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Valens Research

Valens Equity Insights and Inflections - 2020 01 21

RBC currently trades below corporate averages relative to UAFRS-based (Uniform) Earnings, with a 14.5x Uniform P/E. At these levels, the market is pricing in expectations for Uniform ROA to decline from 14% in 2018 to 11% in 2023, accompanied by immaterial Uniform Asset growth going forward. However, analysts have bullish expectations, projecting Uniform ROA to improve to 15% through 2020, accompanied by 9% Uniform Asset shrinkage. Meanwhile, management is confident about their growth potential, leverage levels, and the progress of restructuring efforts. Current valuations appear to be pricing in overly bearish expectations for RBC, and should they see profitability remain stable or meet analyst expectations, as positive management sentiment would suggest, material upside would be warranted.
SERV Q3 2019 Embedded Expectations Analysis – Market expectations are for Uniform ROA improvement, but management appears concerned about damage claims, termite renewals, and their performance
TJX Q3 2020 Embedded Expectations Analysis – Market expectations are for Uniform ROA expansion, but management may be concerned about pricing, customer traffic, and inventory levels
VNO Q3 2019 Embedded Expectations Analysis – Market expectations are for Uniform ROA recovery, but management appears concerned about the New York market, their PENN2 development, and demand
RBC, SERV, TJX, VNO, AIV, CXO, FLT, GRUB, IIVI, KHC, LFUS, MSCI, NTCT, NXPI, PFE, SSNC, TDG
Underlyings
Apartment Investment & Management Co Class A

Apartment Investment and Management is a self-administered and self-managed real estate investment trust, focused on the ownership, management, redevelopment and limited development of apartment communities located in the United States. The company, through its wholly-owned subsidiaries, AIMCO-GP, Inc. and AIMCO-LP Trust, owns a majority of the ownership interests in AIMCO Properties, L.P. (the Aimco Operating Partnership). The company conducts all of its business and owns all of its assets through the Aimco Operating Partnership. The company owns and operates a portfolio of apartment communities in several states and the District of Columbia.

Concho Resources Inc.

Concho Resources is an independent oil and natural gas company engaged in the acquisition, development, exploration and production of oil and natural gas properties. The company's operations are primarily focused in the Permian Basin of West Texas and Southeast New Mexico.

FLEETCOR Technologies Inc.

FleetCor Technologies is provider of commercial payment solutions. The company's five primary product lines are Fuel, which provides fuel payment solutions to businesses and government entities who operate vehicle fleets, as well as to main oil companies;Lodging, which provides lodging payment solutions to employees who travel overnight for work purposes; Tolls, which provides an electronic toll and parking payments product; Corporate Payments, which include virtual cards, purchasing cards, travel and entertainment cards; and Gift, which provides gift card product management and processing services. Additionally, the company provides other payment products including fleet maintenance and employee benefits.

GRUBHUB INC

Grubhub and its wholly-owned subsidiaries provide an online and mobile platform for restaurant pick-up and delivery orders. The company connects diners and restaurants through restaurant technology and platforms. Diners enter their delivery address or use geo-location within the mobile applications and the company displays the menus and other relevant information for restaurants in its network. Orders may be placed directly online, via mobile applications or over the phone. The company primarily charges the restaurant a per order commission that is fee based. In several markets, the company also provides delivery services to restaurants on its platform that do not have their own delivery operations.

II-VI Incorporated

II-VI develops, manufactures, and markets engineered materials, optoelectronic components, and devices for a range of applications. The company has three segments: II-VI Laser Solutions, which designs, manufactures, and markets optical and electro-optical components and materials sold under the II-VI Infrared brand name; II-VI Photonics, which manufactures crystal materials, optics, microchip lasers, and optoelectronic modules for use in optical communication networks and other consumer applications; and II-VI Performance Products, which designs, manufactures, and markets infrared optical components and optical assemblies for aerospace and defense, medical and commercial laser imaging applications.

Kraft Heinz Company

Kraft Heinz is a food and beverage company. The company manufactures and markets food and beverage products, including condiments and sauces, cheese and dairy, meals, meats, refreshment beverages, coffee, and other grocery products throughout the world. The company has three reportable segments defined by geographic region: United States, Canada, and Europe, Middle East, and Africa. The company's remaining businesses are combined and disclosed as Rest of World. Rest of World comprises two operating segments: Latin America and Asia Pacific.

Littelfuse Inc.

Littelfuse is a manufacturer of technologies in circuit protection, power control and sensing. The company has three segments: Electronics, which provides fuses and fuse accessories, positive temperature coefficient resettable fuses, polymer electrostatic discharge suppressors, varistors, and gas discharge tubes; Automotive, which consists of circuit protection, power control and sensing technologies for original equipment manufacturers, Tier-I suppliers and parts distributors in the passenger car, agricultural, construction and other commercial vehicle industries; and Industrial, which includes power fuses, protection relays and controls and other circuit protection products.

MSCI Inc. Class A

MSCI is a provider of decision support tools and services for the global investment community. The company's segments are: Index, in which Clients use the company's indexes in various areas of the investment process, including index-linked product creation; Analytics, which provides risk management, performance attribution and portfolio management content, applications and services; Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG), which helps institutional investors understand how ESG considerations can impact the long-term risk and reward of their portfolio and individual security-level investments; and Real Estate, which includes research, reporting, market data and benchmarking offerings.

NetScout Systems Inc.

NetScout Systems provides service assurance and security solutions that are used by customers to assure their digital business services against disruption. Using its Adaptive Service Intelligence technology, the company's solutions convert network traffic data, often referred to as wire data, into metadata, or smart data, the company's offerings can help customers identify and troubleshoot network and application performance issues, defend their networks from distributed denial of service attacks, and find and isolate network threats. The company's products are categorized as service assurance solutions for network and application performance, and business intelligence analytics and cybersecurity solutions.

NXP Semiconductors NV

NXP Semiconductors is a holding company. Through its subsidiaries, Co. is engaged as a global semiconductor company and a long-standing supplier in the industry. Co. provides High-Performance Mixed-Signal and Standard Product solutions. Co.'s product solutions are used in automotive, identification, wireless infrastructure, lighting, industrial, mobile, consumer and computing applications. Co. engages with original equipment manufacturers (OEM) and sell products in all major geographic regions.

Pfizer Inc.

Pfizer is a research-based biopharmaceutical company. The company is engaged in discovering, developing, manufacturing and distributing of healthcare products, including medicines and vaccines. The company manages its commercial operations through three businesses: Pfizer Biopharmaceuticals Group, which includes Oncology, Inflammation and Immunology, Rare Disease, Hospital, Vaccines and Internal Medicine business units, as well as a hospital business unit; Upjohn, which includes the company's solid oral dose brands such as Lyrica, Lipitor, Norvasc, Celebrex, Viagra, and certain generic medicines; and Consumer Healthcare, which is an over-the-counter medicines business.

Regal Beloit Corp

Regal Beloit is a manufacturer of electric motors, electrical motion controls, power generation and power transmission products. The company is comprised of four operating segments: Commercial Systems, which produces AC and DC motors, electronic variable speed controls, fans, and blowers for commercial applications; Industrial Systems, which produces motors, generators, alternators and switchgear for industrial applications, along with aftermarket parts and kits to support such products; Climate Solutions, which produces small motors, electronic variable speed controls and air moving solutions; and Power Transmission Solutions, which produces, sells and services belt and chain drives.

SS&C Technologies Holdings Inc.

SS&C Technologies Holdings is a holding company. Through its subsidiaries, the company is a provider of software products and software-enabled services that allow financial services providers to automate business processes and manage their information processing requirements. The company provides its solutions to clients principally within the institutional asset and wealth management, alternative investment management, financial advisory and financial institutions vertical markets. In addition, the company's clients include commercial lenders, real estate investment trusts, corporate treasury groups, insurance and pension funds, municipal finance groups and real estate property managers.

Terminix Global Holdings Inc

ServiceMaster Global Holdings is a holding company. Through its subsidiaries, the company provides services to residential and commercial customers in the termite, pest control, cleaning and restoration markets, operating through a network of company-owned locations and franchise and license agreements. The company's portfolio of brands includes Terminix (residential termite and pest control), Terminix Commercial (commercial termite and pest control), Copesan (commercial national accounts pest management), ServiceMaster Restore (restoration), ServiceMaster Clean (commercial cleaning), Merry Maids (residential cleaning), Furniture Medic (cabinet and furniture repair) and AmeriSpec (home inspections).

TJX Companies Inc

TJX Companies is an off-price apparel and home fashions retailer. The company's segments comprised of: Marmaxx, which sells family apparel (including footwear and accessories), home fashions (including home basics, decorative accessories and giftware) and other merchandise; HomeGoods, which provides a range of home fashions, including home fashions, including furniture, rugs, lighting, soft home, decorative accessories, tabletop and cookware as well as pet, kids and gourmet food departments; TJX Canada, which operates the Winners, HomeSense and Marshalls chains in Canada; and TJX International, which operates the T.K. Maxx and HomeSense chains in Europe and the T.K. Maxx chain in Australia.

TransDigm Group Incorporated

TransDigm Group is a holding company. Through its subsidiaries, the company designs, produces and supplies aircraft components for use on commercial and military aircraft. The company's segments are: Power and Control, which develops, produces and markets systems and components that provide power to or control power of the aircraft utilizing electronic, fluid, power and mechanical motion control technologies; Airframe, which develops, produces and markets systems and components that are used in non-power airframe applications utilizing airframe and cabin structure technologies; and Non-aviation, which develops, produces and markets products for non-aviation markets.

Vornado Realty Trust

Vornado Realty Trust is a real estate investment trust and conducts its business through, and substantially all of its interests in properties are held by, Vornado Realty L.P. (the Operating Partnership). The company is the sole general partner of the Operating Partnership. The company owns and operates office and retail properties with a concentration in the New York City metropolitan area. In addition, the company has interest in Alexander's, Inc., which owns properties in the New York metropolitan area, as well as interests in other real estate and related investments.

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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
  • 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

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