobility solutions through its three brands, Avis, Budget and Zipcar, together with several other brands. The company has two segments: Americas, which provides and licenses the company's brands to third parties for vehicle rentals and ancillary products and services in North America, South America, Central America and the Caribbean, and operates its car sharing business in certain of these markets; and International, which provides and licenses the company's brands to third parties for vehicle rentals and ancillary products and services in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Asia and Australasia, and operates the company's car sharing business in certain of these markets.

Avon Products Inc.

Avon Products is a manufacturer and marketer of beauty and related products. The company's product categories are Beauty and Fashion and Home. Beauty consists of skincare, fragrance and color (cosmetics). Fashion and Home consists of fashion jewelry, watches, apparel, footwear, accessories, gift and decorative products, housewares, entertainment and leisure products, children's products and nutritional products. The company's business is conducted primarily in one channel, direct selling. The company's reportable segments are based on geographic operations in four regions: Europe, Middle East & Africa; South Latin America; North Latin America; and Asia Pacific.

Bausch Health Companies Inc.

Valeant Pharmaceuticals International is a pharmaceutical and medical device company that develops, manufactures, and markets a range of branded, generic and branded generic pharmaceuticals, over-the-counter (OTC) products, and medical devices (contact lenses, intraocular lenses, ophthalmic surgical equipment, and aesthetics devices). Co. has two operating and reportable segments: Developed Markets, which focuses in dermatology, neurology, gastrointestinal disorders, and eye health therapeutic; and Emerging Markets, which focuses primarily on branded generics, OTC products, and medical devices.

Beazer Homes USA Inc.

Beazer Homes USA is engaged as a homebuilder. The company's homebuilding operations consist of the design, sale, and construction of single-family and multi-family homes. The company purchases land or obtains an option to purchase land, which, in either case, requires certain site improvements prior to home construction. When available in certain markets, the company also buys finished lots that are ready for home construction. The company has investments with land developers, other homebuilders and financial partners to acquire land positions, to manage its risk profile and to utilize its capital base. The company also acts as the general contractor for the construction of its new home communities.

Chesapeake Energy Corporation

Chesapeake Energy is a holding company. Through its subsidiaries, the company is an independent exploration and production company engaged in the acquisition, exploration and development of properties to produce oil, natural gas and natural gas liquid from underground reservoirs. The company owns a portfolio of onshore U.S. liquids and natural gas assets. The company has positions in the resource plays of the Eagle Ford Shale in South Texas, the stacked pay in the Powder River Basin in Wyoming and the Anadarko Basin in northwestern Oklahoma. The company's natural gas resource plays are the Marcellus Shale in the northern Appalachian Basin in Pennsylvania and the Haynesville/Bossier Shales in northwestern Louisiana.

Community Health Systems Inc.

Community Health Systems is a holding company. Through its subsidiaries, the company operates general acute care hospitals and outpatient facilities. The company provides healthcare services through the hospitals that it owns and operates and affiliated businesses in non-urban and selected urban markets. Services provided through the company's hospitals and affiliated businesses include general acute care, emergency room, general and specialty surgery, critical care, internal medicine, obstetrics, diagnostic, psychiatric and rehabilitation services. The company also provides additional outpatient services at urgent care centers, occupational medicine clinics, imaging centers, cancer centers and ambulatory surgery centers.

Constellium SE Class A

Constellium N.V. designs and manufactures a range of innovative specialty rolled and extruded aluminum products, serving primarily the aerospace, packaging and automotive end-markets. Co. has a strategic footprint of manufacturing facilities located in the United States, Europe and China. Co.'s product portfolio commands higher margins as compared to less differentiated, more commoditized fabricated aluminum products, such as common alloy coils, paintstock, foilstock and soft alloys for construction and distribution. Co. organizes its business around three operating segments: Aerospace & Transportation, Packaging & Automotive Rolled Products, and Automotive Structures & Industry.

Dean Foods Company

Dean Foods is a food and beverage company and a processor and direct-to-store distributor of fluid milk and other dairy and dairy case products. The company manufactures, markets and distributes a branded and private label dairy and dairy case products, including fluid milk, ice cream, cultured dairy products, creamers, ice cream mix and other dairy products to retailers, educational institutions and governmental entities. The company's portfolio includes DairyPure?, and TruMoo? flavored milk brand, along with dairy brands such as Alta Dena ?, Berkeley Farms ?, Country Fresh ?, Dean's ?, Friendly's ?, Lehigh Valley Dairy Farms ?, and more. The company also makes and distributes juices, teas and bottled water.

Delta Air Lines Inc.

Delta Air Lines provides scheduled air transportation for passengers and cargo. The company serves the Transatlantic, Transpacific and Latin America markets directly on the company and through joint ventures with airline partners. Internationally, the company has hubs and market presence in Amsterdam, London-Heathrow, Mexico City, Paris-Charles de Gaulle and Seoul-Incheon. These arrangements are commercial joint ventures that include joint sales and marketing coordination, co-location of airport facilities and other commercial cooperation arrangements. The company has other businesses arising from its airline operations, including providing maintenance and engineering support for its regional aircraft.

Denbury Resources Inc.

Denbury Resources is an independent oil and natural gas company. The company's operations are focused in two main operating areas: the Gulf Coast and Rocky Mountain regions. The company's properties with proved and producing reserves in the Gulf Coast region are situated in Mississippi, Texas, Louisiana and Alabama, and in the Rocky Mountain region are situated in Montana, North Dakota and Wyoming.

DISH Network Corporation Class A

DISH Network is a holding company. Through its subsidiaries, the company operates two business segments: Pay-TV and Wireless. The company provides pay-TV services under: the DISH? brand, which consists of, among other things, Federal Communications Commission licenses authorizing the company to use direct broadcast satellite and Fixed Satellite Service spectrum, the company's owned and leased satellites, and certain other assets utilized in the company's operations; and the Sling? brand, which consists of, among other things, live-linear streaming over-the-top Internet-based domestic, international and Latino video programming services. In addition, the company invests to acquire certain wireless spectrum licenses and related assets.

Expedia Group Inc.

Expedia Group is an online travel company. The company's portfolio of brands includes: Expedia.com?, an online travel brand; Hotels.com?, a global lodging company operating websites with its Hotels.com? Rewards loyalty program; Vrbo?, a global online marketplace with a focus on providing lodging options for families; Egencia?, a corporate travel management company; Hotwire?, an online travel website providing spontaneous travel through its Hot Rate? deals; trivago?, an online hotel metasearch platform; and SilverRail Technologies, Inc., provider of a global rail retail and distribution platform connecting rail carriers and suppliers to both online and offline travel distributors.

Hertz Global Holdings Inc.

Hertz Global Holdings is a holding company. Through its subsidiaries, the company operates its vehicle rental business through the Hertz, Dollar and Thrifty brands in North America, Europe, Latin America, Africa, Asia, Australia, the Caribbean, the Middle East and New Zealand. The company is also a provider of integrated vehicle leasing and fleet management solutions. The company's segments are: U.S. RAC, which operates rental of vehicles, as well as sales of services, in the U.S.; International RAC, which operates rental and leasing of vehicles, as well as sales of services, internationally; and All Other Operations, which provides integrated vehicle leasing and fleet management solutions in the U.S. and Canada.

KB Home

KB Home is a homebuilding company. The company builds a variety of homes designed primarily for first-time and first move-up, as well as second move-up and active adult homebuyers, including attached and detached single-family residential homes, townhomes and condominiums. The company's financial services operations provide various insurance products to its homebuyers in the markets where it builds homes and provide title services in certain of those markets. The company's financial services operations also provide mortgage banking services, including residential consumer mortgage loan originations, to its homebuyers indirectly through KBHS Home Loans, LLC, a joint venture the company formed with Stearns Lending, LLC.

Lennar Corporation Class A

Lennar is a homebuilder in the United States, an originator of residential and commercial mortgage loans, a provider of title insurance and closing services and a developer of multifamily rental properties. The company's homebuilding operations include the construction and sale of single-family attached and detached homes as well as the purchase, development and sale of residential land directly and through unconsolidated entities in which it has investments. The company operates under the Lennar brand name. The company creates and participates in joint ventures that acquire and develop land for its homebuilding operations, for sale to third parties or for use in the ventures' own homebuilding operations.

Manitowoc Company Inc.

Manitowoc is a provider of engineered lifting solutions. The company designs, manufactures and distributes a line of crawler-mounted lattice-boom cranes, which it sells under the Manitowoc brand name. The company also designs and manufactures top-slewing and self-erecting tower cranes, which it sells under the Potain brand name. The company designs and manufactures mobile telescopic cranes, which it sells under the Grove, Shuttlelift and National Crane brand names. The company provides crane product parts and services and crane rebuilding, remanufacturing and training services, which are delivered under the Manitowoc Crane Care brand name. The company's segments are: Americas, Europe and Africa, and Middle East and Asia Pacific.

Masonite International Corp.

Masonite International designs, manufactures and distributes interior and exterior doors for the new construction and repair, renovation and remodeling sectors of the residential and non-residential building construction markets. Co. manufactures a line of interior doors, including residential molded, flush, stile and rail, louver and commercial and architectural doors; door components for internal use and sale to other door manufacturers; and exterior residential steel, fiberglass and wood doors and entry systems. Co.'s portfolio of brands include Masonite®, Marshfield®, Premdor®, Mohawk®, Megantic®, Algoma®, Birchwood Best®, Lemieux®, Door-Stop™, Harring Doors™ and National Hickman™ .

MGM Resorts International

MGM Resorts International is a holding company. Through its subsidiaries, the company owns and operates casino, hotel, and entertainment resorts across the United States and in Macau. The company's segments include: Las Vegas Strip Resorts, which consists of casino resorts such as Bellagio, MGM Grand Las Vegas, Mandalay Bay, The Mirage, Luxor, New York-New York, Excalibur, and Park MGM; Regional Operations, which consists of casino resorts such as MGM Grand Detroit, Beau Rivage, Gold Strike Tunica, Borgata, MGM National Harbor, MGM Springfield, Empire City, and MGM Northfield Park; and MGM China, which owns and operates casino resorts and the related gaming subconcession and land concessions.

Rite Aid Corporation

Rite Aid is a pharmacy retail healthcare company. The company's Retail Pharmacy segment sells brand and generic prescription drugs, as well as an assortment of front-end products including health and beauty aids, personal care products, seasonal merchandise, and a private brand product line. The company's Pharmacy Services segment provides pharmacy benefit management (PBM) options through its EnvisionRxOptions and MedTrak PBMs, respectively. EnvisionRxOptions also provides mail-order and specialty pharmacy services through EnvisionPharmacies; a claims adjudication software platform in Laker Software; and a national Medicare Part D prescription drug plan through its EnvisionRx Plus product offering.

Transocean Ltd.

Travel + Leisure Co.

Wyndham Destinations is a vacation ownership and exchange company. The company provides everyday travelers the opportunity to own, exchange or rent their vacation experience. The company's operations are grouped into two segments: Vacation Ownership, which is a timeshare business with resorts and owners that develops and markets vacation ownership interests (VOIs) to individual consumers, provide consumer financing in connection with the sale of VOIs, and provides property management services at resorts; and Vacation Exchange, which operates the vacation exchange network with members, and has relationships with vacation ownership resorts located in various countries and territories.

Unisys Corporation

Unisys is an information technology company. The company's Services segment provides cloud and infrastructure services, application services and business process outsourcing services. In cloud and infrastructure services, the company assists clients to apply cloud and as-a-service delivery models. In application services, the company develops and manages applications for select industries and provides data analytics. In business process outsourcing services, the company assumes management of processes and functions for clients in target industries. The company's Technology segment designs and develops software and provides hardware and other related products including Unisys ClearPath Forward? and Unisys Stealth?.

United States Steel Corporation

United States Steel is a steel producer of flat-rolled and tubular products with production operations in the United States and Europe. The company is also engaged in railroad services and real estate operations. The company's segments are: North American Flat-Rolled, which produces slabs, strip mill plates, sheets and tin mill products; U. S. Steel Europe, which produces and sells slabs, strip mill plate, sheet, tin mill products and spiral welded pipe, as well as heating radiators and refractory ceramic materials; and Tubular Products, which produces and sells electric resistance welded steel casing and tubing (known as oil country tubular goods), and standard and line pipe and mechanical tubing.

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Valens Research
Valens Research

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
  • Stock analyst recommendations are not grounded in disciplined financial analysis
  • Credit agencies have been set up to grossly fail in their responsibilities to investors and the public markets
  • Utter lack of willingness of major research firms to employ the the most advanced forensic analysis available

We sought to provide investors and company analysts with a source of information that changed all that.
Many years later, our business model remains because little has changed on Wall Street.

  • Corporate credit ratings remain years behind the fundamental underpinnings of company performance
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  • The governing accounting bodies have created more leeway for mis-estimates and mis-classifications as financials have become unwieldy and overwhelming

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