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Valens Research

Valens Equity Insights and Inflections - 2018 08 08

FB is currently trading at a 17.6x UAFRS-based (Uniform) P/E, which is near corporate and historical averages. At these levels, the market is pricing in expectations for declining Uniform ROA, from 65% in 2017 to 16% in 2022, accompanied by 40% Uniform Asset growth. However, analysts have less bearish expectations, projecting Uniform ROA to only fade to 42% levels by 2019, accompanied by 51% Uniform Asset growth. Moreover, Valens' qualitative analysis of the firm's Q2 2018 earnings call highlights that management is confident about their new products and ad sales. Additionally, analyst estimates have grown consistently over the last year. Given growing analyst and management confidence surrounding the firm's fundamentals, current market expectations are too bearish, and equity upside remains warranted.

ABC Q2 2018 Embedded Expectations Analysis – Market expectations are for declines in Uniform ROA, but management is confident about recent acquisitions, core business outperformance, and customer renewals

KBH Q2 2018 Embedded Expectations Analysis – Market expectations are for Uniform ROA to slightly compress, however, management is confident about their new app and increasing net orders

SEDG Fundamental Embedded Expectations Analysis – Market expectations are for Uniform ROA to fade, driven by increased competition and recent tariffs

ALXN, BWA, CBS, CMCM, CVS, DISH, ESRX, GOOGL, HCA, IEP, K, KR, LEE, LXFT, PBH, POST, SBGI, SQ
Underlyings
Alexion Pharmaceuticals Inc.

Alexion Pharmaceuticals is a biopharmaceutical company serving patients and families affected by rare diseases through the discovery, development and commercialization of therapies. The company has developed and commercialized two complement inhibitors to treat patients with paroxysmal nocturnal hemoglobinuria and atypical hemolytic uremic syndrome, as well as the complement inhibitor to treat anti-acetylcholine receptor antibody-positive generalized myasthenia gravis and neuromyelitis optica spectrum disorder in patients who are anti-aquaporin-4 antibody positive. In addition, the company has two enzyme replacement therapies for metabolic disorders, hypophosphatasia and lysosomal acid lipase deficiency.

Alphabet Inc. Class A

Alphabet is a holding company. Through its subsidiaries, the company is engaged in a collection of businesses, which its primary business is Google. The company reports all non-Google businesses collectively as Other Bets. Google's main products and platforms are Android, Chrome, Gmail, Google Drive, Google Maps, Google Play, Search, and YouTube. The company also provides advertisers with tools that help them attribute and measure their advertising campaigns. In addition, Other Bets includes Access, Calico, CapitalG, GV, Verily, Waymo, and X, among others. Other Bets primarily engages in the sales of internet and TV services through Access as well as licensing and research and development services through Verily.

AmerisourceBergen Corporation

AmerisourceBergen is a pharmaceutical sourcing and distribution services company. The company's Pharmaceutical Distribution Services reportable segment provides pharmaceutical distribution and additional services to physicians who focus on a variety of disease states, especially oncology, and to other healthcare providers, including hospitals and dialysis clinics. Additionally, this segment provides data analytics, outcomes research, and additional services for biotechnology and pharmaceutical manufacturers. This segment also provides pharmacy management, staffing and additional consulting services, and supply management software to a variety of retail and institutional healthcare providers.

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.

Cheetah Mobile Inc. ADR Class A

CVS Health Corporation

CVS Health is a health company. The company's segments are: Pharmacy Services, which provides a range of pharmacy benefit management solutions, including plan design offerings and administration, formulary management, and retail pharmacy network management services; Retail/Long-Term Care (LTC), which sells prescription drugs and general merchandise, including over-the-counter drugs, provides health care services through its MinuteClinic? walk-in medical clinics and conducts LTC pharmacy operations; and Health Care Benefits, which provides a range of voluntary and consumer-directed health insurance products and related services, including medical, pharmacy, dental and behavioral health plans.

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.

Express Scripts Holding Company

Express Scripts Holding is a pharmacy benefit management (PBM) company. The company has two reportable segments: PBM, which consists of clinical solutions, Express Scripts SafeGuardRx

Facebook Inc. Class A

Facebook is building and engaging products that enable people to connect and share with friends and family through mobile devices, personal computers, virtual reality headsets, and in-home devices. The company's products include: Facebook, which enables people to connect, share, discover, and communicate with each other on mobile devices and personal computers; Instagram, which is a place where people can express themselves through photos, videos, and private messaging, and explore their interests in businesses, creators and communities; Messenger and WhatsApp, which are messaging applications; and Oculus, which connects people through its Oculus virtual reality products.

HCA Healthcare Inc

HCA Healthcare is a holding company. Through its subsidiaries, partnerships and joint ventures, the company owns and operates hospitals and related health care entities. Most of the company's general, acute care hospitals provide medical and surgical services, including inpatient care, intensive care, cardiac care, diagnostic services and emergency services. The general, acute care hospitals also provide outpatient services such as outpatient surgery, laboratory, radiology, respiratory therapy, cardiology and physical therapy. The company's psychiatric hospitals provide therapeutic programs including child, adolescent and adult psychiatric care, adolescent and adult alcohol and drug abuse treatment and counseling.

Icahn Enterprises L.P.

Icahn Enterprises is a holding company. Through its subsidiaries, the company is engaged in the following operating businesses: Investment, which is comprised of various private investment funds in which the company has general partner interests and through which the company invests its proprietary capital; Energy, which engages in the petroleum refining and nitrogen fertilizer manufacturing industries through its interests in CVR Refining, LP and CVR Partners, LP; Automotive, which invests in and operates businesses involved in automotive repair and maintenance services; and Food Packaging, which produces cellulosic, fibrous and plastic casings used to prepare and package processed meat products.

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.

Kellogg Company

Kellogg is engaged in the manufacture and marketing of ready-to-eat cereal and convenience foods. The company's principal products are snacks, such as crackers, savory snacks, toaster pastries, cereal bars, granola bars and bites; and convenience foods, such as, ready-to-eat cereals, frozen waffles, veggie foods and noodles. The company's snacks brands are marketed under brands such as Kellogg's, Cheez-It, Pringles, Austin, Parati, and RXBAR. The company's cereals and cereal bars are generally marketed under the Kellogg's name, with some under the Kashi and Bear Naked brands. The company's frozen foods are marketed under the Eggo and Morningstar Farms brands.

Kroger Co.

Kroger operates as a retailer. The company also manufacture and process some of the food for sale in its supermarkets. Supermarkets are operated under one of the following formats: combination food and drug stores (combo stores); multi-department stores; marketplace stores; or price impact warehouses. The combo stores provide food and organic sections, pharmacies, general merchandise, pet centers and perishables such as seafood and organic produce. Marketplace provide grocery, pharmacy and health and beauty care departments as well as perishable offering and general merchandise area that includes apparel, home goods and toys.

Lee Enterprises Incorporated

Lee Enterprises is a provider of local news and information, and a platform for advertising, in the markets it serves. The company's products provide print and digital editions, and its content and advertising is available through its websites and mobile apps. The company provides marketing services, mainly through its digital marketing agency, Amplified Agency, and through one of its subsidiaries, TownNews, the company provides web hosting and content management services for its media operations and other content producers. The company's also provides commercial printing, distribution of third party publications and management services to other local media operations.

Luxoft Holding Inc. Class A

Post Holdings Inc.

Post Holdings is a consumer packaged goods holding company. The company's segments are: Post Consumer Brands, which manufactures, markets and sells branded and private label ready-to-eat (RTE) cereal and hot cereal products; Weetabix, which markets and distributes branded and private label RTE cereal products; Foodservice, which produces and distributes egg and potato products; Refrigerated Retail, which produces and distributes side dishes, eggs and egg, cheese, sausage and other refrigerated products; and BellRing Brands, which markets and distributes ready-to-drink protein shakes, other RTD beverages, powders, nutrition bars and supplements in the nutrition category.

Prestige Consumer Healthcare Inc

Prestige Consumer Healthcare is a holding company. Through its subsidiaries, the company develops, manufactures, markets, sells and distributes over-the-counter (OTC) healthcare products to mass merchandisers and drug, food, dollar, convenience, and club stores in North America (the U.S. and Canada) and in Australia and certain other international markets. The company's portfolio of OTC Healthcare products includes, among others, DenTek oral care products, Monistat women's health products, Nix lice treatment products, Chloraseptic sore throat treatments, Clear Eyes eye care products, Compound W wart treatments, Luden's throat drops, BC and Goody's pain relievers and Debrox earwax remover.

Sinclair Broadcast Group Inc. Class A

Sinclair Broadcast Group is a television broadcasting company with using the company's spectrum to bring together content providers, advertisers, and consumers on various platforms. The content, distributed through the company's broadcast platform, consists of programming provided by third-party networks and syndicators, local news, the company's own networks, and other original programming produced by the company The company also distributes its original programming, and owned and operated network, on other third-party platforms. The company operates technical services companies focused on supply and maintenance of broadcast transmission systems as well as research and development for the development of broadcast technology.

SolarEdge Technologies Inc.

SolarEdge Technologies designs, develops, and sells an intelligent inverter solution designed for power generation at the individual photovoltaic module level. The company's products consist mainly of power optimizers designed to maximize energy throughput from each and every module via constant tracking of Maximum Power Point individually per module; inverters, which invert direct current from the PV module to alternating current; a related cloud-based monitoring platform; and a storage solution that is used to increase energy independence and maximize self-consumption for homeowners by utilizing a battery that is sold separately by third party manufacturers, to store and supply power as needed.

Square Inc. Class A

Square is a commerce ecosystem that combines software with hardware to enable sellers to turn mobile devices and computing devices into payment and point-of-sale solutions. With the company's offering, a seller can accept payments via magnetic stripe, Europay, MasterCard, and Visa, or Near Field Communication; or online via Square Invoices, Square Virtual Terminal, or the seller's website or app. Also, sellers can gain access to reporting and analytics, next-day settlements, digital receipts, payment dispute and chargeback management, security, and Payment Card Industry compliance. The company's Cash App enable individuals to send and receive money electronically to and from individuals and businesses.

ViacomCBS Inc. Class B

CBS is a mass media company, which operates the following segments: Entertainment, which is consists of the CBS Television Network, CBS Television Studios, CBS Global Distribution Group, Network 10, CBS Interactive, CBS Sports Network, and CBS Films as well as the company's digital streaming services CBS All Access and CBSN; Cable Networks, which consists of Showtime Networks and its digital subscription streaming offering, and Smithsonian Networks; Publishing, which consists of Simon & Schuster's consumer book publishing business with imprints such as Simon & Schuster, Pocket Books, Scribner and Atria Books; and Local Media, which consists of CBS Television Stations and CBS Local Digital Media.

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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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