Polaris Renewable Energy: Attractive FCF Yield with Upside Optionality

July 18, 2025 in Audio, Discover Great Ideas Podcast, Equities, Ideas, Member Podcasts, Wide Moat, Wide-Moat Investing Summit 2025, Wide-Moat Investing Summit 2025 Featured

Shawn Kravetz of Esplanade Capital presented his investment thesis on Polaris Renewable Energy (Canada: PIF) at Wide-Moat Investing Summit 2025.

Thesis summary:

Polaris Renewable Energy is a Canadian renewable energy company focused on owning, operating, developing, and acquiring projects primarily in Latin America and the Caribbean. Headquartered in Toronto, Polaris recently had a market capitalization of C$253 million (US$185 million) and net debt of around US$127 million. Despite a track record characterized by modest overpromising and occasional underdelivery, the business remains compelling due to its substantial and durable cash generation. Polaris yields a notable ~7% dividend, supported by strong free cash flow with a payout ratio of ~45%.

Polaris’s valuation appears deeply discounted compared to its peers, trading at just 5.4x estimated 2025 EV/EBITDA. In contrast, comparable renewable energy companies like Boralex, Brookfield Renewable, Clearway Energy, Innergex, and Northland Power trade at average multiples of ~12x EV/EBITDA. Polaris’s discounted valuation is noteworthy, considering its robust cash generation, with a free cash flow yield recently estimated at 15.7% after deducting debt repayments.

Operationally, Polaris’s results have shown relative stability with occasional step-changes, reflected in adjusted EBITDA progressing from US$43.8 million in 2021 to a projected US$58 million in 2025. While its stock price has experienced significant volatility, it has essentially traded sideways over the past five years. This stagnant stock performance masks the underlying durability of Polaris’s cash flows and its potential growth catalysts.

Looking ahead, Polaris has multiple pathways to unlock shareholder value. A significant potential catalyst is its Puerto Rico battery storage project, representing up to US$50 million in net investment with expected EBITDA returns near 30% annually for twenty years, translating into an unlevered internal rate of return exceeding 20%. Additionally, organic growth initiatives or selective acquisitions could further enhance its value proposition. Should the valuation gap persist, strategic alternatives including a potential sale could come into play, further underpinning the attractiveness of the stock at recent valuation levels.

In sum, Polaris Renewable Energy offers investors a stable business model with meaningful optionality. Its strong cash flow, deeply discounted valuation, and clear strategic pathways position the company as an attractive opportunity, presenting multiple routes to potential upside over the next two years.

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About the instructor:

Shawn Kravetz is President and Chief Investment Officer of Esplanade Capital LLC, an investment management company he founded in 1999. Esplanade Capital LLC manages capital for a small number of like-minded families, private investors, and institutions.

Prior to founding Esplanade, Shawn was a corporate executive and strategic advisor, including: Principal at The Parthenon Group, a leading strategy consulting boutique, where he advised chief executives on corporate strategy; Director of Strategic Planning and Corporate Development at The CML Group (NYSE traded), where he oversaw activities at subsidiaries including NordicTrack, The Nature Company, and Smith & Hawken; Consultant with Monitor Company, a leading strategy consulting firm.

Shawn received an MBA with High Distinction from Harvard Business School in 1995, where he was awarded: The Thomas M. and Edna E. Wolfe Award; The Henry Ford II Scholar Award; and a Baker Scholarship. Shawn received an A.B. in Economics from Harvard University, magna cum laude, in 1991.

Shawn has been active in his community, having served as: Steering Committee Vice Chairman of The Museum of Fine Arts Council at The Museum of Fine Arts Boston; Member of the Steering Committee of The Vilna Center for Jewish Heritage; and Treasurer of the PTO for the Frances Jacobsen Early Education Center.

Shawn currently serves as Trustee and Chairman of the Investment Committee at Temple Israel, Boston.

The content of this website is not an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy any security. The content is distributed for informational purposes only and should not be construed as investment advice or a recommendation to sell or buy any security or other investment, or undertake any investment strategy. There are no warranties, expressed or implied, as to the accuracy, completeness, or results obtained from any information set forth on this website. BeyondProxy’s officers, directors, employees, and/or contributing authors may have positions in and may, from time to time, make purchases or sales of the securities or other investments discussed or evaluated herein.

Clearwater Analytics: Wide Moat in Investment Operations SaaS

July 18, 2025 in Audio, Diary, Discover Great Ideas Podcast, Equities, Ideas, Member Podcasts, Wide-Moat Investing Summit 2025, Wide-Moat Investing Summit 2025 Featured

Charles Hoeveler of Norwood Capital Partners presented his investment thesis on Clearwater Analytics (NYSE: CWAN) at Wide-Moat Investing Summit 2025.

Thesis summary:

Clearwater Analytics, founded in 2004 and headquartered in Boise, Idaho, is a leading provider of enterprise SaaS solutions for investment operations, recently valued at $7.5 billion enterprise value and $6.7 billion market capitalization. The company’s cloud-native, multi-tenant architecture, built around a single security master across front, middle, and back-office functions, positions it distinctively in the $23 billion and growing investment operations software market. Its competitive advantages include exceptional customer retention (\~98% gross retention), robust net revenue retention (~115%), and consistently high customer satisfaction scores (+60-65 NPS).

Clearwater’s merger with Enfusion creates a combined platform uniquely capable of addressing the full investment lifecycle — from front-office order management and portfolio construction to middle and back-office accounting and reporting. The strategic rationale behind this combination lies in Clearwater’s established excellence in middle and back-office functionalities and Enfusion’s superior front-office solutions, notably in portfolio management systems and real-time data analytics. Integrating these two complementary cloud-native platforms creates the potential for significant market share gains and margin expansion, effectively forming a comprehensive investment operations solution that legacy providers such as SS&C, SimCorp, and BlackRock Aladdin currently lack.

The company’s technological edge centers around its highly scalable and secure single-security master architecture, facilitating accurate, reconciled real-time data across accounting, risk, compliance, and reporting workflows. Clearwater’s investment in artificial intelligence, through the Clearwater Intelligent Console (CWIC), further enhances its competitive position by automating reconciliation, anomaly detection, risk modeling, compliance monitoring, and advanced analytics. These advanced capabilities not only strengthen Clearwater’s moat but also offer differentiated value to institutional asset managers, insurers, and corporate treasuries facing increasing complexity in investment operations.

From a financial perspective, Clearwater has delivered impressive organic growth exceeding 20%, driven by robust incremental EBITDA and free cash flow margins. The company’s disciplined execution and integration roadmap for Enfusion promise even stronger operational leverage and earnings growth. With Clearwater recently trading around $22.40 per share, applying its historical 28x forward EBITDA multiple suggests a potential share price in the mid-$40s by 2027, translating to a compelling internal rate of return (IRR) in the low-30% range.

Overall, Clearwater Analytics represents an attractive long-term investment opportunity, combining high growth potential, significant market opportunity, and a defensible competitive moat reinforced by proven technology, exceptional management, and strategic integration of complementary capabilities.

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About the instructor:

Norwood Capital Partners, LP is a concentrated, fundamental value-based long/short investment fund. Norwood relies on primary research to build a portfolio of dominant businesses trading at a discount to intrinsic value. Norwood is managed by Charles Hoeveler, with 20+ years of experience in institutional asset management.

Kadokawa: Media Leader Capitalizing on the Anime and Manga Boom

July 9, 2025 in Asia, Audio, Discover Great Ideas Podcast, Equities, Ideas, Member Podcasts, Wide Moat, Wide-Moat Investing Summit 2025, Wide-Moat Investing Summit 2025 Featured

Clement Loh of Lion Rock Partners presented his in-depth investment thesis on Kadokawa Corporation (Japan: 9468) at Wide-Moat Investing Summit 2025.

Thesis summary:

Kadokawa is a leading Japanese entertainment conglomerate with diversified operations spanning publishing, film and TV production, video games development, and digital content services. Founded in 1945, Kadokawa has evolved from a traditional publishing house into a fully integrated entertainment company, capitalizing on its extensive intellectual property (IP) portfolio, which includes manga, light novels, anime, and films. Its strategic advantage lies in its vertical integration, allowing it to effectively monetize content across multiple platforms and channels, driving a broad and robust revenue stream.

The company is uniquely positioned to benefit from increasing global demand for Japanese content, supported by its strong IP assets and cross-media monetization strategy. Kadokawa’s IP is particularly appealing due to its complex storylines, detailed world-building, and visually distinctive art styles, all of which have universal appeal and strong international growth potential. With the Japanese government setting ambitious targets for cultural exports — aiming for ¥10 trillion by 2028 and ¥20 trillion by 2033 — Kadokawa is well-placed to capture a significant portion of this growth through expanded global distribution channels and strategic partnerships with major streaming platforms like Netflix.

Kadokawa is undergoing a digital transformation, shifting towards higher-margin digital platforms and recurring revenue streams, while modernizing its existing digital offerings. Initiatives such as enhanced user analytics, platform redesign, multi-language support, and direct e-commerce integration are expected to significantly enhance user experience and expand international reach. This transition is anticipated to drive long-term margin improvements and sustained revenue growth.

Kadokawa shares recently traded at a valuation of approximately 25.4x earnings and 12.3x EV/EBITDA, reflecting growth expectations but still appearing attractive relative to peers. A sum-of-the-parts valuation and discounted cash flow analysis suggest meaningful upside potential. Moreover, Kadokawa’s strategic value as an acquisition target for global media conglomerates and technology companies adds another layer of potential value realization. Notably, Sony previously acquired a 10% stake, emphasizing Kadokawa’s strategic importance in the broader global entertainment landscape.

However, investors must consider several risk factors, including cybersecurity vulnerabilities highlighted by a past hacking incident, international IP protection challenges, potential capital misallocation risks exemplified by the costly cultural museum project, and execution risk inherent in international expansion initiatives. Nonetheless, the combination of robust IP assets, global content demand growth, ongoing digital transformation, and potential strategic interest from larger entities creates a compelling investment proposition with substantial upside.

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About the instructor:

Clement Loh is the Investment Manager of Lion Rock Partners, a private family fund based in Hong Kong. The fund applies the principles of value investing to seek out companies with competitive advantages selling at a reasonable price with a focus on emerging Asian markets and smaller companies. Clement holds a master’s degree in business administration from the University of Toronto and a degree in pharmacy. Prior to entering the investment profession, Clement worked in the pharmaceutical industry and is a non-practicing pharmacist. His interests include economics, strategy, science, education and history.

The content of this website is not an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy any security. The content is distributed for informational purposes only and should not be construed as investment advice or a recommendation to sell or buy any security or other investment, or undertake any investment strategy. There are no warranties, expressed or implied, as to the accuracy, completeness, or results obtained from any information set forth on this website. BeyondProxy’s officers, directors, employees, and/or contributing authors may have positions in and may, from time to time, make purchases or sales of the securities or other investments discussed or evaluated herein.

LPL Financial: The Operating System for US Wealth Management Advisors

July 9, 2025 in Audio, Discover Great Ideas Podcast, Equities, Ideas, Member Podcasts, Wide Moat, Wide-Moat Investing Summit 2025, Wide-Moat Investing Summit 2025 Featured

Diego Grove of LRZ Capital presented his investment thesis on LPL Financial (US: LPLA) at Wide-Moat Investing Summit 2025.

Thesis summary:

LPL Financial is the largest independent broker-dealer in the United States, providing essential front-, middle-, and back-office support to approximately 29,500 advisors managing over $1.8 trillion in assets. Formed from the merger of Linsco and Private Ledger in 1989, the company serves the expansive $31 trillion U.S. advisor-mediated marketplace. LPL’s scalable business model, characterized by robust incremental returns, has allowed the company to capture significant market share from competitors, with notable penetration in both independent and institutional channels. The firm recently traded at a market capitalization of approximately $29 billion with net debt of $5 billion.

LPL operates an asset-light model with a favorable financial profile, characterized by EBITDA margins nearing 47%, high 30s return on equity, and incremental ROIC ranging from mid-20s to mid-30s. Revenue growth is underpinned by organic growth of 7%-13%, market-driven returns of 2%-4%, and incremental contributions from strategic M&A or share buybacks. This model has enabled mid-to-high teens EPS CAGR, supported by a historically high retention rate of 98%+. Despite significant past performance — including an eight-fold increase in stock value over the past decade — the company remains poised for growth, especially given its undermonetized gross profit ROA of just 29 basis points.

The strategic leadership of CEO Rich Steinmeier and CFO Matt Audette has substantially transformed LPL’s operations, emphasizing capital efficiency, prudent acquisitions, and operational leverage. Recent strategic acquisitions such as Commonwealth Financial Network and prudent expansions in the enterprise channel underscore management’s disciplined capital allocation framework. These acquisitions not only expand the firm’s asset base but also solidify its competitive advantage through economies of scale, improved compliance capabilities, and enhanced advisor retention.

A critical variant view articulated in the thesis is that LPL Financial’s superior business model and competitive positioning within the advisor-mediated space remain significantly undervalued. Market concerns, primarily revolving around cash sorting and regulatory scrutiny on client cash balances, appear overstated. The management’s proactive measures and strong treasury management capabilities significantly mitigate these risks. Furthermore, LPL’s diversified revenue streams and fee-based advisory services continue to demonstrate resilience, presenting potential valuation upside.

Given its compelling earnings trajectory, prudent management, and robust competitive moat, LPL Financial offers an attractive risk-reward profile. Management’s clearly articulated earnings growth algorithm forecasts EPS growth of 11%-27%, with potential for higher valuation multiples. Conservatively projected, investors may achieve a ~15% IRR over the next five years, assuming reasonable exit multiples. Thus, LPL Financial represents a high-quality, high-convexity investment opportunity benefiting from sustained structural tailwinds in the independent advisor space.

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About the instructor:

Diego Grove is a Partner, CEO, Portfolio Manager and Business Development strategist at LRZ Capital, an investment management firm that deploys thoughtful long-term capital into public and private markets. In the past, Diego led Megeve Investments International and remains a member of Megeve Investments VC and SAA committees. Diego started his career studying Latin American businesses, in both equity and distress credit markets. Prior to rejoining Megeve, Diego worked for Orbis Investment Management, Triarii Capital and Linzor Capital Asset Management. Diego is a former rugby player, soccer coach and restaurateur, and is now an enthusiastic runner, avid travel surfer and podcast nerd. He recently relocated from New York to Miami. Diego received a B.S. from Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile an MSc in Finance from the same University and an MBA and a Sustainability Certificate from M.I.T. Sloan School of Management.

The content of this website is not an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy any security. The content is distributed for informational purposes only and should not be construed as investment advice or a recommendation to sell or buy any security or other investment, or undertake any investment strategy. There are no warranties, expressed or implied, as to the accuracy, completeness, or results obtained from any information set forth on this website. BeyondProxy’s officers, directors, employees, and/or contributing authors may have positions in and may, from time to time, make purchases or sales of the securities or other investments discussed or evaluated herein.

Boston Beer: Inflection Opportunity at America’s Largest Craft Brewer

July 9, 2025 in Audio, Discover Great Ideas Podcast, Equities, Ideas, Member Podcasts, Wide Moat, Wide-Moat Investing Summit 2025, Wide-Moat Investing Summit 2025 Featured

Chris Crawford of Crawford Fund Management presented his investment thesis on Boston Beer Company (NYSE: SAM) at Wide-Moat Investing Summit 2025.

Thesis summary:

Boston Beer Company is the largest American-owned alcoholic beverage company, holding leading positions across several niche segments including craft beer, hard cider, flavored malt beverages, and hard seltzers. After enduring significant headwinds following the burst of the hard seltzer bubble in recent years, Boston Beer now presents compelling turnaround potential. The company’s founder-led management team has demonstrated a long history of effective innovation and successful operational recoveries, positioning the firm well to capitalize on emerging growth drivers.

Recent product launches, notably Sun Cruiser and Sam’s American Light, have shown promising early traction. Sun Cruiser, positioned against High Noon in the vodka tea segment, has successfully doubled its market share since its initial launch. Sam’s American Light, launched nationwide in 2025, is strategically aimed at the massive mainstream light beer segment, potentially extending brand equity beyond traditional craft beer boundaries. Although the growth potential of another product, Hard Mountain Dew (a collaboration with Pepsi), is less certain, these new product introductions significantly enhance the company’s growth profile.

Boston Beer’s competitive advantages are underpinned by robust brand recognition, a resilient nationwide distribution network, regulatory barriers to entry, and significant economies of scale. Despite these strengths, periodic market disruptions — such as the craft beer and hard seltzer downturns — have historically impacted its trajectory. Nevertheless, these disruptions have been followed consistently by recoveries and renewed growth, demonstrating the company’s resilience and adaptability.

Financially, Boston Beer maintains a debt-free balance sheet, allowing significant flexibility for internal investments and opportunistic repurchases of undervalued shares. Management’s disciplined share repurchase strategy, buying back stock at substantial discounts to intrinsic value, further underpins shareholder value creation. Founder Jim Koch, who owns 20% of the company, remains actively involved and deeply committed to long-term strategic growth, underscoring a strong alignment of interests with shareholders.

Recently, Boston Beer shares traded significantly below intrinsic value estimates, down approximately 85% from their 2021 highs. Chris’s valuation suggests substantial upside potential, assigning a blended appraisal value of $302 per share, reflecting a 60% base case scenario. Given the embedded optionality of Boston Beer’s innovative R&D pipeline, robust balance sheet, and historical valuation ranges, upside scenarios could be considerably higher, positioning the company as both an undervalued turnaround story and a potential acquisition target.

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About the instructor:

Chris Crawford is the Managing Partner and Chief Investment Officer of Crawford Fund Management, LLC, a Boston-based Investment Partnership. The firm manages a long/short fund that invests in equities and options with an emphasis on underfollowed public companies. Prior to co-founding Crawford Fund Management in 2009, Chris was Managing Director, Portfolio Manager and head of the Boston office with Stark Investments, a $10B multi-strategy global hedge fund. At Stark, Chris built the firm’s equity long/short team and managed $1.5B in equity long/short assets as well as a $200M short-biased portfolio. From 2003-2006, Chris was Senior Vice President and Portfolio Manager with Putnam Investments, and co-Portfolio Manager of the $3B Putnam International Capital Opportunities Fund and related client accounts. From 2000 to 2003, Chris was a Partner and Senior Analyst with ABRY Partners on a team managing a $400M TMT-focused hedge fund. From 1996 to 2000, Chris was with Wellington Management Company, where he served as a Global Industry Analyst covering the media industry and as a Portfolio Manager for $600M in client sector-fund and institutional assets. Chris holds an MBA from The Wharton School of Business and graduated magna cum laude from University of Pennsylvania with a BA in Physics, BS in Economics, BAS in Systems Engineering and an MA in International Relations.

The content of this website is not an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy any security. The content is distributed for informational purposes only and should not be construed as investment advice or a recommendation to sell or buy any security or other investment, or undertake any investment strategy. There are no warranties, expressed or implied, as to the accuracy, completeness, or results obtained from any information set forth on this website. BeyondProxy’s officers, directors, employees, and/or contributing authors may have positions in and may, from time to time, make purchases or sales of the securities or other investments discussed or evaluated herein.

Dave Sather on Building an Enduring Financial Advisory Firm

July 9, 2025 in Audio, Building a Great Investment Firm, Equities, Featured, Full Video, Interviews, Transcripts

We had the pleasure of speaking with Dave Sather, founder and CEO of Sather Financial Group, based in Victoria, Texas. Sather Financial is a “fee-only” financial planning and investment management firm responsible for overseeing more than $2 billion in client assets.

In this conversation, Dave shares key insights into building a successful financial advisory firm, navigating client relationships, and cultivating long-term value investing principles. Celebrating over 26 years at the helm of Sather Financial Group, Dave brings a wealth of practical experience and thoughtful perspectives to investors seeking to deepen their understanding of how to establish and sustain an advisory business grounded in trust and long-term growth.

Dave’s journey began in the modest setting of Victoria, Texas, shaped by a desire to balance personal and professional life, a decision spurred by family commitments. His candid reflections on the early challenges of cold-calling and the realization that traditional brokerage models didn’t align with his value-investing principles offer powerful lessons for aspiring financial advisors. Dave emphasizes the importance of authenticity and maintaining a clear moral compass in serving clients, often noting that great advisory relationships are built not just on financial acumen, but on understanding and addressing the comprehensive needs of wealthy individuals, from tax and estate planning to retirement and risk management.

Central to Dave’s approach is transparent, direct communication. He describes the meticulous attention he and his team give to client relationships, advocating for managing separate accounts rather than pooled funds to ensure transparency and foster lasting trust. His commitment extends beyond financial strategy, touching on behavioral finance — highlighting the need to help clients navigate not only market volatility but also their emotional responses to financial decisions.

Moreover, Dave shares valuable insights into his firm’s internal practices, such as profit-sharing and peer evaluations, which cultivate a cohesive, motivated team environment. He also outlines his thoughtful approach to succession planning, underscoring the importance of giving talented team members ownership stakes to ensure continuity and shared success.

Finally, the interview touches on Dave’s passion project, Bulldog Investment Company at Texas Lutheran University, highlighting his commitment to mentorship and education. This successful program underscores his broader philosophy and his dedication to nurturing the next generation of investors.

The interview was conducted by Tyler Howell of MOI Global.

Topics and themes:

  • Early Career and Founding Sather Financial
  • Client Relationships and Communication
  • Behavioral Finance and Client Education
  • Building a Cohesive Team and Firm Culture
  • Succession Planning and Ownership Transfer
  • Insights into Practical Value Investing
  • The Bulldog Investment Company Story

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About the interviewee:

Dave Sather is a CFP and the CEO of Sather Financial Group, a $2 billion firm managing individual accounts  headquartered in Texas. Dave has degrees in business from Texas Lutheran University and Texas A&M University. Dave serves on the Board of Regents at Texas Lutheran University, chairing the Investment Committee. He developed and teaches the Bulldog Investment Company internship at Texas Lutheran University (www.BulldogInvestmentCo.com). This student managed investment fund has compounded at 15.4% per year over the last 15 years outperforming the S&P 500 by 264 percentage points. Recently, the program was recognized as the top student led business program by the Accreditation Council for Business Schools and Programs, which oversees more than 1,200 programs internationally. Dave also created and runs the Big Dog Endowment program (www.BigDogEndowment.com) , also at TLU, which teaches analytical and business skills for non-profit and philanthropic endeavors.

The content of this website is not an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy any security. The content is distributed for informational purposes only and should not be construed as investment advice or a recommendation to sell or buy any security or other investment, or undertake any investment strategy. There are no warranties, expressed or implied, as to the accuracy, completeness, or results obtained from any information set forth on this website. BeyondProxy’s officers, directors, employees, and/or contributing authors may have positions in and may, from time to time, make purchases or sales of the securities or other investments discussed or evaluated herein.

Noah Snyder on Value Investing in Programmatic Acquirers

July 2, 2025 in Case Studies, Diary, Equities, Featured, Idea Appraisal, Idea Generation, Interviews

We had the pleasure of interviewing Noah Snyder, founder of Snoboll Capital.

Few investors are as intensely focused on the compounding power of disciplined M&A as Noah Snyder. With a background spanning hedge funds, global small-cap investing, and the Columbia Business School Value Investing Program, Snyder has spent over 20,000 hours studying what he calls “programmatic acquirers” — companies that use repeatable, high-ROIC acquisition strategies as a core operating capability.

In this interview, Snyder shares his investment philosophy, why he focuses on overlooked regions like Sweden and the Nordics, and how programmatic acquirers differ from the often-misunderstood “serial acquirer” model. He also introduces lesser-known but high-potential companies such as Bergman & Beving and Chapters Group, and offers reflections on the enduring influence of Warren Buffett, Charlie Munger, and the power of proper capital allocation.

Ezra Crangle, MOI Global: Tell us about your professional background and how the idea to launch Snoboll Capital came about.

Noah Snyder: I’ve been obsessed with the stock market since I was a teenager, and from early in my career, my goal was to build a better mouse trap than what most other investment managers were doing. I started my career on the buyside at a family office just as they opened to outside capital. Then after finishing my MBA at Columbia Business School and partaking in its Value Investing Program, I joined a hedge fund just as it launched so I could gain the experience of building a fund from scratch. This hedge fund went on to be Barron’s Top 100 fund and grew to over US$1 billion in AUM. As the firm’s #2 investment professional, I helped develop and lead its mental-model-based research approach and I was named an Institutional Investor Hedge Fund Rising Star. Yet more than ten years ago a clear pattern emerged: my biggest winners were all “programmatic acquirers” or companies that compound capital by combining organic growth with highly disciplined acquisition playbooks where management had a lot of skin in the game.

This led to many winners like Constellation Software (CSU), TransDigm (TDG) and Danaher (DHR) and I saw how powerful this strategy was mostly in large U.S. listed companies. However, I believed that even higher risk-adjusted returns could be achieved by finding these companies earlier in their lifecycle in more inefficient markets. This inspired me to join a leading international small-cap team at a US$250 billion mutual fund, where I proved that the strategy worked even better outside the U.S., and especially in Sweden. After more than 20,000 hours of studying public programmatic acquirers globally, I became convinced this opportunity was too compelling to pass up and there was no other way to pursue it.

In 2023, I launched Snoboll Capital with a clear vision: to own a concentrated portfolio (~15 longs) of the world’s best programmatic acquirers globally. At Snoboll we apply our Snöboll Roll-Up Framework to find companies with long reinvestment runways, decentralized cultures, and aligned owner-operators who can acquire niche, high-quality businesses at attractive prices. These companies often improve the businesses they buy, enhance margins, accelerate growth, and reinvest the resulting cash flows back into more M&A creating a true “snowball” effect. This approach provides exposure to three engines of value creation: 1) organic growth; 2) acquisitions; and 3) valuation expansion. Since launch, our results have been rewarding, and we believe Snoboll is uniquely positioned to outperform as we’ve developed expertise in a niche part of the market that consistently outperforms.

MOI: There’s often confusion between “programmatic acquirers” and “serial acquirers.” What’s the difference between the two?

Snyder: We make a clear distinction between programmatic and so-called “serial” acquirers. The term “serial” carries negative connotations for good reason. These are companies that simply do many deals. They pursue one-off, haphazard deals, often relying on financial engineering with little discipline, integration, or repeatability. More often than not, they destroy returns on capital. Which is great because it scares many investors away from companies that grow through acquisitions altogether.

However, in contrast, “programmatic acquirers” treat M&A as a core competency. They pursue several small, bite-sized deals each year using repeatable playbooks and robust business systems. The best ones are what we call Advantaged Acquirers, buyers of choice even when they don’t offer the highest price, often because sellers prefer to stay on and keep building their businesses. In turn, their acquisition process is more akin to a high-quality manufacturing operation, with value creation embedded across every phase from deal sourcing to post-close optimization. For us, great capital allocation is the true north, and programmatic M&A is the best expression of it.

Programmatic acquirers are a rare breed of companies that build acquisitions into their DNA. They use disciplined playbooks and scalable business systems to consistently buy and improve companies, often at 5–7x EBITDA, and can sustain 15–20% ROICs. They are relentlessly focused on cash flow, returns on capital, and aligned incentives. As they grow, they become flywheels, spitting off increasing cash that fuels further M&A and they solve the two biggest challenges in compounding: reinvestment rate and reinvestment duration.

We recently partnered with a second-year MBA in Columbia’s Value Investing Program to conduct an Independent Study on the ~250 programmatic acquirers in Snoboll’s universe. The results reinforced what we believed: these companies consistently outperform, especially when identified early. Yet markets struggle to value their long-duration compounding as most growth stocks see fading growth and ROICs overtime. When done well, programmatic acquirers can maintain high ROICs and for long periods. They control their own destiny, are less macro dependent and benefit from a large public/private valuation arbitrage that can be exploited over and over again.

MOI: You describe your approach as “a global investor in great CEOs and acquisition-focused companies.” Could you walk us through your investment philosophy at Snoboll Capital?

Snyder: At Snoboll Capital, our investment strategy is built to create a “Lollapalooza” effect where multiple reinforcing pillars work together to drive outsized returns. We concentrate capital in our highest-conviction ideas rather than hugging benchmarks. We operate with a clear circle of competence: exceptional CEOs and programmatic acquirers. Our process is anchored in codified pattern recognition tools, aka “Frameworks” especially our Snöboll Roll-Up Framework, which allows us to identify high-quality companies early in the value creation journey. On top of this, we emphasize game selection or playing the games/markets that are easiest to win. We gravitate towards smaller companies with less institutional ownership at meaningful inflection points. Our edge is magnified outside of the US, where informational advantages are greater and investor competition is less pronounced.

The fund’s name is in Swedish which reflects our focus and expertise in Sweden, an overlooked market that serves as a hot bed for skilled programmatic acquirers. We complement our longs with shorts focused three specialized frameworks: 1) Competition Shorts; 2. Cyclical/Commodity Peaks; 3) and Spin-off Shorts. Together, our approach combines deep specialization, global breadth, and structural edge. Ultimately, we’re hunting for the next Danaher, Constellation Software, or Roper, elite companies led by exceptional managers that can be worth multiples of their current value and we continue to believe that we are witnessing a once-in-a-decade to find these companies on the cheap outside of the US.

MOI: Constellation Software is one of the best-known examples of a programmatic acquirer. Could you tell us about one or two lesser-known companies that you find particularly interesting?

Snyder: We prefer not to widely publicize our holdings, as Buffett says, “great ideas are both rare and subject to competitive appropriation,” but we’re happy to highlight two under-the-radar programmatic acquirers that embody Snoboll Capital’s strategy.

The first is Bergman & Beving (B&B), a ~US$1 billion market cap Swedish industrial group undergoing a powerful transformation. While it’s been called “the ancestor of stock market rockets” by Dagens Industri due to the massive success of its spin offs, B&B itself had stagnated. That was until 2021. when Magnus Söderlind, former Head of M&A at Lagercrantz, took over as CEO. He’s now executing the exact same playbook that underpinned Lagercrantz’s 2,000%+ return (30%+ CAGR) during his tenure. Since Magnus arrived B&B has been divesting its legacy low-margin distribution businesses and acquiring proprietary product companies with 15%+ EBITDA margins at just 6–7x EV/EBITDA. Despite negative organic growth from portfolio pruning and cyclical headwinds tied to construction end markets, EBITDA is up ~30% over the last two years and gross margins have expanded 700bps+. Moreover, incremental capital has generated ~20% returns, which should continue to bolster its ROIC, and in turn its valuation.

We believe B&B is still deeply misunderstood and undervalued, trading at a ~40% discount to its sister companies. But Söderlind is leveraging business systems like its “Tool Box” and its “Focus Formula,” to drive value creation at its decentralized subsidiaries. Its recent divestment of Skydda (~10% of revenues) removes most of the remaining legacy drag and management now targets ~8 high-margin acquisitions per year. We believe B&B can double EBIT in four years, resulting in much higher than expected earnings. With a robust pipeline, visible catalysts, and a proven operator at the helm, B&B is a quintessential Snoboll Capital investment entering the steep part of its compounding curve.

The second is Chapters Group (CHG GR), a ~US$1.1 billion German-based vertical-market-software (VMS) acquirer. Its quietly becoming one of Europe’s most promising compounders. Originally a defunct healthcare IT firm, it has been transformed under Jan-Hendrik Mohr, a Buffett disciple, and now full-time owner-operator. Its largest investors include Mitch Rales (Danaher’s founder), Sator Grove, MIT, and William Thorndike, an All-Stars team of capital allocators. Since 2019, when Chapters began its programmatic acquisition journey they’ve done ~50 acquisitions and it now generates more than €165 million in run-rate revenues and more than €40 million in EBITDA (~25% margins). However, it still trades in obscurity on the junior exchange in Germany. Mitch Rales has said publicly that he believes Chapters could be a 50–100x return and Rales has also said he thinks that they can build an even better version of Constellation Software, with more organic growth, and he is coaching its CEO Jan Mohr.

Chapters is institutionalizing its business system (“Manuscript Model”) modeled after DBS and building a structure that’s similar to Constellation Software’s platform. What makes Chapters truly special is that they have highly recurring, mission-critical revenue streams with strong pricing power and low capital needs. This means that most of its revenue growth can be converted to cash for deals and macro conditions should have little impact to earnings. Also, ROIC per share is their main KPI which creates a cash flow–obsessed culture. Recent additions like COO Marc Mauer, who led one of CSU’s platforms, further put odds in our favor. This year organic growth is expected to inflect towards mid-teens. Over time, we expect Chapters to scale to 15–20 platforms and for EBITDA margins to reach >35%. Despite its strong recent performance, Chapters is still early in its journey.

Both companies reflect what we specialize in at Snoboll: programmatic acquirers that have compounding flywheels of value creation. In both cases, time is our friend as higher earning power should be rewarded with higher valuations.

MOI: I understand that your investment philosophy has been strongly influenced by Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger. What key lessons have you learned from them, both in investing, business, and life?

Snyder: Snoboll Capital was named after Warren Buffett’s famous metaphor for compounding: “It was like rolling a snowball down a hill, what started as a small handful eventually grew bigger and bigger.” Our mission is to generate wealth that like a Snöboll (“snowball” in Swedish), compounds as it grows.

Berkshire Hathaway may be the best programmatic acquirers of all time. Their influence shows in our preference for decentralized companies with systems that scale, leaders who think like owners, and cultures which ensure a strong focus on returns on capital. But it’s Munger’s thinking which underpins more of Snoboll’s philosophy. His emphasis on simplicity, the power of incentives, and usage of mental models are all key tenets of our strategy. Moreover, we focus on a deceptively simple but powerful idea: programmatic acquirers. As Munger said, “Take a simple idea and take it seriously.” We’ve done exactly that.

MOI: In addition to investing in the United States, you also focus on Sweden, the Nordic markets, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Why did you choose to concentrate on these regions instead of, for example, Asia or continental Europe?

Snyder: We invest in what we deem to be the 10-15 best risk/reward wherever they are in the developed world. While most funds remain U.S. —centric, ~95% of our longs are currently invested internationally, primarily in Sweden, the Nordics, the UK, and Australia. There are markets that have the best performing stocks and long histories of programmatic acquirers which have generated significant alpha. Also, these markets have strong rule-of-law and corporate governance. In these markets we find underfollowed, high-quality small/mid-sized compounders at much lower valuations.

Currently, the valuation gap between U.S. and international equities is near a 50-year high and there is extreme crowding as U.S. equities make up ~70% of global market cap, levels last seen in the late 1960s. This was followed by two decades of U.S. underperformance. While history doesn’t repeat perfectly, this context is helpful. A potential turning point is the end of Europe’s austerity as Germany recently unveiled its €1 trillion “bazooka” and Trump is providing global investors reasons to look elsewhere.

Sweden stands out as it is where we have the most differentiated edge. At one time I was probably the largest US investor in the Swedish stock market. It’s also the market with the highest concentration of programmatic acquirers in the world. Yet many Swedish stocks trade at discounted valuations mainly due to structurally lower levels of liquidity. This illiquidity discount allows Snoboll to buy better quality companies at cheaper valuations, before they are large and liquid enough for larger institutions, like the one we once worked for, can buy the stock.

Over the years, we’ve built deep credibility in Sweden. In Q1 2025, Snoboll Capital was one of the few U.S. funds invited as a Cornerstone investor in Röko Group’s IPO, Sweden’s most anticipated listing in years. Our specialization gives us access that even larger firms can’t replicate. We avoid Southern Europe and emerging markets, where M&A often reflects empire-building, governance is weaker, and few companies have excelled at acquisitions.

MOI: When it comes to companies that grow through acquisitions, the CEO’s leadership is critical. What skills do you believe are essential for a CEO leading this type of company?

Snyder: At Snoboll Capital, we look for a very specific type of CEO. We gravitate towards those who build enduring institutions and strong cultures, not just earnings per share. These CEOs are often operators first, and capital allocators second. They have meaningful amounts invested alongside shareholders and they have a maniacal 24/7 focus on value creation. They’re disciplined, long-term, and rather than simply chasing growth, they obsess over return on capital and cash flows which are the lifeblood of programmatic acquirers.

They institutionalize excellence and focus intensely of employee development, decentralization, and heavily aligned incentives. They build business systems, proprietary playbooks and focus on continuous improvement rather than long term guidance. These companies create loyal, empowered employees, which enables organizations to scale while preserving culture and performance.

Finally, the best ones are humble and honest, rarely flashy or promotional. The best leaders know that culture isn’t just a byproduct. it’s a strategic asset that enables them to generate higher returns. Above all they “get it” and know how to get the Snoboll rolling.

MOI: What advice would you give to our community of investors who are always striving to “be a little wiser every day”?

Snyder: Be a generalist at the start of your career, if possible. Consider each investment part of your continuous improvement. Journal about what you learned from your mistakes. Also, I believe investors should focus WAY more on slugging percentage, not just batting average. Knowing what to own isn’t enough, you need to use position sizing to your advantage. Just like a blackjack player who is counting cards… bet big when you have a great opportunity. Position sizing is the key driver for both returns and risk management in our portfolio. Lastly, stay balanced, you’re never as smart, or as dumb, as you think you are.

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Laurence Carr on Using Behavioral Forensics in the Investment Process

July 1, 2025 in Audio, Full Video, Interviews, Podcast, Transcripts

We had the pleasure of speaking with Laurence Carr, formerly Head of AKO Capital’s Behavioral Assessment Unit, with extensive experiences as Chief Detective at Merseyside Police and HMIC.

Laurence is a practitioner of research-based interview techniques adopted by UK law enforcement and has played a pivotal role in introducing these methods into a comprehensive investment analysis framework at AKO Capital. Additionally, he has supported the largest sovereign wealth fund, Norges Bank Investment Management, in shaping their behavioral assessment team.

In this exclusive interview, Laurence discusses the pitfalls and biases involved in traditional Q&A-style interviews, how these methods evolved through collaboration with academia, and useful frameworks to apply. Moreover, Laurence provides guidance on the role of Forensic Linguistics and Behavioral Assessments in law enforcement and applicability for investment analysis.

Offering insights from his time at AKO Capital, Laurence highlights how these methods have been or could be applied in investment applications, the relevance of the methods when analyzing companies with seemingly shareholder-friendly incentive structures like founder-led or owned companies, and areas where the methods have yielded success or have been ineffective. We explore the enhancement of these processes using technologies like Phonetics and AI and potential pitfalls from relying on technology-based tools.

Finally, Laurence provides advice to interested fund managers or those who have not formally adopted these techniques or processes into their framework.

Topics and themes:

  • Laurence Carr’s background
  • Pitfalls of interview techniques used by police detectives
  • Key responsibilities of a Behavior Assessment Unit (BAU) — interview techniques, linguistics, and behavioral assessments
  • Assessments; assessing “credibility versus reliability”
  • Applying a useful research-based interview framework
  • The role of forensic linguistics and behavioral assessments
  • A case study from Laurence’s time at AKO Capital
  • Relevance of BAU when investing in founder-led businesses
  • False positives/negatives from applying BAU tools
  • Indicators used to improve BAU processes
  • Effectiveness of AI or other tools in analyzing communication

This interview was conducted by MOI Global contributor Tarek Andari.

Watch the conversation (recorded in May 2025):

printable transcript
audio recording

The following transcript has been edited for space and clarity.

Tarek: It’s a great pleasure to have Laurence Carr with us today as we explore how police detective frameworks and tools can be applied to investment analysis. Following approximately three decades of detective experiences at Merseyside Police and Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary, Laurence transitioned to the multi-billion dollar fund management company, AKO Capital, where he established and led the Behavioral Assessment Unit for seven years.

Laurence has also supported the world’s largest sovereign wealth fund, Norges Bank Investment Management, and we’re very excited to have you with us today, Laurence, and dive into some of these experiences. So, thank you for joining us. It’s a pleasure to meet you as well.

Laurence: Yeah, thank you, Tarek. It’s good to be here. Happy to have the conversation.

Tarek: Thank you. Could you expand on the introduction to tell us why you chose to be a detective and how the field evolved over the course of your career?

Laurence: I joined law enforcement, as you do in the UK, and you become a generalist at the start, really. It’s a great job in as much as you get to do a lot of different things, really exciting things and interesting things. It’s not paid very well, but it’s a great job for other reasons. During the first few years, I was able to sample detective work for about a six to nine month period as a young officer. It was that really that piqued my interest. And of all the things I did in my police career, investigation for me was the most rewarding, the most interesting.

A little bit later on, before I joined the detective branch fully, I was also seconded onto a homicide investigation. Ultimately, it was that that interested me as well, being a senior investigative officer, leading a team of detectives and solving some of the homicides that took place. So that was it. That was how I ended up a detective.

Tarek: Has the field evolved, since you first started, with any new investigative techniques or technology enhancements?

Laurence: Yeah, I mean, I joined in what I call the life on Mars years. When I say that I’m referring to a TV program that was on in the UK in the noughties that received awards, BAFTA awards. It was about a young detective in the northern city, who could have been me, who joined the police in the seventies and eighties. Sorry, he joined the police in the noughties. During his duty, he got assaulted or he ended up in hospital in a coma, and the TV show is the dreams that he was having in that coma. In his dreams, he was transported back to the 1980s and late seventies, early eighties. Yet with today’s sensibilities. So, that program was called Life on Mars.

I joined the police during those life on Mars times in the early eighties when the interview process in particular was pretty biased. The detective would make up his or her mind whether the individual that they were about to speak to was guilty or innocent, and then tailor the interview accordingly. The objective was to get a confession from somebody rather than to get information from them. So, when I saw that evolve, if you look at what I did at AKO Capital ultimately, and one of the things that I was able to transfer across to my time in fund management, that was a big part of it. Equity analysts interview CEOs of the companies they’re invested in or that they’re doing due diligence on all the time.

They’re really, really clever people, the analysts, but they don’t get a lot of training or guidance on how to conduct the conversation with somebody to get the most information from them. So in the police, going back to my police time, we moved in the early nineties in the UK and then worldwide really from that really confirmation bias or bias approach to interviewing somebody and having a conversation with an individual, whether it be a witness or a suspect towards more one that was to get information from them. That happened because of a lot of miscarriages of justice that happened in the early nineties in the Guildford four, the Birmingham six and other cases, which were really bad in a number of ways. They were bad because innocent people were in prison for a long time based upon confessions that were false, and they were bad because, the offenders were out there walking around on the street doing more harm and bad because there was a lot of reputational damage to UK law enforcement that arose from that high publicity when the people appealed and won their appeals years later, and also bad because the victims didn’t get justice.

So that led to a royal commission, which led to academics becoming involved in UK policing’s approach to investigative interview or to conversation management and changed the whole thing, root and branch. I was lucky enough to be immersed in that as a practitioner in the early nineties, and then later as a strategist, as I got more and more higher up the ranks in UK policing. So that sort of led on for my region anyway and had some involvement nationally on interview techniques. That’s one thing that changed, lots of other things changed but the job itself, policing detective work never really changes: you’re investigating something. What does change is the tools that you’ve got to help you do that really, and that did change a lot in my time.

Tarek: I believe AKO Capital recommend an interview techniques book that touched on the transition from traditional Q&A to research-based interviews or enhanced cognitive interview techniques. What would, in your opinion, now that you’ve done detective work and you’ve worked in fund management, what do you think the fund management industry would be really missing if they don’t focus on adopting these enhanced interview capabilities and techniques? What would be the key takeaway?

Laurence: Well, I always say that, you know, people’s decisions are based upon information. So, all our decisions are based upon information in fund management and everywhere else in life, but really crucial in fund management. There’s a lot of risk around those decisions and you make better decisions if you’ve got better information. I don’t think anybody would argue with that premise.

As I alluded to earlier, it always sort of fascinated me how analysts and people in the industry, in fund management become or in industry are becoming, fundamental analysts, perhaps forensic accounting analysts as well, market analysts, are all good at forming models, but actually awful at asking questions, awful at managing the process of the interview from the start to the finish, to give themselves the best chance to obtain as much accurate, reliable and relevant information from their interlocutors as they possibly can. That’s the thing at AKO Capital that I sort of really helped in that regard. If you increase the amount of information you’re getting from a source, then you’re going to make better decisions ultimately at the end of the day; so, that was one big win.

Tarek: Is the big topic then ‘credibility versus reliability’? Would you phrase it in that sense?

Laurence: Well, I would say that you can’t put the cart before the horse. Going on to credibility analysis, and that’s another whole topic really in terms of, okay, so your first job is to conduct the interview and ask the questions in a manner, which is going to give you the best chance to get the best information from the individual, and it’s that information upon which you apply your judgments as to the credibility of what is being said to you. That’s not always just about lie detection. In fact, it’s mostly not just about lie detection, because lie detection is difficult. It’s also about the levels of confidence in the language that they use. It could be that, or it could be, how confident are they in what they’re actually saying.

You’ve got to apply a whole host of other judgments around that as well. For example, does the person actually know the answer to the question that you’re asking them? Is it the fact that they don’t know and they’re too embarrassed to say so? And all those judgments that you make along the way. It could be what’s the level of confidence that you can look at things like how often they use qualifiers and such like that in terms of credibility analysis. So, they were the two big things I did in fund management really, firstly, the interview training, the conversation management training, and then looking at what’s actually been said to the investment analysts and to the investment community in terms of quarterly earning calls, Q&A, etc, and how credible is it, or what the CEO, and CFO, is telling you.

Tarek: Would it be fair to split the work you do in three parts, starting with interview techniques, then linguistics is that the right term?

Laurence: Well, it’s funny. Yes, to a large degree. When I started at AKO Capital in 2012, and I started with Nicolai Tangen; he was very broad minded, and for me, a farsighted individual who employed me, because he was watching his analysts and thinking, how can we make the interviews better? Where do we go for somebody who might know about this? And he thought, oh, well, the police interview a lot of people, so he advertised in a police publication actually, and the advertisement said head of interrogation wanted for a hedge fund, and interrogation isn’t a word I would use, because it’s a sort of, it’s more of a, it’s too confrontational, that word, really but it’s part of my interest. So, what I was getting at, I started on day one with a blank piece of paper and a blank desk and just me to sort of try and prove the concept really. After about six or nine months, Nicolai said, yeah, yeah, yeah, let’s do more of this. Why don’t you employ somebody to help you?

That’s where the linguistics came in, because I sat there and thought, I don’t really want to fill this office full of retired old cops like myself. I’m not sure that’s the right thing to do. What discipline can I look to that actually sort of fits what it is we’re going to do, particularly around the language of the CEOs and CFOs and the written language predominantly, really, although we would watch webcasts and go in on occasions to live interviews as well, but mostly it was documentary analysis, and I hadn’t had knowledge of the discipline of forensic linguistics. Through my time in the police, I’d never actually used a forensic linguist in the police in my career, but I knew about the discipline, and really, that seemed to be the one that fitted best. When I left seven years later, there was a team, I think, about five of us, there was me and four forensic linguists who were carrying out the work.

Tarek: I don’t think I fully understand it. Would you say someone who’s very good at interview techniques wouldn’t necessarily need someone good at linguistics to conduct a good interview and then interpret all the information they get, relatively accurately? Or would they still need some form of linguistics training to be able to do good interviews?

Laurence: Well, I didn’t get any linguistics training. I had sort of a lot of experience over 30 years being lied to, really, by people on the streets of Liverpool (humor). So, I wouldn’t say it’s totally necessary that you’re a forensic linguist. A lot or some of it is common sense. Some of it can be learned. I learned a lot, I had those instincts, really, is what I would call them, because I’ve experienced it for a long time, as I described in my police career, but I have no formal training, and I couldn’t put a label on most of it, really, at that stage.

Over the time at AKO Capital, working with some really bright forensic linguists, we also formed some partnerships with academics from Stanford University, from Lancaster University in the UK, and ran some projects and collaborations with them. So, I became a sort of honorary forensic linguist, really, without the qualification. So, if that’s your question, if that answers your question, then great.

What I would say is you do need, as I said earlier, to be able to ask the questions correctly and in a manner, that’s going to get the information. As I said, we did two approaches, we did the documentary analysis, which was a large part of our work, really, on quarterly earnings call transcripts and we also would watch webcasts. I mean, the analysis of the earnings call transcripts was properly forensic, and by that, I mean, really, really, really detailed. By the time we would publish something to the analyst team, it would have been read once, read again and annotated, read again and summarized, quality assured by another member of the team who read it again. It was amazing what we picked up on the second and third read that we’d missed on the first read, it is really important to be detailed.

Tarek: I did have a question later in the session on internal biases for the person actually conducting the interview. And I know you touched on how the interview techniques evolved to avoid that, but it does feel like there is still some form of bias per person that you need to have sort of third-party verification, etc. So, is the third bucket then behavioral assessments, if we say interview skills, linguist skills and then a bit of behavioral assessment skills as well?

Laurence: By that, do you mean nonverbal behavior, body language?

Tarek: Body language, potentially as well. For example, if you have a CEO who is pretty aggressive with analysts asking questions then that’s a form of behavior, but also communication. Would you sum it up to say these three things are sort of under your remit?

Laurence: Yes

Tarek: The way I’d like to structure this is to focus on the interview techniques first. Are there any useful frameworks or tools that you found that worked perfectly for you over time or have you refined them to become even better? Is there anything you’d like to educate us on in that sense?

Laurence: Yeah, well, I spoke about the sort of genesis of how things developed in my police career in terms of conversation management and how academics were collaborated with in the early 90s to develop and carry out research into what had happened; just prior to that was UK policing started to take record interviews with people. So, there was lots of data available for the academics to listen to, tear apart and research.

Based upon that and other research they did, they came up with a model called the PEACE model, that’s P.E.A.C.E. What that sort of, that mnemonic stands for is Planning and Preparation, Engagement and Explanation, Account, Challenging, Close and Evaluate. That’s how the process was broken down into those five key constituent parts of a meeting really, or of an interview or of a conversation. As the name suggests, it started, the process, the model started well before the interview would take place with the planning and preparation phase. I spent a week training on that PEACE model as an early, as a detective sergeant in the early 90s. I could spend a day talking about each of the five facets. So, we’re not going to do that here today, we clearly haven’t got the time. Suffice to say, that model was ground-breaking really, and it sort of changed the whole mindset of the interview process at the time.

Now, that same model still exists and still is used today. There have been improvements along the timeline, as you can imagine, but in effect, the actual basis of the model starts with planning and preparation, and it’s how you go about best doing that. And then it goes into the engagement, how you greet the person, how you meet them, what is your first line going to be? How are you going to build rapport with them? Because it is a rapport-based model, and then the account, which is the actual eyes on, whites of their eyes’ conversation, how are you going to conduct that? What are the best things, way to phrase your questions, manage the process, manage the room, manage the people your side of the table, and manage the people the other side of the table, if you can. How are you going to close the meeting? And then what evaluation do you need to do afterwards? Now, that is still more or less the same all these years later. It’s just, as I said earlier, the nuances and maybe little bits of things that have been improved along the way, yeah.

Tarek: Two or three questions down the line I will ask for a case study, if you’re happy to share one with us, where maybe you’ve used the model just to bring it to light in terms of an investment application per se.

I’ve been following Dr. Rob Leonard from Hofstra University. He basically says, forensic linguistics maximize intelligence yield from linguistic evidence. Could you unpack that sentence with a simple example?

Laurence: Well, Rob Leonard is somebody I’ve had a couple of conversations with, and he’s a learned professor of forensic linguistics over in New York. In fact, the first person I recruited when Nicolai said recruit somebody, she’s now a PhD and works at Norges Bank, something I’m very proud of, the people who have started careers as a result of starting at AKO Capital and all the rest of it. She actually worked for Rob Leonard for a while, and the community is quite small.

So, to unpick what he said, I think it’s about, you could sum it up as reading between the lines, really, couldn’t you? I mean, what’s being said in the start words is often, there’s often other meanings within it. And of course, forensic linguists in criminal justice, sort of with that hat on, they will look at things like authorship analysis, which looks into, has the person who purports to have written this thing actually written it or typed it? Use of certain phrases on how people write and speak can tell you things about them. There are some other great academics.

In my time at AKO Capital, we did some collaboration with Stanford, a guy called Jeff Hancock, and his boss, I think at the time was Jamie Pennebaker, who wrote a great book called ‘The Secret World of Pronouns’ or something like that. It sounds really boring, but it’s not boring at all. Mr. Pennebaker, he’s a psychologist rather than a linguist, because there’s lots of psychology in the topic as well, and he’s got a great book that that tells you really what you might say about someone who speaks in a certain way or uses pronouns in a certain way, really. So yeah, fascinating, fascinating stuff.

Tarek: What about behavioral assessment? Is it something you do whilst conducting an interview or listening to an earnings call just by nature or is there more to it?

Laurence: On that topic, just to interject some of the things that we used to see in interviews, so you talk about case studies, there were more than one or two times when you’ve got a panel of, you might have an Investor Relations Manager, CFO and CEO. If I would go into a live meeting with people, I would be observing mostly.

I used to ask the odd question, but I’d be mostly observing, and it’s amazing, you can pick up the sort of glances between people, or one might nod his or her head and the other one might shake their head in answer to the same question. Or when someone’s saying yes to the interviewer, while someone alongside them is saying no with their head. That was a really important part of it as well.

Tarek: How would you exercise/ assess linguistic features like contraction patterns, discourse markers, lexical choice? Would you assess the CEO in one meeting and then assess the CFO in another meeting on relatively similar questions, and then see the patterns and what they say? Would that be an exercise, for example?

Laurence: Well, I think what was really important was baseline behavior, which sort of what you highlighted there in your question, it shows how important that is, because there are two things, I think, to your question. One is consistency, consistency in behavior, but also consistency in what they say to you, the answer itself. And people often ask me, what are the big indicators of something going on in the background, and consistency is obviously a huge one.

But also, if you’re trying to judge somebody’s behavior, you should really know as much about that, what that baseline behavior is in the first place. For example, do we always use this particular word just as part of a lexical choice? Or is it significant? Is it a move away from what the baseline behavior normally is? Yeah, so that was a big part of what we did as well. And it’s amazing, you know, it’s amazing how, even just reading transcripts of someone’s conversation, where they use certain phrases, how you can pick up baseline behavior, having never met the individual, or some parts of their baseline behavior.

Tarek: Circling back on something you said, would you then recommend investors to always have a silent observer with them in the room, given the role you were playing? Would you say that’s really important to have?

Laurence: I think it’s, well, two things. First of all, it’s quite dangerous to, or I believe that assessing body language is really dangerous. So, I think you need to have some experience in it and to be really careful before you make decisions based on something like that, really. I would also say where it’s got power is alongside the words. So, if you get the two things together, then the wrong words and the wrong body language, then that’s where the power lies.

To your question on whether to have someone present all the time, I mean it would be a nice luxury to have. I suppose it depends on who it would be more than anything, as I just alluded to, really.

As an interviewer, one of the great things or one of the great learnings for me was about proper listening. Especially in today’s world where everything’s so fast and we’ve got phones and everything else going on around us, very few people, and of course, the Zoom world and the sort, I could talk for some time on the training that I do about how to do notes. So, if you’re not recording an interview, you have to record it in some form or another. The whole process of who does that, how it’s done, whether you use a laptop, whether you use a pen and paper is a whole topic in itself, really. It’s those whole things are really fascinating.

If you’ve got your lead interviewer, they should be actively listening, and you don’t just listen with your ears, you listen with everything you’ve got, including your eyes. They should be the ones who might pick up a lot of this stuff anyway, you know, what’s being said to them, the way the person’s behaving. I would always appoint a separate note taker and not have the main interviewer taking notes. Having said that, I always have a pen and paper. If you are answering a question that I ask you, and you say something that I might want to probe you on later, that I don’t want to interrupt you because you might be going to say something really crucial next. I might write down one word to remind me what that probe is later on in the conversation but the main note taking task I give to somebody else.

So that’s two people. And there’s a way to manage it if you’re on your own as well, which we haven’t really got time to go into and still have a good conversation. So, yeah, it’s like the whole thing about numbers in the room, have you got the staff and all the rest of it play into that whether you can have someone that I wouldn’t say it’s necessary, necessarily crucial.

However, we did it, we risk managed it. So I wouldn’t be asked into all meetings with CEOs because it’s a waste of time but if we had a case that we were worried about, if it was maybe a big investment case of the long book, or if there was a new company we were looking at, or the CEO changed or there was some risk factor, really, that the equity analyst thought it might be worth having me cast an eye over things, that’s when it was done.

Tarek: Good to have the resource, I think why AKO Capital shines, I guess. Is there a key case study that you can share with us where something was either caught out early and you sort of saved yourself a lot of trouble or maybe a risk was cooking up and you were seeing it play through and eventually exited.

Laurence: Right before formally starting at AKO Capital, I was called in by Nicolai to listen in on an interview with the CEO of a multinational supermarket company. He said: “we’ve got a huge position in the long book in this company and we’re not too sure about them. We think he might have lied to us in the past”. So, I offered to listen in to the questions because they were really nervous about the position, and I was also asked to look at, in fact this fits both of your questions, to look at their interview techniques and give feedback on that.

So, I checked out the interview room; they did have a plan which I was pleased with, an interview plan. The interview started and Nicolai asked some questions, then all 3 of the AKO Capital team started writing down the answers that were being given. Diligently taking notes. The interview went on. Nicolai carried on, answering, asking questions, more notes. I started relaxing then because I thought there is some work, some damages I call them, some work I can do here and make this better for them. Just then, somebody cut in across Nicolai to ask the CEO a different question, and the interview went off in another direction.

At the end of the interview, we had a debrief, and I was asked to give them feedback on how the CEO would answer the questions, and I said, well I wasn’t too enamored with one or two of his answers. He was asked how and when he was going to turn things around, and he didn’t apply any timescales to it. I think it’s very easy to say you’re going to think, make things better. What’s less easy is to be accountable for when, and things like that during the during the debrief. I also was asked about the interview techniques. I said: “Yeah, who was actually listening?”, and they responded: “All of us”, then I asked: “Well, what do you listen with?”. They responded: “Your ears?”. I said “No, no, no, no”. And so, they were all taking content, all 3 of them. I just simply talked about the points on notetaking, and to them that was sort of mind blowing. Really, have the interviewer actually watch and look at the person who’s answering the questions.

So that’s one study in terms of what happened with the business case. I mean, it wasn’t just me, obviously, and I would never advocate making decision just based on what I said. They’d also had some indications from forensic accounting that there were some issues. They’d had some difficulties with the company earlier and I just put the icing on the cake by giving them the feedback about the way the CEO had answered and not answered some of the questions, and they exited, and sure enough, saved the investors a fortune, really, because the stock price plummeted. I think the profit warned a quarter later, or something like that and but by then we’d exited.

Tarek: How relevant does this work become when screening for companies that are majority owned by a family for example and where the governance/ incentive structure is shareholder-friendly?

Laurence: I smile because there were one or two companies that we’ve invested at the time where they were family-owned companies. And I think it’s great because you’ve got a bigger stake in in the whole thing if you built it yourself, and you feel you love it and all the rest of it, and so I think there’s a lot of power to that in terms of the investment case. But also, I’ve seen in one particular company, and in more than one company where you might have somebody who founded the company and then it’s sort of run the company with their family for many years and then become the chair of the Governance Board. Then, a poor CEO is trying to manage this whole situation where the chairperson is actually the company and is interfering with and getting involved in day-to-day operations, perhaps more than they should. So I smile for that reason, really, that I can sort of sympathize and empathize with that whole position and you might not have the full power that you feel you should have in the running of the company, because of the power of an individual or of a family who have developed, and you know, and brought up and grown a business really. So, there’s a lot of stuff you can deduce from just the things that happen in those companies, and then, when you interview them as well. That particular company merged with another company around the same time. It was a massive merger and who was in charge and who was running the place was anybody’s guess for the first 12 months, and I was looking up to be in one or two face to face interviews with the joint team of both CEOs, one from one side, one from the other, and let’s just say it took a long time to sort out

Tarek: So, it helps to still get organizational clarity, probably power of decision making and who it sits with in the end. So, we have the framework on interviews and the models that you mentioned and the skills, etc. Have there been times where you had, a false positive, or a false negative, applying your methods? For example, you’ve done your analysis, and it’s raised a few alarms but actually, the case turned out to be okay.

Laurence: Yeah, that happened a lot. I mean, as I said, I’m sold on the process, maybe I could use the one thing that we haven’t touched upon yet is the computational approach to language analysis. I found myself sat there after about a year or 2 as a small team, then I’m thinking, we’re quite reactive. We’re good for risk management. My team we troll through the earnings call transcripts of everything in the book, by the time we had a full team we did pick up things that are going to be risk for really big positions for the company, and enable the analysts to probe into them further, to hopefully discover whether there’s anything behind them or not but we’re not proactive. We’re not suggesting stocks even to the short team and so there must be a machine in the sky which we can build, and into one end you feed all the transcripts from the universe that we are interested in and out the other end come 10 bad ones and 10 really good ones. I always jokingly say, and I’m the big thinker because I couldn’t do that myself, but I thought it might be a good idea to start to try.

In around 2013, we started looking at natural language processing and using computational linguists and data scientists and stuff. So it’s like that, really before AI and before, really, I think you know there’s other firms out there now that have been in that sort of world and selling it to the financial industry for many years now, but probably before that, or at the outset of that, anyway. So we did a lot of work with some academics I mentioned earlier, Stanford and we looked at some dictionaries that are publicly available, that were sort of contextualized for finance dictionary by people called Loughran-Mcdonald, which were produced in about 2011 to 2013, something like that, and they were basically buckets of words that you could apply to analysis, it might be positive words, negative, no words, pronouns, whatever it might be, and funny enough, we were doing some work with Stanford around all our data because over the 7 years, we built up a massive library of data, analyzed transcripts that we looked at as a team all graded at a risk matrix, like from 1 to 5, being really good or bad in our opinion, and we were looking at positive and negative words. Funny enough, I came across the word ‘execution’ in the financial world, which has a different meaning to the word execution in another context. So that was one funny story, really, where we were getting hits on negative hits on companies. Then, looking at what’s behind this or that and analyzing it deeper. We put a human on it to actually look at it, and it was all about the fact that the CEO would use the word execution more times than they normally do in a particular call. However, it meant nothing really. So really important to follow up on that, but yeah, we weren’t always right. I would never claim that we were always right at all.

Tarek: How do you evolve the process? I picked up somewhere on your Linkedin, where you mentioned that you refined the process by qualitative and quantitative indicators, as well. What are the quantitative indicators in behavioral analysis, or how would you do that?

Laurence: Well, the quantitative approach is more about the language really than anything else. What I said to my team when we started doing this, my team got really nervous because we were just doing qualitative work, human analysis at the time, and they got really nervous. They asked: “Is this my job?”, I suppose, like people do perhaps now with AI, is it going to take my job? And I was always trying to reassure them, and of course it hasn’t, and it didn’t, because there’s real value in both.

The value I used to say, for example with the computational approach, what would now be the AI approach, is the helicopter view that looks across big data and is strategic and can look at individual companies for over a longer period of time, and can tell you things about how they might change the language, or how they might be using some red flag language at certain times but the human analysis can do things that machines don’t, for example machines don’t do irony. So, I talked about the little relationship things you might have even in a transcript where you’ve not met the CEO. You might have a CEO who’s made a joke at the expense of somebody, and that tells you something about the relationship between those two managers, really, and I don’t think a machine, I might be wrong, but I don’t think even now machines can pick up stuff like that. Also, part of our role as human analysts was to flag areas that the analysts might want to approach in their next meeting with the managers. There was real value in both qualitative and quantitative, really and the quantity to answer your question purely relates to words and how they use what.

Tarek: I was in a class where we had a senior executive guest speaker tell us how they’ve received a lot of training on public speaking to avoid AI models capturing any insights from what he/ she says on prepared remarks, and it sound like that’s where you’re trying to allude to the human element where the machine is still not capable of understanding.

Laurence: Well, yeah, it’s an interesting point you make. Because I’ve been challenged many times over the years by people who said there’s a lot of validity in the question. I’ve said, you know CEOs must train themselves to be able to speak even before AI. If we were looking at ‘tone’, positive words versus negative words to use more of those, or to answer questions in a way that you’re not going to be able to judge anything, well, I always go back to it, depending how you ask the question really. If somebody doesn’t answer the question, they don’t answer the question. It doesn’t really matter what they say, if the questions are asked correctly, to give them the best opportunity to answer, and they answer in a certain way, or they don’t, how they fail to answer. Then that’s an indicator in itself. It’s often most times you’ll never get to the bottom of why, but the indicators add up. I think it’s true that CEOs will undertake such trainings. I had media training in the cops, and I used to go on the TV and on the radio quite a lot, appealing for witnesses. So, we had an investment in doing those interviews for our cases, and to protect the public as well. I was trained how not to answer questions of the reporters, as politicians are trained in that way as well, but someone analyzing my interviews with the reporters would have recognized straight away, he hasn’t answered that question and that tells you something about me. My motive was to get my information across as quickly as possible, because the media interviews are over like that, and I need to get it across, that’s what I was taught. CEOs, I’m sure, are taught how to manage conversations with equity analysts. The key is asking the right questions.

Tarek: How open are you to an approach including asking the right question but also incorporating new technology to deliver an improved job. For example, what is your view on the use of ‘Phonetics’ to assist the analysis?

Laurence: Yeah, we did explore phonetics when I was at AKO Capital, actually, and we didn’t really come up with anything that it was telling us. We did about a 6 or 12 month study into one of our team had done some work in phonetics, and so I don’t understand phonetics. It’s about as you say, the tone of voice really more than anything, whether there’s any value in or whether there’s any academic rigor behind people’s tone change, and no doubt there is. The difficulty becomes with all these things that you’ve got to manage the relationships with the individuals that you’re having conversations with. It’s like recording, Zoom is recorded in that these days, isn’t it? But we have many long arguments at AKO Capital, and then it was discussed again at Norges Bank when I was at the sovereign wealth fund about whether, unless you’ve asked the CEO if they minded them recording on tape. The interview that stops you having to write things down enables a better conversation, but the feeling was that CEOs would be more guarded in the way they speak about things. I found in the police that it didn’t actually happen; people forgot about it usually and they forgot the tape was on and would have a normal conversation. It’s an interesting topic technology, so what I always used to say when we were having those discussions is, you can never do this covertly. You have to tell people because you have a relationship to maintain with individuals, and it’s a professional business relationship, and you’ve got a reputation to uphold as well. I find it difficult how you would, unless I feel I should always tell these people that we’re looking at the top we’re like, we’re recording this, I just think it’s in that regard it creates some difficulties with phonetics.

Tarek: For fund managers that haven’t adopted behavioral assessments formally or with this much rigor, how would you advise them to start?

Laurence: Give me a job, I suppose (humor). Yeah, it’s difficult, really, because, as I said at the start, I’m amazed how little out there, there is for people, particularly around the interview techniques thing because that’s the thing they can just they can buy in training, for having said that training is forgotten, usually in about 2 weeks, I think the research tells us. I say, when I’m delivering my training, if you remember one or 2 things from this that you use in the future, I’ll be really over the moon. The reason it worked better, I can always think, is because they had someone on the job follow up, and it was embedded. Now, whether people are going to do that I don’t know, but that’s what I’d say would have the biggest effect.

In fact, the interview type side of things became, I’d say 5% my role, and 95% of it became the forensic linguist approach to reading and judging what the answers were to questions not just on individual meetings, but across the earnings calls transcripts. There’s real value in text. I mean, there’s Alpha in text, I firmly believe that. It depends on the firm, the size of the firm. What you know, what the ability is to employ these people. I would just be buying in the best I could find in data science and in AI, and saying, sit there and play. Just let them play for a while really. Because I truly believe there is proper value, proper offering in the way people answer questions, or don’t answer them.

Tarek: Thanks so much Laurence, pleasure to have you with us today.

Book Suggestions:

  • The Secret Life of Pronouns: What Our Words Say About Us – James W. Pennebaker
  • Investigative Interviewing: The Conversation Management Approach – Eric Shepherd.
  • A Guide to the Professional Interview: A Research-based Interview Methodology for People Who Ask Questions – Asbjørn Rachlew, Geir-Egil Løken, Svein Tore Bergestuen

About the interviewee:

Laurence Carr is a UK-based specialist consultant in credibility assessments and conversation management. Laurence was formerly the Head of AKO Capital’s Behavioral Assessment Unit and has experiences as Chief Detective at Merseyside Police and HMIC. Laurence is a practitioner of research-based interview techniques adopted by UK law enforcement and has played a pivotal role in introducing these methods into an investment analysis framework at AKO Capital. Additionally, he has supported the largest sovereign wealth fund, Norges Bank Investment Management, in shaping their behavioral assessment team.

The content of this website is not an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy any security. The content is distributed for informational purposes only and should not be construed as investment advice or a recommendation to sell or buy any security or other investment, or undertake any investment strategy. There are no warranties, expressed or implied, as to the accuracy, completeness, or results obtained from any information set forth on this website. BeyondProxy’s officers, directors, employees, and/or contributing authors may have positions in and may, from time to time, make purchases or sales of the securities or other investments discussed or evaluated herein.

Lyft: Underappreciated Turnaround With Cash Generation and Growth

June 26, 2025 in Audio, Discover Great Ideas Podcast, Equities, Ideas, Member Podcasts, Transcripts, Wide Moat, Wide-Moat Investing Summit 2025, Wide-Moat Investing Summit 2025 Featured

Eric DeLamarter and Brandon Carnovale of Half Moon Capital presented their investment thesis on Lyft (Nasdaq: LYFT) at Wide-Moat Investing Summit 2025.

Thesis summary:

Lyft is gaining market share following the implementation of various initiatives by its newer CEO, David Risher. Over the last year, Lyft has emerged as a price winner with superior ETAs. Risher has led a successful turnaround to stabilize US Mobility and now has the foundation to expand into new services and geographies.

Eric and Brandon expect Lyft will win a Waymo partnership in the nearer term or be acquired by Amazon.

LYFT’s valuation discounts these favorable developments and assumes a significant risk of disintermediation. However, Eric and Brandon see autonomous vehicle companies pursuing a partnership approach, which would be net beneficial to Lyft.

The above events, among other catalysts, should result in upside for the stock.

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About the instructor:

Eric DeLamarter is the PM of New York-based Half Moon Capital–research intensive, fundamental-oriented, long/ short partnership which invests across various sectors and markets with a focus on small-mid cap companies and special situations. Half Moon Capital seeks to differentiate through a deep research process, independence and ability to uncover original investments with a catalyst. Prior to Half Moon Capital, Eric worked in private equity, investment banking and equity research. Eric holds an MBA from Columbia Business School and a BA from the University of Michigan.

The content of this website is not an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy any security. The content is distributed for informational purposes only and should not be construed as investment advice or a recommendation to sell or buy any security or other investment, or undertake any investment strategy. There are no warranties, expressed or implied, as to the accuracy, completeness, or results obtained from any information set forth on this website. BeyondProxy’s officers, directors, employees, and/or contributing authors may have positions in and may, from time to time, make purchases or sales of the securities or other investments discussed or evaluated herein.

Topgolf Callaway: Two-in-One Value Play With Insider Buying and Catalyst

June 26, 2025 in Audio, Discover Great Ideas Podcast, Equities, Ideas, Member Podcasts, Transcripts, Wide Moat, Wide-Moat Investing Summit 2025, Wide-Moat Investing Summit 2025 Featured

Arvind Mallik and Jonathon Fite of KMF Investments presented their thesis on Topgolf Callaway Brands (US: MODG) at Wide-Moat Investing Summit 2025.

Thesis summary:

Topgolf Callaway is a market leader uniquely positioned within the evolving “Modern Golf” ecosystem. Originally founded in 1982, the company today dominates with top-tier brands across golf equipment (Callaway, Odyssey), apparel (TravisMathew, Jack Wolfskin), and experiential venues (Topgolf). Topgolf, which now accounts for 41% of revenue, offers compelling unit economics, delivering 50-60% cash returns and significant venue growth potential, targeting expansion from approximately 100 venues today to over 200 in the future.

Despite impressive underlying economics, MODG shares recently traded at depressed levels around $8 due to a cyclical downturn affecting consumer discretionary spending, especially impacting same-venue sales at Topgolf. Nevertheless, external rankings continue to highlight Topgolf’s strong competitive positioning, notably in categories like fun, atmosphere, and food & beverage, underscoring its sustainable moat. Additionally, Callaway’s golf equipment segment maintains oligopolistic dominance with a market-leading 35% share, benefiting from scale-driven R&D advantages and strong consumer loyalty.

Accounting complexities tied to Topgolf’s REIT financing have obscured MODG’s financials, making the company appear optically more leveraged than reality suggests. Properly adjusting for these nuances, MODG is valued conservatively at approximately $15 per share based on adjusted free cash flow, while a sum-of-the-parts analysis yields a valuation exceeding $23 per share. Catalysts expected to unlock this value include the planned separation of the Topgolf and Callaway segments, an operational rebound at venues, and moderating macroeconomic headwinds. Recent insider buying further supports confidence in the underlying value, suggesting substantial upside potential from current trading levels.

Access Arvind and Jonathon’s original presentation on Topgolf Callaway (2024).

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About the instructors:

Arvind Mallik is a Managing Partner of KMF Investments, a pure Pay-for-Performance Private Investment Partnership based in Denton, Texas. KMF seeks long-term capital appreciation by investing in companies whose intrinsic value is significantly higher than the market price. Since its founding in 2008, KMF has found opportunities in world dominating franchises, hard assets below replacement costs, businesses at large discounts to liquidation value, and firms with beneficial exposure to rising interest rates. Prior to founding KMF Investments, Mr. Mallik was a Senior Manager in the Strategy practice of Accenture. At Accenture, he helped global companies formulate and execute strategies to enter new markets, develop innovative new services and solutions, and reduce their operating costs to improve shareholder returns. Mr. Mallik obtained a BS in Chemical Engineering and BS in Bioengineering from UC Berkeley, and an MS in Chemical Engineering from MIT. He graduated with highest honors from both institutions.

Jonathon Fite is a Managing Partner of KMF Investments, a pure Pay-for-Performance Private Investment Partnership based in Denton, Texas.KMF seeks long-term capital appreciation by investing in companies whose intrinsic value is significantly higher than the market price. Since its founding in 2008, KMF has found opportunities in world dominating franchises, hard assets below replacement costs, businesses at large discounts to liquidation value, and firms with beneficial exposure to rising interest rates.Prior to founding KMF Investments, Mr. Fite was a Senior Manager in the Strategy practice of Accenture, where he helped companies improve shareholders returns. He is also a Lecturer for the College of Business at the University of North Texas. Mr. Fite graduated with honors from the University of Arkansas with a BS and MS in Industrial Engineering.

The content of this website is not an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy any security. The content is distributed for informational purposes only and should not be construed as investment advice or a recommendation to sell or buy any security or other investment, or undertake any investment strategy. There are no warranties, expressed or implied, as to the accuracy, completeness, or results obtained from any information set forth on this website. BeyondProxy’s officers, directors, employees, and/or contributing authors may have positions in and may, from time to time, make purchases or sales of the securities or other investments discussed or evaluated herein.
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