Report
Valens Research

Valens Equity Insights and Inflections - 2021 02 09

Current market expectations for Winnebago (WGO) still do not comprehend the company's
operational tailwinds and transformation. Markets expect UAFRS-based (Uniform) ROA (ROA') to only reach prior cycle norms going forward, even as analysts are forecasting sustained ROA' improvement, in line with the company's strategy change.

The company has a positive age-wave-related macro-trend likely driving fundamentals and
sustained growth, thanks to more baby-boomers becoming retirees, a group that tends to be stronger buyers of RVs, spelling stronger fundamental upside. On top of that, the At-Home Revolution that the pandemic kicked off is likely to create sustained demand for Winnebago, as more people join the lifestyle.

Finally, the company's smart acquisitive and organic growth have allowed the company to
enter new business segments that are higher return, allowing it to sustain higher profitable
through the cycle, which the market isn't recognizing.

Management alignment points to reasons to believe in further operational improvement.
Management is specifically compensated to focus on ROIC improvement. Also, management has shown confidence about sustaining margin expansion and the growth from the current macro tailwinds.

Low market expectations, positive tailwinds, strong management alignment and execution,
and management's confidence about their outlook point to reason for upside.

MCD Q3 2020 Embedded Expectations Analysis – Market expectations are for record-high Uniform ROA, but management may be concerned about delivery and drive-thru options, the market recovery, and their order platforms

BLKB Q3 2020 Embedded Expectations Analysis – Market expectations are for Uniform ROA to slightly expand, but management may have concerns about retention rates, growth, and partnerships

FRT Q3 2020 Embedded Expectations Analysis – Market expectations are for Uniform ROA to expand materially, but management may have concerns about growth, demand, and occupancy rates

WGO, BLKB, FRT, MCD, AYX, CBRL, CME, CVX, DVA, HD, HES, KEYS, LLY, NTCT, TGNA, TPR, UHS, VGR, VMW, WDAY, XOM
Underlyings
Alteryx

Alteryx provides data science and analytics. The company's analytics platform comprises: Alteryx Designer, its data profiling, preparation, blending, and analytics product used to create visual workflows or analytic processes; Alteryx Server, its server-based product for scheduling, sharing, and running analytic processes and applications in a web-based environment; Alteryx Connect, its collaborative data exploration platform for discovering information assets and sharing recommendations across the enterprise; and Alteryx Promote, its analytics model management product for data scientists and analytics teams to build, manage, monitor, and deploy predictive models into production applications.

Blackbaud Inc.

Blackbaud is a cloud software company. The company is engaged in providing software solutions in cloud and hosted environments, providing payment and transaction services, providing software maintenance and support services, and providing services, including implementation, consulting, training, analytic and other services. The company's portfolio provides fundraising and relationship management, marketing and engagement, financial management, grant and award management, organizational and program management (such as education management, church management and ticketing), social responsibility, payment services and analytics.

Chevron Corporation

Chevron is engaged in energy and chemicals operations. Upstream operations consist primarily of, among others, exploring for, developing and producing crude oil and natural gas; processing, liquefaction, transportation and regasification associated with liquefied natural gas, storage and marketing of natural gas; and a gas-to-liquids plant. Downstream operations consist primarily of, among others, refining crude oil into petroleum products; marketing of crude oil and refined products; and manufacturing and marketing of commodity petrochemicals, plastics for industrial uses and fuel and lubricant additives.

CME Group Inc. Class A

CME Group is a holding company. Through its subsidiaries, the company exchanges provides a range of global benchmark products across asset classes based on interest rates, equity indexes, foreign exchange (FX), agricultural, energy and metal commodities. The company provides futures and options on futures trading across asset classes through its subsidiary, Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc. (CME) Globex platform, cash and repo fixed income trading via BrokerTec, and cash and OTC FX trading via EBS. In addition, the company operates central counterparty clearing providers, CME Clearing, a division of CME. The company also provides optimization, reconciliation and processing services through TriOptima, Traiana and Reset.

Cracker Barrel Old Country Store Inc.

Cracker Barrel Old Country Store is principally engaged in the operation and development of the Cracker Barrel Old Country Store? concept. The format of the company's stores consists of a trademarked rustic old country-store design providing a restaurant menu that features home-style country food and a variety of items such as rocking chairs, holiday and seasonal gifts, toys, apparel, cookware and foods. The company's restaurants serve breakfast, lunch and dinner daily. Lunch and dinner items include southern fried chicken, chicken and dumplings, chicken fried chicken, meatloaf, country fried steak, pork chops, fish, steak, roast beef, vegetable plates, sandwiches and a variety of salads.

DaVita Inc.

DaVita is a healthcare provider focused on transforming care delivery to improve quality of life for patients. The company's United States dialysis business provides kidney dialysis services for patients suffering from end stage renal disease (ESRD). The company's dialysis services include outpatient hemodialysis services, hospital inpatient hemodialysis services, home-based dialysis services, ESRD laboratory services, and management services. The company's ancillary services and strategic initiatives businesses include disease management services, physician services, ESRD Seamless Care Organization joint ventures, clinical research programs, vascular access services, as well as international dialysis operations.

Eli Lilly and Company

Eli Lilly and Company discovers, develops, manufactures, and markets products in a single business segment: human pharmaceutical products. The company's human pharmaceutical products include: diabetes and other endocrinology products, immunology products, neuroscience products, oncology products, and other products. The company's diabetes and other endocrinology products include: Baqsimi? and Basaglar?. The company's immunology products include: Olumiant? and Taltz?. The company's neuroscience products include: Cymbalta? and Emgality?. The company's oncology products include: Alimta?, Cyramza?, Erbitux? and Verzenio?. The company's other products include: Cialis?.

Exxon Mobil Corporation

Exxon Mobil operates or markets products in United States and other countries through its divisions and affiliated companies. The company's business involves exploration for, and production of, crude oil and natural gas and manufacture, trade, transport and sale of crude oil, natural gas, petroleum products, petrochemicals and other products. In United States, the company's development activities are focused on the onshore United States, in the Permian Basin of West Texas and New Mexico and the Bakken oil play in North Dakota. Gas development activities are also focused on the Marcellus Shale of Pennsylvania and West Virginia, the Utica Shale of Ohio and the Haynesville Shale of East Texas and Louisiana.

Federal Realty Investment Trust

Federal Realty Investment Trust is an equity real estate investment trust that focuses on the ownership, management, and redevelopment of retail and mixed-use properties located primarily in communities in selected metropolitan markets in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States, as well as in California and South Florida. The company owns or has a majority interest in community and neighborhood shopping centers and mixed-use properties which are operated as predominantly retail real estate projects.

Hess Corporation

Hess is a global exploration and production company engaged in exploration, development, production, transportation, purchase and sale of crude oil, natural gas liquid (NGL), and natural gas with production operations located primarily in the United States, Guyana, the Malaysia/Thailand Joint Development Area, Malaysia and Denmark. The company's Midstream operating segment provides fee-based services, including gathering, compressing and processing natural gas and fractionating NGL; gathering, terminaling, loading and transporting crude oil and NGL; storing and terminaling propane, and water handling services primarily in the Bakken shale play in the Williston Basin area of North Dakota.

Home Depot Inc.

The Home Depot is a home improvement retailer. The company provides its customers an assortment of building materials, home improvement products, lawn and garden products, and decor products and provides a number of services, including home improvement installation services and tool and equipment rental. The company also maintains a network of distribution and fulfillment centers, as well as a number of e-commerce websites. The company provides a number of programs for its Professional Customers to meet their particular needs, and for its Do-It-Yourself and Do-It-For-Me customers, the company provides a number of installation services. The company also provides tool and equipment rentals for its customers.

Keysight Technologies Inc

Keysight Technologies is a technology company. The company's segments are: Communications Solutions Group, which provides electronic design and test software, instruments and systems and related services used in the simulation, design, validation, manufacturing, installation and optimization of electronic equipment; Electronic Industrial Solutions Group, which provides test and measurement solutions and related services across a set of electronic industrial end markets; and Ixia Solutions Group, which helps customers design, validate and support the performance and security of their networks and associated components and applications.

McDonald's Corporation

McDonald's franchises and operates McDonald's restaurants. The company's menu includes hamburgers and cheeseburgers, Big Mac, Quarter Pounder with Cheese, Filet-O-Fish, several chicken sandwiches, Chicken McNuggets, wraps, fries, shakes, McFlurry desserts, sundaes, soft serve cones, pies, soft drinks, coffee, McCafe beverages and other beverages. The company's restaurants in the United States and various international markets provide a full or limited breakfast menu. Breakfast offerings may include Egg McMuffin, Sausage McMuffin with Egg, McGriddles, biscuit and bagel sandwiches and hotcakes. The restaurants also sells a variety of other products during limited-time promotions

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.

Tapestry Inc.

Tapestry is a lifestyle company. The company's primary product offerings, manufactured by third-party suppliers, include women's and men's bags, small leather goods, footwear, ready-to-wear including outerwear, watches, weekend and travel accessories, scarves, eyewear, fragrance, jewelry and other lifestyle products. The company has three reportable segments: Coach, which includes sales of Coach brand products to customers through Coach operated stores; Kate Spade, which includes sales primarily of Kate Spade New York brand products to customers through Kate Spade operated stores; and Stuart Weitzman, which includes sales of Stuart Weitzman brand products primarily through Stuart Weitzman operated stores.

TEGNA Inc.

TEGNA is a media company. The company's business provides television programming and digital content. Each television station also has a digital presence across online, mobile and social platforms. The company provides advertising and marketing services, which include local and national non-political television advertising, digital marketing services, and advertising on stations' websites and tablet and mobile products; subscription by satellite, cable, Over the Top and telecommunications providers; political advertising; and other services, such as production of programming and advertising material. The company's portfolio of Big 4 NBC, CBS, ABC and FOX stations operate under long-term affiliation agreements.

Universal Health Services Inc. Class B

Universal Health Services owns and operates, through its subsidiaries, acute care hospitals and outpatient facilities and behavioral health care facilities. The company owns and/or operates inpatient facilities and outpatient and other facilities located in several states including, Washington, D.C., the United Kingdom, and Puerto Rico. Services provided by the company's hospitals include general and specialty surgery, internal medicine, obstetrics, emergency room care, radiology, oncology, diagnostic care, coronary care, pediatric services, pharmacy services and/or behavioral health services. The company's reportable operating segments consist of acute care hospital services and behavioral health care services.

Vector Group Ltd.

Vector Group is a holding company. The company is engaged principally in the manufacture and sale of cigarettes in the U.S. through its Liggett Group LLC (Liggett) and Vector Tobacco Inc. subsidiaries; and the real estate business through its New Valley LLC (New Valley) subsidiary. The company's business segments were Tobacco, and Real Estate. The Tobacco segment consists of the manufacture and sale of conventional cigarettes. The Real Estate segment includes the company's investment in New Valley, which includes Douglas Elliman, Escena, Sagaponack and investments in real estate ventures.

VMware Inc. Class A

VMware is engaged in the development and application of technologies with x86 server-based computing, separating application software from the underlying hardware. The company's product and service solutions are organized into three main product groups: Software-Defined Data Center, which is designed to transform the data center into an on-demand service that addresses application requirements; Hybrid Cloud Computing, which is comprised of VMware Cloud Provider Program and VMware Cloud Services; and End-User Computing solution, which consists of VMware Workspace ONE, its digital workspace platform, that includes Unified Endpoint Management and VMware Horizon application and desktop virtualization.

Winnebago Industries Inc.

Winnebago Industries is a manufacturer with a portfolio of recreation vehicles and marine products used primarily in leisure travel and outdoor recreation activities. The company's reportable segments include: Towable, which is comprised of products which are not motorized and are generally towed by another vehicle as well as other related manufactured products and services; and Motorhome, which is comprised of products that include a motorized chassis as well as other related manufactured products and services. The company's subsidiary, Chris-Craft USA, Inc., manufactures and sells boats in the recreational powerboat industry through a network of independent authorized dealers.

Workday Inc. Class A

Workday is a provider of enterprise cloud applications for finance and human resources. The company's products include: Workday Financial Management, an application with financial capabilities, analytics and metrics, and auditable process management; and Workday Human Capital Management, which includes global human resources management (workforce lifecycle management, organization management, compensation, absence, and employee benefits administration) and global talent management (goal management, performance management, succession planning, and career and development planning). The company's other solutions include Adaptive Insights Business Planning Cloud, as well as Workday Data-as-a-Service.

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

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