Valens Equity Insights and Inflections - 2022 03 29
Citigroup (C) looks to finally be rounding the corner of its transformational reconstruction. Uniform Accounting shows both the company's significant operational improvements, and that the market isn't pricing them in sustainably. That makes Citi a compelling buy.Citi has historically been a worst-in-class performer in terms of Uniform ROE, around 5% in the early 2010s, however, these operational improvements have already lifted ROE towards peer levels, approaching double-digit levels, and there is still more progress management is making around both back-office operations.
Citi management is aligned to focus on improving profitability, making smart capital allocation decisions, and growing the business, exactly how investors should want them aligned. Also, after prior CEO Corbat's groundwork on cleaning up Citi's portfolio of businesses, new CEO Fraser is set up well, and has the experience to, finish cleaning up
Citi's operations.
Management's confidence in the Q4 earnings call about selling non-core assets, improving macro conditions, and risk controls highlight that management is executing to perfection.
EXPE Q4 2021 Embedded Expectations Analysis – Market expectations are for Uniform ROA to expand, but management may have concerns about pandemic, their offerings, and their loyalty program
DE Q2 2021 Embedded Expectations Analysis – Market expectations are for Uniform ROA to fade, and management may have concerns about new technology, structural changes, and profitability
ORCL Q3 2022 Embedded Expectations Analysis – Market expectations are for Uniform ROA to decline, but management is confident about their private cloud, growth, and M&A activity
C, DE, EXPE, ORCL, ALGN, CPNG, ETN, HPE, MTCH, TDG, TRU
Align Technology is a medical device company engaged in the design, manufacture and marketing of Invisalign? clear aligners and iTero? intraoral scanners and services for orthodontics, restorative and aesthetic dentistry. The company's segments are: Clear Aligner, which includes the Invisalign System, a method for treating malocclusion based on a proprietary computer-simulated virtual treatment plan and a series of doctor-prescribed, custom manufactured, clear plastic, removable aligners; and Scanners and Services, which includes Intraoral scanning that enables the dental practitioner to create a 3D image of the patient's teeth (digital scan) using a handheld intraoral scanner.
Citigroup is a financial services holding company whose businesses provide consumers, corporations, governments and institutions with a range of financial products and services, including consumer banking and credit, corporate and investment banking, securities brokerage, trade and securities services and wealth management. The company operates via two primary business segments: Global Consumer Banking, which provides banking services to retail customers through retail banking, Citi-branded cards and Citi retail services; and Institutional Clients Group, which includes banking and markets and securities services.
Deere & Co. operates the following segments: Agriculture and Turf, which manufactures and distributes a line of agriculture and turf equipment and related service parts, including utility tractors, tractor loaders, combines, cotton pickers, cotton strippers, and sugarcane harvesters; Construction and Forestry, which manufactures and distributes a range of machines and service parts used in construction, earthmoving, road building, material handling and timber harvesting, including backhoe loaders and crawler dozers and loaders; and Financial Services, which finances sales and leases by the company's dealers of new and used agriculture and turf equipment and construction and forestry equipment.
Expedia Group is an online travel company. The company's portfolio of brands includes: Expedia.com?, an online travel brand; Hotels.com?, a global lodging company operating websites with its Hotels.com? Rewards loyalty program; Vrbo?, a global online marketplace with a focus on providing lodging options for families; Egencia?, a corporate travel management company; Hotwire?, an online travel website providing spontaneous travel through its Hot Rate? deals; trivago?, an online hotel metasearch platform; and SilverRail Technologies, Inc., provider of a global rail retail and distribution platform connecting rail carriers and suppliers to both online and offline travel distributors.
Hewlett Packard Enterprise is a technology company. The company's segments are: Hybrid IT, which provides a portfolio of infrastructure and solutions including servers, storage, and HPE Pointnext services; Intelligent Edge, which is comprised of cloud solutions that include wireless local area network, campus and data center switching, software-defined wide-area-networking, security, and associated services to enable secure connectivity; Financial Services, which provides investment solutions for customers that facilitate technology deployment models; and Corporate Investments, which includes Communications and Media Solutions, Hewlett Packard Labs and certain business incubation projects.
Oracle provides products and services that address enterprise information technology (IT) environments. The company's products and services include applications and infrastructure offerings. The company's cloud and license business engages in the sale, marketing and delivery of its applications and infrastructure technologies through cloud and on-premise deployment models including its cloud services and license support offerings; and its cloud license and on-premise license offerings. The company's hardware business provides Oracle Engineered Systems, servers, storage, industry-specific hardware, operating systems, virtualization, management and other hardware-related software to support diverse IT environments.
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.
TransUnion is an information and insights company. The company provides consumer reports, actionable insights and analytics such as credit and other scores, and decisioning capabilities to businesses. The company has the following reportable segments: United States Markets, which provides consumer reports, actionable insights and analytics such as credit and other scores, and decisioning capabilities to businesses; International, which provides services similar to its United States Markets segment to businesses in select regions outside the United States; and Consumer Interactive, which provides solutions that help consumers manage their personal finances and take precautions against identity theft.
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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