Report
Valens Research

Valens Equity Insights and Inflections - 2021 08 10

The market is expecting STZ to see the fundamental momentum the company has built the
past decade between a shift to a premiumization strategy and the move into beer to reveres
due to the pandemic.

The market expects the company, which has seen UAFRS-based (Uniform) ROA improve from 10% levels to almost 30% to decline to the low end of levels since its Grupo Modelo
acquisition, not recognizing the company's strong business model that is unlikely to be
disrupted.

Constellation's strong product mix and focus on moving up market has been a secular boost for the business, and in the midst of the pandemic, its products' lower exposure to “away from home” consumption versus peers, and its benefit from the trade up phenomenon as people drink at home, both give it strong economic moats that are going to be more resilient than the market recognizes.

Furthermore, management alignment, driven by management's material stakes in the business and their growth-, margin-, and asset efficiency-focused metrics, aligns management to maintain returns while growing the business.

Finally, management's confidence about innovation and execution across their beer and wine offerings, their growth guidance, and when talking about the recovery in on-premise (bar and restaurant) sales are powering a more positive outlook.

Considering pessimistic market expectations, the company's strong strategy and economic
moats, and positive fundamental momentum, there is significant equity upside for STZ.

PEP Q2 2021 Embedded Expectations Analysis – Market expectations are for Uniform ROA to rebound, but management may have concerns about growth, inflation, and margins

WBA Q3 2021 Embedded Expectations Analysis – Market expectations are for Uniform ROA to rebound, but management may have concerns about relationships, sales, and guidance

ADBE Q2 2021 Embedded Expectations Analysis – Market expectations are for record-high Uniform ROA, but management may have concerns about demand, digital transformation, and revenue

STZ, ADBE, PEP, WBA, ACM, ANSS, AZO, DAL, EOG, FDX, HLT, MRVL, MSM, MU, OKTA, PATH, RAD, RSG, SPG, SYY, TEN
Underlyings
Adobe Inc.

Adobe is a software company. The company provides a line of products and services used for creating, managing, delivering, measuring, optimizing, engaging and transacting with content across personal computers, devices and media. The company's segments are: Digital Media, which provides products, services and solutions that enable individuals, teams and enterprises to create, publish and promote their content; Digital Experience, which provides a platform and set of applications and services through Adobe Experience Cloud; and Publishing, which contains products and services that address market opportunities including eLearning solutions, web conferencing, web application development and printing.

AECOM

AECOM designs, builds, finances and operates infrastructure assets for governments, businesses and organizations. The company provides: planning, consulting, architectural and engineering design services to commercial and government clients in transportation, facilities, environmental, energy, water and government markets; construction services, including building construction and energy, infrastructure and industrial construction; as well as program and facilities management and maintenance, training, logistics, consulting, technical assistance, and systems integration and information technology services, for agencies of the United States government and for other national governments.

ANSYS Inc.

ANSYS develops and markets engineering simulation software and services used by engineers, designers, researchers and students across a spectrum of industries and academia, including aerospace and defense, automotive, electronics, semiconductors, energy, materials and chemical processing, turbomachinery, consumer products, healthcare, and sports. The company focuses on the development of solutions that enable users to analyze designs directly on the desktop, providing a platform for product development, from design concept to final-stage testing and validation. The company's product portfolio include ANSYS Workbench?, a framework upon which the company's suite of engineering simulation technologies is built.

AutoZone Inc.

AutoZone is a retailer and a distributor of automotive replacement parts and accessories. The company operates stores in the United States, including Puerto Rico and Saint Thomas, Mexico, and Brazil. Each store carries a product line for cars, sport utility vehicles, vans and light trucks, including new and remanufactured automotive hard parts, maintenance items, accessories and non-automotive products. In addition, the company has a commercial sales program that provides commercial credit and delivery of parts and other products to local, regional and national repair garages, dealers, service stations and public sector accounts. The company also sells the ALLDATA brand automotive diagnostic and repair software.

Constellation Brands Inc. Class A

Constellation Brands is an international beverage alcohol company. The company is a producer and marketer of beer, wine and spirits with operations in the U.S., Mexico, New Zealand, Italy and Canada. The company has two segments: Beer, in which the company is engaged in the U.S. beer market that includes the imported, craft, domestic super premium, and alternative beverage alcohol categories and it has the right to import, market and sell these Mexican beer brands in the U.S.; and Wine and Spirits, in which its wine portfolio is supported by grapes purchased from independent growers, primarily in the U.S., New Zealand and Chile, and vineyard holdings in the U.S., New Zealand and Italy.

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.

EOG Resources Inc.

EOG Resources, together with its subsidiaries, explores for, develops, produces and markets crude oil, natural gas liquids and natural gas primarily in main producing basins in the United States, The Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, The People's Republic of China, Canada and, from time to time, select other international areas.

FedEx Corporation

FedEx provides transportation, e-commerce and business services through companies under the FedEx brand. These companies are included in the following segments: Federal Express Corporation, including TNT Express B.V., is an express transportation company; FedEx Ground Package System, Inc., which is a provider of small-package ground delivery services; FedEx Freight Corporation, which is a provider of less-than-truckload freight services; and FedEx Corporate Services, Inc., which provides sales, marketing, information technology, communications, customer service, technical support, billing and collections services, and certain back-office functions.

Hilton Worldwide Holdings Inc

Hilton Worldwide Holdings is a holding company. Through its subsidiaries, the company is engaged in hospitality with operations organized in two operating segments: management and franchise, which includes all of the hotels the company manages for third-party owners, as well as all franchised hotels operated or managed by someone other than the company; and Ownership, which includes hotels that the company owned or leased or that are owned or leased by entities in which the company owns a noncontrolling financial interest. Hilton Honors is the company's guest loyalty program that rewards guests with points for each stay at nearly all of its properties, which are then redeemable for free nights and other goods and services.

Marvell Technology Group Ltd.

Marvell Technology Group is a semiconductor provider of application-specific products. The company is focused on the development of System-on-a-Chip devices, utilizing its technology portfolio of intellectual property in the areas of analog, mixed-signal, digital signal processing, and embedded and standalone integrated circuits. The company develops integrated hardware platforms along with software that incorporates digital computing technologies. In storage, the company is engaged in fibre channel products and data storage controller solutions spanning cloud, enterprise, edge and personal computing markets. The company's networking products include ethernet solutions, embedded processors and WiFi connectivity solutions.

Micron Technology Inc.

Micron Technology provides memory and storage solutions. The company's portfolio of memory and storage technologies include Dynamic Random Access Memory, Not And, 3D XPoint? memory, and Not Or. The company's segments are: Compute and Networking Business, which includes memory products sold into client, cloud server, enterprise, graphics, and networking markets; Mobile Business, which includes memory products sold into smartphone and other mobile-device markets; Storage Business, which includes Solid-State Drives and component-level solutions sold into enterprise and cloud, client, and consumer storage markets; and Embedded Business, which includes memory and storage products.

MSC Industrial Direct Co. Inc. Class A

MSC Industrial Direct Co. is a distributor of metalworking and maintenance, repair and operations (MRO) products and services. The company provides stock-keeping units through its eCommerce channels, including its website, mscdirect.com; its inventory management solutions; catalogs and brochures; and call-centers and branches. The company's range of MRO products includes cutting tools, measuring instruments, tooling components, metalworking products, fasteners, flat stock, raw materials, abrasives, machinery hand and power tools, safety and janitorial supplies, plumbing supplies, materials handling products, power transmission components, and electrical supplies.

Okta Inc. Class A

Okta is an independent identity management platform for the enterprise. The Okta Identity Cloud is the company's platform that enables its customers to connect people to technology, anywhere, anytime and from any device. The Okta Identity Cloud consists of a suite of products to manage and secure identities. Products used for workforce identity are consumed through web and mobile interfaces, and provide ways for Information Technology organizations to manage identities for their employees, contractors and partners. The company's products include: Universal Directory; Single Sign-On; Adaptive Multi-Factor Authentication; Lifecycle Management; and Application Programming Interface Access Management.

PepsiCo Inc.

PepsiCo is a food and beverage company. The company's segments include: Frito-Lay North America, which includes food and snack businesses in the United States and Canada; Quaker Foods North America, which includes cereal, rice, pasta and other food businesses in the United States and Canada; PepsiCo Beverages North America, which includes beverage businesses in the United States and Canada; Latin America, which includes beverage, food and snack businesses in Latin America; Europe, which includes beverage, food and snack businesses in Europe; and Africa, Middle East and South Asia, which includes beverage, food and snack businesses in Africa, the Middle East and South Asia.

Republic Services Inc.

Republic Services is a provider of non-hazardous solid waste collection, transfer, disposal, recycling, and environmental services in the United States. The company operates through collection operations, transfer stations, active landfills, recycling processing centers, treatment, recovery and disposal facilities, salt water disposal wells, and deep injection wells. In addition, the company is engaged in landfill gas-to-energy and renewable energy projects and had post-closure responsibility for closed landfills. The company's operations primarily consist of providing collection, transfer and disposal of non-hazardous solid waste, recovering and recycling of certain materials, and environmental services.

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.

Simon Property Group Inc.

Simon Property Group operates as a self-administered and self-managed real estate investment trust. Simon Property Group, L.P. is the company's majority-owned Delaware partnership subsidiary that owns all of its real estate properties and other assets. The company owns, develops and manages shopping, dining, entertainment and mixed-use destinations, which consist primarily of malls, Premium Outlets?, and The Mills? in United States as well as internationally including Puerto Rico, Asia, Europe and Canada. The company also owned equity stake in Klepierre SA, a Paris-based real estate company, which owns, or has an interest in, shopping centers in Europe.

Sysco Corporation

Sysco, acting through its subsidiaries and divisions, is a distributor of food and related products primarily to the foodservice or food-away-from-home industry. The company has three reportable segments: United States Foodservice Operations, which primarily include United States Broadline operations, which distribute a line of food products, including custom-cut meat, seafood, specialty produce, specialty imports and a variety of non-food products; International Foodservice Operations, which include operations in the Americas and Europe, which distribute a line of food products and a variety of non-food products; and SYGMA, which consists of its United States customized distribution subsidiary.

Tenneco Inc. Class A

Tenneco designs, manufactures and sells products and services for light vehicle, commercial truck, off-highway, industrial and aftermarket customers. As a parts supplier, the company produces individual component parts for vehicles as well as groups of components that are combined as modules or systems within vehicles. These parts, modules, and systems are sold to the light vehicle and commercial truck manufacturers as well as aftermarket customers, including independent warehouse distributors, distributors, engine rebuilders, retail parts stores, mass merchants, and service chains. The company operates in four segments, consisting of the following: Clean Air, Powertrain, Motorparts, and Ride Performance.

Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc

Walgreens Boots Alliance is a holding company. Through its subsidiaries, the company is engaged in retail and wholesale pharmacy. The company's operations are organized into three divisions, which are also its reportable segments: Retail Pharmacy USA; Retail Pharmacy International; and Pharmaceutical Wholesale. The Retail Pharmacy USA division has pharmacy-led health and beauty retail offerings. The Retail Pharmacy International division has pharmacy-led health and beauty retail businesses. The Pharmaceutical Wholesale division, which mainly operates under the Alliance Healthcare brand, supplies medicines, other healthcare products and related services to pharmacies, doctors, health centers and hospitals.

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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
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Many years later, our business model remains because little has changed on Wall Street.

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