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Valens Research

Valens Research - UAFRS vs As Reported Monthly Newsletter - 2019 02 28

Highlighted UAFRS vs As-Reportedâ„¢ Dislocations

Hertz Global Holdings, Inc. (HTZ) – Cash Flow From Operations Distortion
Hertz's Uniform Cash from Ops was $4.3bn in 2017, not $2.4bn as-reported

Amazon.com, Inc. (AMZN) – Stock Option Expense Distortion et al
Amazon's Uniform Earnings are $6.5bn, not $10.1bn as-reported

Adtalem Global Education Inc. (ATGE) – Operating Lease Distortion et al
Adtalem's Uniform Earnings are $155mn, not $34mn as-reported

CoStar Group, Inc. (CSGP) – Excess Cash Distortion et al
CoStar Group's Uniform Net Assets are $505mn, not $2.9bn as-reported

Amgen, Inc. (AMGN) – R&D Expense Distortion et al
Amgen's Uniform ROA is 24%, not 8% as reported

General Mills, Inc. (GIS) – Goodwill Distortion et al
General Mills' Uniform Net Assets are $9.6bn, not $30.6bn as-reported
Underlyings
Adtalem Global Education Inc.

Adtalem Global Education provides educational services. The company's institutions and companies provide an array of programs across medical and healthcare, financial services and business and law. The company's segments include: Medical and Healthcare, which includes Chamberlain University and Medical and Veterinary Schools that provide educational programs in nursing and health professions, respectively; Financial Services, which includes Becker Professional Education that provides education serving the accounting and finance professions; and Business and Law, which includes Adtalem Education of Brazil institution that focuses in business, engineering, healthcare, law, management, medical and technology.

Amazon.com Inc.

Amazon.com serves consumers through its online and physical stores. The company also manufactures and sells electronic devices, including Kindle, Fire tablet, Fire TV, Echo, and Ring, and the company develops and produces media content. The company operates customer service centers and provides programs that enable sellers to grow their businesses, sell their products in its stores, and fulfill orders through the company The company serves developers and enterprises of various sizes, including start-ups, government agencies, and academic institutions, through its Amazon Web Services segment, which provides a set of global compute, storage, database, and other service offerings. The company also provides services, such as advertising.

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.

COSTAR GROUP INC

CoStar Group provides information, analytics and online marketplace services to the commercial real estate and related business community through its database of commercial real estate information covering the U.S., the U.K., and parts of Canada, Spain, Germany and France. The company provides online marketplaces for commercial real estate, apartment rentals, lands for sale and businesses for sale. The company operates within two operating segments, North America and International, and its services are distributed to its clients under subscription-based license agreements that renew automatically, a majority of which have a term of one year.

General Mills Inc.

General Mills manufactures and markets branded consumer foods. The company's segments are: North America Retail, which provides cereals, refrigerated yogurt, soup, meal kits, dessert and baking mixes, frozen pizza and pizza snacks, grain, fruit and savory snacks, and organic products, among others; Convenience Stores and Foodservice, which provides snacks, yogurt, frozen meals and frozen dough products, and baking mixes, among others; Europe and Australia, which includes retail and foodservice businesses in the Europe and Australia region; Asia and Latin America, which consists of retail and foodservice businesses in the Asia and South America regions; and Pets, which includes pet food products.

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.

Provider
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
  • Stock analysts continue to make recommendations with deeply inherent biases
  • Research firms have failed to break down the walls between credit, equity, and macroeconomic research
  • The governing accounting bodies have created more leeway for mis-estimates and mis-classifications as financials have become unwieldy and overwhelming

The integrity of Valens Research is founded in our disciplined processes and analytics. No “star” analysts. No corporate advisory relationships. No-nonsense opinions and recommendations.

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