Report
Valens Research

Valens Equity Insights and Inflections - 2022 05 03

Akamai Technologies, Inc. (AKAM) has been rapidly growing its high-margin cybersecurity business. Uniform Accounting highlights the company's profitability potential as it grows these businesses, a trend the market seems to be missing, indicating equity upside is warranted.

While Akamai's legacy CDN business is viewed by the market as a saturated utility, the
company has been pivoting towards higher margin businesses like cybersecurity and Edge Computing, giving it the ability to reinvigorate growth and returns. As the cybersecurity business continues growing towards overtaking the CDN business, Uniform ROA should start accelerating, which the market is not pricing in at all.

Akamai's management is aligned to focus on revenue, non-GAAP operating income, and non-GAAP EPS, which will lead management to profitably grow the business. These metrics should drive strong ROA performance.

Management confidence in the Q4 earnings call about their cybersecurity and Edge Computing businesses support ROA expansion and continued growth.

HCA (HCA) is being removed from the Conviction Long List. The company is struggling
with staffing and wage pressures, so we are closing up 57%.

BFAM Q4 2021 Embedded Expectations Analysis – Market expectations are for Uniform ROA to expand, but management may have concerns about growth, pandemic impacts, and labor pressures

LW Q3 2022 Embedded Expectations Analysis – Market expectations are for Uniform ROA to improve, but management may have concerns about pricing, labor constraints, and growth

STOR Q4 2021 Embedded Expectations Analysis – Market expectations are for Uniform ROA to remain stable, but management may have concerns about growth opportunities, financing activities, and portfolio initiatives

AKAM, BFAM, LW, STOR, AEE, ALLE, BWA, MU, NRG, SCI, SYNH
Underlyings
Akamai Technologies Inc.

Akamai Technologies provides solutions for securing, delivering and optimizing content and business applications over the Internet. The company provides online solutions for the security, delivery and acceleration of websites and applications. The company's solutions include: cloud security solutions; enterprise security solutions; web and mobile performance solutions; media delivery solutions; carrier solutions; and services and support solutions, which provides an array of service and support offerings that are designed to assist its customers with integrating, configuring, optimizing and managing its main offerings.

Allegion PLC

Ameren Corporation

Ameren is a public utility holding company. Through its subsidiary, Union Electric Company, the company operates a rate-regulated electric generation, transmission, and distribution business and a rate-regulated natural gas distribution business in Missouri. Through its subsidiary, Ameren Illinois Company, the company operates rate-regulated electric transmission, electric distribution, and natural gas distribution businesses in Illinois. Through its Ameren Transmission Company of Illinois subsidiary, the company operates a Federal Energy Regulatory Commission rate-regulated electric transmission business. The company also has other subsidiaries that conduct other activities, such as providing shared services.

BorgWarner Inc.

BorgWarner is a holding company. Through its subsidiaries, the company is a global product provider in technology solutions for combustion, hybrid and electric vehicles. The company manufactures and sells these products worldwide, primarily to original equipment manufacturers of light vehicles (passenger cars, sport-utility vehicles, vans and light trucks). The company's segments are: Engine, which provides turbochargers, eBoosters, timing systems, emissions systems, thermal systems, gasoline ignition technology, cabin heaters, battery heaters and battery charging; and Drivetrain, which provides rotating electrical components, power electronics, clutching systems, control modules and all-wheel drive systems.

Bright Horizons Family Solutions Inc.

Bright Horizons Family Solutions is a provider of child care and early education, back-up care and educational advisory services. The company provides services under contracts with employers, who provide child care, as well as other dependent care solutions and educational advisory services. The company's service offerings include full-service center-based child care and early education, back-up care, and educational advisory services. The company operates child care and early education centers across a range of customer industries with the capacity to serve children and their families in the U.S., as well as in the U.K., the Netherlands, Canada and India.

Lamb Weston Holdings Inc.

Lamb Weston Holdings is a producer, distributor, and marketer of frozen potato products. French fries represent the majority of the company's frozen potato product portfolio. The company's segments include: Global, which includes branded and private label frozen potato products sold in North America and international markets; Foodservice, which includes branded and private label frozen potato products sold throughout the U.S. and Canada; Retail, which includes consumer facing retail branded and private label frozen potato products sold primarily to grocery, mass merchants, club, and specialty retailers; and Other, which includes the company's vegetable and dairy businesses.

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.

NRG Energy Inc.

NRG Energy is an energy company. The company produces and sells electricity and related products and services in primary power markets in the United States and Canada. The company sells energy, services, and sustainable products and services directly to retail customers under the names NRG, Reliant, Green Mountain Energy, Stream and XOOM Energy, as well as other brand names owned by the company The company's segments are: Retail, which includes retail energy, portable solar and battery products home services, and a variety of bundled products; and Generation, which includes plant operations, commercial operations, development, engineering and construction, asset management, energy services and other related functions.

Service Corporation International

Service Corporation International provides deathcare products and services. The company's funeral service and cemetery operations consist of funeral service locations, cemeteries, funeral service/cemetery combination locations, crematoria, and other related businesses. Funeral service locations provide services related to funerals and cremations, including the use of funeral home facilities and motor vehicles, arranging and directing services, removal, preparation, embalming, cremations, memorialization, and catering. The company's cemeteries provide cemetery property interment rights, such as developed lots, lawn crypts, mausoleum spaces, niches, and other cremation memorialization and interment options.

STORE Capital Corporation

Store Capital is an internally managed net-lease real estate investment trust, that is engaged in the acquisition, investment and management of Single Tenant Operational Real Estate properties. The company's customers operate across a variety of industries within the service, retail and manufacturing sectors of the U.S. economy, with restaurants, early childhood education centers, furniture stores, health clubs and movie theaters representing the main industries in the company's portfolio. From time to time, the company also provides mortgage financing to its customers.

Syneos Health Inc. Class A

Syneos Health is a holding company. Through its subsidiaries, the company is a biopharmaceutical solutions organization providing a suite of clinical and commercial services to customers in the biopharmaceutical, biotechnology, and medical device industries. The company has two reportable segments: Clinical Solutions, which provides a variety of clinical development services spanning Phase I to Phase IV, including global studies, unbundled service offerings, and Real World Evidence studies; and Commercial Solutions, which provides customers with a range of commercialization services, including field teams and medication adherence services, communications solutions, and consulting services.

Provider
Valens Research
Valens Research

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  • GAAP and IFRS have failed to provide rules for reliable financial statement reporting
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Many years later, our business model remains because little has changed on Wall Street.

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