Careful when riding coat-tails

Most of my time when looking at investments is spent rejecting ideas. Personally, I prefer reading other peoples ideas from various blogs, SumZero, VIC, BeyondProxy instead of running screens (notorious coat-tail-rider), so every idea I come across is written from another investors point of view - which has its positives and negatives. The positive is that you learn a lot, there are lots of smart investors willing to share their wisdom - how to look at a certain business, things you should be concerned about. The negative is that every investor has different concerns, a different investment philosophy, and will only provide what they feel is the most relevant information. Doing your own work is crucial, no matter who's tail you plan on riding. Two ideas which I'd been working on recently can serve as good examples:

#1) Comparing Apples vs. Oranges - Imvescor Restaurant Group:
This was an idea initially posted on VIC in June 2013 when the stock was at $1.30, with a $3.30 target (available to guests). More recently a couple of write-ups popped up on SumZero with $4.30 & $4.50 targets (members only), the stock is trading at $1.90, so despite rising +45% over the last six months, it was still of interest. The investment thesis goes something like this:

1. Franchisor business model - stable earnings with high free cash flow generation.
2. Strong market share in key markets - #1 position in Atlantic Canada and #2 in Quebec, with 240 total restaurants concentrated in Eastern Canada.
3. Attractive valuation - trading at ~7.7x EBITDA, whereas comps range from 8.5x to 13.9x. Absolute valuation of 9.9x FCF is also attractive given the low capital intensity.
4. Catalysts - resumption of dividends, new products, activist investors.

At this point I was pretty excited and started to do some due diligence. 

Being a Canadian and not knowing any of these eastern franchises, my first question was obviously how have these franchises fared over time?

The answer was not great. Overall the top two brands have lost 51 locations out of 222 over the last decade, 47 of these were in their respective dominant market. Over the same period Boston Pizza, previously focused on the West Coast added some 90+ restaurants in Eastern Canada alone. While disappointing, I thought this probably explains the cheapness.

Moving onto cheapness I wanted to answer 3 questions:

1. How does the current valuation compare to its historical valuation? 

Not very cheap, the company's current EV of ~C$110mln is close to its historical peak in 2008. The company does boast a retail division now with ~$4mln in royalties, but has lost 20 odd locations since. Overall EBITDA is pretty close to the 2008 rate of ~$18 mln. But hey, just because it's been cheap in the past doesn't mean its not cheap now.

2. How does it compare with its competitors?

This is where the whole "Apples vs. Oranges" rant comes in. The VIC write-up lists four comps, three of which are unit trust - A&W, Boston Pizza, and Pizza Pizza - the writer did explicitly flag this, but let me continue. What is the problem here? 

The problem is that with Imvescor, you have 3 different business models: i) the good franchising business including retail sales; ii) not so great the company owned restaurants which are acquired from struggling franchisees; and iii) not so great manufacturing operations. All three reports treat all the businesses equally and slap a 10x EBITDA multiple or a 6% dividend yield to get their target prices. This means you're paying $70 mln for the two not so great businesses. To provide some perspective, the 10 company owned restaurants were acquired for $2.5 mln and the company currently has $1.5 mln in manufacturing sales + a recently acquired facility for $4mln. I find it tough to get $70 mln worth of value there. 

3) What is it worth on a sum-of-the-parts basis?

Well lets say we assign a 10x mult. to the royalty business for $130mln, and 4x for the company owned restaurants for $12mln, and 4x for manufacturing, which we will assume does $4mln in EBITDA after recent acquisition, for another $16mln. Adjust for the debt and fully diluted cash and share count, you get $2.53/sh. Still attractive compared to its $1.90 price, but our safety margin is now much narrower than say compared to $4.50 in value. Now you start thinking about the fact that the company's two mature franchises have closed 51 locations over the last decade, the multi-brand strategy is clearly struggling to compete against national franchises, and that competition is actually intensifying - well that margin of safety is pretty much gone. 

Imvescor is cheap, but would I want to hold on to it for 10 years against the competition? Definitely not.

The two most useless (useful) investment tenets

Over the last few days, I've been thinking about my ever changing investment philosophy, in an attempt reach some clarity towards my current investment process. There are several schools and sub-schools in investing, and even the term "value investor" can mean a hundred different things. So to properly categorize myself within this maze I started to think about some of the folksy wisdom provided by great investors and two gems came to mind because they were completely meaningless to me when I had just started out investing, and now carry a great deal of influence over my decisions.

"Rule # 1: Never lose money; Rule # 2: Never forget rule # 1. "

When I first came across this advice, I thought well geez... "that's pretty useless, of course I don't want to lose money, but how do I make sure I don't lose money?" 

Now after looking at hundreds of different businesses, my investment process revolves around this vague folksy wisdom (this does not mean I never lose money). Nearly all of my time when looking at an investment is spent on how can I lose money in this investment / what can change in this business going forward? My usual reasons includes I don't understand the business (banks, pharmas, tech, resource based), too much debt, too expensive, too cyclical, too close to its cyclical peak, too big and complicated, and of course too competitive - when you have over 20,000 companies in North America alone, you can be quite liberal in rejecting investments.

Buffett himself has exemplified this philosophy better than anyone else - a 58 year investment career with only 2 negative years is simply mind boggling. Thinking about his investment process of - ultra-long-term time horizon or permanence, high concentration, buying quality, Saint-like patience - all are geared around avoiding losers, not buying multi-baggers although that may be the result, but first and foremost on avoiding losers. Even in his early days of buying cigar-butts and work-out situations, Buffet was doing just fine avoiding losers - in his 1963 memo titled "The Ground Rules", he reported his partnerships total realized gains to loss ratio over its  6-year existence to be "something like 100 to 1". 

"Use your [investing] edge."

Once again, when I first came across this advice I thought, hmm what is my investing edge? Am I smarter? Harder working? Copying smarter people? The first two are debatable.

But once again this advice has become a cornerstone of my thinking. Again let me use Buffett's folksy wisdom to explain - "If you have been in a poker game for a while, and you still don’t know who the patsy is, you’re the patsy." - I'm always looking for a reason why I believe this stock is cheap and why others are not taking advantage. It is very helpful in weeding out ideas. The most common (most important) edge is simply having a longer time horizon than others. But coupled with lets say undercovered companies that institutions can't invest in (too small, post-bankruptcy, spin-offs), misunderstood businesses (M&A, conglomerates), or out of favor industries, the opportunities can be enticing.

Other tenets could include:

"Price is the primary determinant of risk and returns"

"Investing is most intelligent when it is most businesslike."

"Learn from and copy success"

I think those are pretty self-explanatory.

My Investment Thesis on Rain Industries

Full report can be found at: 

http://www.beyondproxy.com/rain-industries-ltd/

https://www.dropbox.com/s/gj6rhpbhih181s6/Rain%20final.pdf

The depressed valuation of this leveraged, underfollowed, niche market, stable margin, and oligopolistic natured business provides an opportunity for a serial capital compounder. 

Investment Thesis

The investment idea presented in this report is a little known industrial business based out of India with global operations called Rain Industries Limited (“Rain”). What started as an Indian cement producer in the early-70’s, is now a global conglomerate with over US$2 bln in annual revenues. Rain can be split into three primary businesses: petroleum coke calcining (36% of revenues), RÜTGERS’ primary coal tar distillation and chemicals production (58%), and the cement business (7%). The company’s two main products of calcined petroleum coke (CPC) and coal tar pitch (CTP) – combining for ~47% of revenues – are used by aluminum smelters in carbon anode production.

Recent Events. On Oct-21-2012, Rain announced the acquisition of the leading coal tar distiller in Europe called RÜTGERS. The acquisition for a gross enterprise-value of €702 mln (₨59.6 bln) was the company’s second overseas leveraged buyout (LBO), and with it Rain became the largest ‘carbon’ supplier to the aluminum industry globally. The acquisition was completed on Jan-04-2013 and yet for nine months ending Sep-30-2013 Rain has earned ₨10.03/sh versus ₨13.22/sh for the same period in 2012. At the time of the announcement, Rain had a market capitalization of ₨14.9 bln (US$280 mln) and based on 2012 earnings, was trading at a P/E of 3.2x. Currently Rain trades 2.7x 2013E earnings with a market capitalization of ₨12.0 bln (US$195 mln). While a margin squeeze in the company’s calcining business explains most of the earnings compression, a number of factors have contributed to Rain’s depressed valuation, namely: i) despite an acquisition valued at ~4.0x Rain’s market value investors have not seen any earnings accretion to date; ii) investors are worried of the company’s leverage ratios; iii) the aluminum industry is out of favour with aluminum prices falling 25% since Jan-2011; iv) the Indian market is out of favour – in 2013 the BSE Sensex index rose 9% while the Indian Rupee depreciated 12% whipping out any gains for foreign investors; v) the company operates in a niche carbon industry with few publicly traded comps; vi) it is an Indian stock with a market capitalization under US$200 mln removing it from most investment manager’s universe; vii) portfolio managers are wary of fraud in all foreign listed equities; and lastly viii) it is fairly challenging for non-Indian Residents to invest in Indian listed securities. All of these factors combine for an inordinately cheap valuation and attractive risk/reward opportunity.

I believe Rain is a potential “triple play” – essentially you’re buying a quality business, trading at a depressed valuation, and one that is operated by a competent and well-aligned management team – providing several avenues for capital appreciation.

1. Quality of Business. Rain operates as a market leader in both pet coke calcining and coal tar distilling, which are best described as oligopolistic. Barriers to entry for these businesses include: regional markets created by notable transportation cost, longstanding customer and supplier relationships, strategically located facilities, and trademarks and patents. The carbon business operates on a cost pass-through business model, where the operator earns a stable return for sourcing and processing raw materials. Similarly, both pet coke calcining and coal tar distilling take by-products from crude oil processors’ and steel manufacturers’ and turn them into value-add products for the aluminum and chemicals industry. In an economic downturn Rain is able to offset lower selling price with cheaper raw materials; however the recent period has been exceptionally challenging with aluminum prices falling 25% since Jan-2011 and energy-based raw materials cost remaining relatively flat (green petroleum coke and coal tar). Despite volatility in the aluminum prices, from 2008-2012 the calcining business earned 22-25% EBITDA margin (18% in 2013E) while RÜTGERS has earned 11-12% over the last four years (10% in 2013E), demonstrating the business’s low operating leverage.
2. Business Value. Over the business cycle, Rain is capable of earning ₨26.80/sh in EPS, US$387 mln in EBITDA, and US$204 mln in unlevered free cash flows per year. With lower selling prices combined with compressed margins in its two main products sold to the aluminum industry, I expect EBITDA to come in at US$267 mln (approximately 23% lower than 2012 inclusive of RÜTGERS). The impact on earnings will be much greater – while Rain has acquired businesses with low operating leverage, the company does employ leverage in its capital structure. My 2013 EPS estimate is ₨13.48/sh (40% lower) compared to the consolidated profits of ₨22.42/sh in 2012 if RÜTGERS earnings were added and adjusted for changes in exchange rates. Rain’s valuation on these depressed earnings is still depressed. Using 2013 numbers Rain trades at a P/E of 2.7x and EV/EBITDA multiple of 5.1x. Using cyclically adjusted earnings and EBITDA, which for simplicity sakes we will assume to be the average over the last five years, Rain trades at a P/E of 1.7x and EV/EBITDA multiple of 4.2x. I believe Rain is worth in the ball park of ₨177/sh or ~4.9x its current share price based on a discounted cash flow valuation approach using normalized earnings and 10% discount rate.
3. Management Plans and Interest. Rain is operated by a well-aligned management team with a track record of prudent capital allocation. Jagan Mohan Reddy is the CEO of the company co-founded by his father, and overall the Reddy family owns ~40% of Rain Industries providing significant alignment of interest. Management is well aware of its depressed valuation and plans to return capital to shareholders while de-leveraging the corporate structure. From 2007 to 2012 Rain reduced its net-debt from US$728 mln to US$413 while returning 12% of income to shareholders.

The Special Situation. The key catalyst for Rain will be the management’s plan to pursue a U.S. listing of the carbon business (calcining, coal tar distilling, and chemicals) in late 2014. While details of the listing are still up in the air, it creates a special situation in Rain’s corporate structure – creditors have provided the company with ~US$1.3 bln at a cost of ~8%, while the equity currently yields over 70%! It is relatively easy for a small cap, leveraged, and niche industry Indian stock to be mispriced, but a partial U.S. listing of the carbon business (which I believe is worth ~US$1.9 bln) should provide a material re-rating in the valuation and also help de-leverage the company.

Back on the block (blog)

Last year I took an hiatus from blogging as most of it was spent working on the sell-side, which provided several regulatory restrictions and very little time to maintain a blog. Now having learned some of the technical skills required to understand and value a business, I hope to find a home at a value-minded shop where I can do what I love on a daily basis. While my search for a home on the buy-side continues, I will post any interesting investment ideas I come across. 

I've also started to manage money (pro-bono basis) for a couple of friends and a family member and this blog provides an ideal medium of communication with them as well. Since the funds are small and liquidity is not a concern at this point, I will try to update all buy/sell decisions in a timely manner - hopefully my "clients" can also gain some transparency into how their money is being invested.

Results and lessons:

Being based out of Canada and having no particular desire of investing in commodity based businesses, I will use the S&P 500 Index as my general benchmark. Last year was a great year for most equity indices and I'm obviously pleased by a year in which my holdings gained +40% while beating a fast rising market - however the year wasn't without its share of mistakes.

Key mistakes: 

• Investing in a risk arbitrage situation (fancy word for buying a stock trading below its proposed acquisition price). Last summer I made a purchase of a stock offering 8-16% (tender offer had a range) in this situation despite reading warnings from several great investors on why these situations should be avoided - limited upside, much greater down-side, uncertain timing, and a lot of work for the usual 10-12% reward. I rationalized the purchase with the following: i) extremely cheap valuation - the stock was trading at under 5x EV/EBITDA at its takeout price; ii) stable/non-cyclical business - the company provides a niche equipment rental service to hospitals; and iii) well-aligned management - an activist investor stepped in the year before to replace the company's handsomely paid management team - in fact it was the activist investor acting as the company's Chairman that made the offer. Much to my dismay, two weeks after the initial offer the board rejected the bid citing "too low of a price". A couple of months go by and the stock now traded at 25% below my initial purchase. Since the underlying business did not change, and the valuation became much more attractive, I was happy to purchase shares on the way down while being cognoscente that shares could languish until the company decided to start returning cash or another buy-out offer comes by. Luckily, Mr. Market corrected the disparity between the company's price and value much sooner - shares closed the year at $2.14, with my initial purchase coming at $1.73 and average price of $1.49, I was able to walk away  from this lesson relatively and absolutely scot-free. 

• Seeing a "special situation" through - last year I invested in my first spin-off - I provided a brief write-up on the situation in my Deans Foods post. This particular spin-off offered a bit of everything - a partial listing, spin-off of a high-growth business (WhiteWave), a residual leveraged-stub (remaining Dean Foods), cyclically depressed earnings, corporate restructuring (Dean Foods had also sold its Morningstar business and was aggressively paying down down), and  the promise of shareholder friendly capital allocation going forward - essentially, no matter what I did I should have made money. I realized a gain of 8% in just under 6 weeks - if I had held onto my position until the remaining spin-co shares were distributed, I would have made 28% in 9 weeks - however I was much more concerned about the "DF Stub" valuation and wasn't able to see the bigger picture transformation that was happening at the company. 

• I'm not sure how to categorize this next mistake other than "once you find a compelling idea - invest in it", don't be an idiot and wait for your other positions to reach a selling price. Last fall I wrote a report for the annual value investing contest hosted by SumZero, with naturally my most appealing investment idea at the time. However, instead of taking a sizable position I waited for the opportunity to exit one of my other positions. The company received a go-private offer in the following weeks and shares ended the year 62% higher than my initial price write-up price.

Other errors include: a purchase of a competitive and deteriorating business, numerous omissions of decent businesses at great prices (debatable if errors), and my initial over-concentrated portfolio (2 positions). As you might imagine, still having a shirt on my back despite all these mistakes made me quite pleased with the 2013 results, and even more excited about future investments. 

Returns to date: I will continue to post my personal returns on a quarterly basis, other portfolios I manage will track these results extremely closely.

2013 Update

Well my big winner so far in 2013 has been the DF stand alone trade - DF Stand alone value now stands at $5.29/sh up from $3.80 at time of initial post. Making for a 39% return on net capital employed in the trade; not bad for a 6 week holding period. 

Unfortunately I was not able to execute the trade as a net trade due to employer restrictions on shorting, and therefore only realized the long DF upside of around 8%. 

Although I think there is plenty of upside left in this story and that DF stand alone profitability will be much higher in the future than where it stands right now; I may reduce my position in the trade to lower my portfolio concentration and pick up some other interesting opportunities arising. 

KLIC my other significant holding in 2013 has not fared as well and is down 7% from my initial purchase. The strong cash position, free cash flow generation ability of the business, and low level of competition in a niche market make me feel pretty safe about this holding.

New Ideas:
I have not had the time to post write-ups about other ideas recently, but I have been reading blogs and posts on sumzero, gurufocus, and the likes. Few ideas that tickled my fancy are:

1) Pinetree Capital ($0.40) - a publicly traded asset manager investing in junior (extremely junior) commodity developers. This is really the perfect opportunity for an activist investor to buy a dollar for 40 cents.

The goods: Cheap! 

• Fund NAV as of March 31, 2013 was $1.20, stock is trading at $0.40 (57m mkt cap). $0.17 of NAV is deferred tax asset, rest is investments. Even excluding the deferred tax asset, it's trading at 0.39x NAV.
• 91% of investments as of Dec 31, 2012 were in public companies - easy to liquidate
• Extremely diversified, 400 odd positions; they don't take a majority stake in companies, so low liquidity concern. (175m fund, 25m is largest position)
• Permanent capital, no risk of redemptions

The Bad: Management

• A horrible way to invest. Diversifying between junior miners could be the worst possible way to deploy capital. Accordingly NAV has been shrinking at an alarming rate - Jan 11 - 4.68, Dec 11 - $2.61, Dec 12 - $1.55, and $1.20 as of March 31, 2013.
• CEO bonus was $34mil in 2010; 10% of growth in BV of firm during year.
• They continue to invest elsewhere - I don't understand how other investments can be more attractive from the management's point of view than repurchasing shares.

2) Bed Bath & Beyond ($65) - retailer of home, kitchen, and bath products. Possibly one of the best ways to play the US housing recovery.

The Good

• Growth and Margins - 2003 to 2007 growth averaged over 15%, revenue growth remained positive throughout the housing crash, currently just under 10%. 
• Gross margins over 40%
• Reasonable valuation of 11.6x 2013 earnings. Even better, 12.6x 2013 FCF.
• 0 debt

The Bad

• Increasing competition from online retailers?

3) Skullcandy ($5.20) - producer of headphones facing stiff competition and slowing revenue growth of +21%. The company is refocusing business on mid-high range headphones in 2013 and exiting the lower price points. 

The Good

• Market cap of $147mil and $100mil in working capital.
• 2012 EPS of $0.92

The Bad

• Little value-add industry, however a strong brand can help differentiate product. 
• Competition forcing company to refocus strategy.
• 2013 sales are expected to be lower due to the aforementioned change in strategy 

4) Leapfrog ($8.19) - maker of educational entertainment products for kids. Misunderstood competition of tablets and smartphones creating negative sentiment over the stock. Sales were up 16% y/y last quarter, and 28% LTM. 

The Good

• Trading at <6x ex cash PE. 
• Target market is kids from ages 3-9. This is not the target audience of smartphones, and you cannot replace toys with smartphones and tablets. 
• Sales are growing still; Leapfrog makes good toys - 3 of the top 4 toys of 2012 according to NPD Group's Retail Tracking Service report.
• Leapfrog has created a cheaper ($100) hardware to compete against the tablet insurgence. Also more durable.

The Bad

• I may be underestimating the impact of tablets and smartphones on the toy industry.
• Competition is the #1 destroyer of investment returns and should not be underestimated.

5) ORIG ($15.32) - a leveraged deep underwater drill ship owner/operator. Currently has 3 ships under construction paid for using debt, which are due in the second half of 2013, and hence the current debt position seems unreasonably high. 
The Good

• Post delivery of vessels, ORIG is trading at a 4.6x EV/EBITDA multiple with one of the youngest fleets of its competitors. New vessels are already contracted along with the remaining fleet; 90% of the vessels are contracted into 2014 as well. ORIG is also trading at a discount to book and significantly below asset replacement value.

The Bad

• The company has a leveraged balance sheet, $2.3b net debt.
• Shipping is one of the businesses with very little value-add, differentiation, and barrier to entry. It is extremely vulnerable to cycles, and current attractive rates on deep water vessels probably mean oversupply is due in the future.

Dean Foods Spin-off Opportunity

Charlie Munger once provided 3 simple tips on becoming a successful investor:
1) Follow the great investors
2) Look at the cannibals (companies aggressively buying back shares)
3) Carefully study spinoffs 

So, here is an analysis of a recent spinoff by Dean Foods in which David Tepper of Appaloosa management had been an active shareholder. At the start of 2011, Appaloosa held close to 7% of the total shares outstanding, however has since reduced its position to ~1%, taking profits on the way. The analysis below is for the Fresh Dairy business of DF and involves shorting the illiquid IPO of WWAV, which is a trade someone of Appaloosa's size cannot execute.

Summary

Dean Foods (NYSE: DF) recently spun-off it's high growth business, "WhiteWave" (NYSE: WWAV) through an IPO. This presents an interesting opportunity to buy the remaining Fresh Dairy Direct (FDD) business on its own through a long-short trade. Dean Foods currently retains 86.7% ownership of WWAV, however it will distribute majority of its stake on April 23, 2013, retaining 19.9% , after the IPO lock-up period expires. DF plans to distribute or sell the remaining stake at a later date as suitable per tax issues.

Dean Foods stand-alone (DF Stub) is currently trading at a Fwd P/E of 7.6x, P/FCF of 5.2x, and an EV/EBITDA multiple of 5.2x. The DF Stub currently has a price of $3.80/sh ($710m mkt cap, calculation below), however I believe it's fair value is closer to $6.23/sh (67.3% upside) even based on the company's relatively weak 2013 guidance (will discuss later); and a upside value of ~$9.95 in a normalized margin scenario combined with further capital structure savings.

DF Stub Capital Structure

*the stand alone debt includes debt reductions from the Morningstar sale completed on Jan 3, 2013

The Business

Dean Foods is a leading food and beverage company and the largest processor and distributor of milk and other fluid dairy products in the United States. The company has two business segments: Fresh Dairy Direct and The WhiteWave Foods Company ("WhiteWave"), which is it spun out through an IPO. After the spin-off and distribution, DF holders will be left with just FDD.

Fresh Dairy Direct is the largest processor and distributor of fluid milk in the United States, and Fresh Dairy Direct also processes and distributes other dairy products ice cream, cultured dairy products, creamers, ice cream mix and other dairy products. Dean Foods sold it's longer shelf-life business, Morningstar, to Saputo in December 2012, leaving milk as 75% of the remaining FDD business. DF is the largest and only national player in the fragmented industry and maintains a 40% market share.

DF's size doesn't provide it the supply-side economies of scale you would expect from a dominant industry player. DF sources milk from fragmented local farmers, however milk prices are set by the US government on a monthly basis to provide farmers the ability to earn reasonable profits and pass-through inflation of their inputs costs (corn). 

DF also doesn't have any demand-side economies of scale. Its customers are retailers, and like other middle of the supply chain businesses, DF competes largely on price. With low switching costs, no product differentiation, and numerous local providers of milk; DF also has little power over its customers as well. 

Where DF does have an advantage is in its distribution network and economic scale. The company continues to look for cost efficiencies in it's distribution network, capital structure, and overhead costs. Over the last 2 years, DF has reduced its operating leverage through deleveraging its capital structure (reduced debt burden from $3.4b to $1.4b) and seeking efficiencies in its distributions network and overhead expenses ($300m or ~3% cost reduction). Management expects to achieve another $100m to $150m per year over the next two years through debt refinancing and further distribution savings). Dean Foods transformation over the last two years has unlocked significant value for its share holders, the market value of the company has responded increasing from 2b at the start of 2012 to 3.5b currently (DF + WWAV, excluding DF ownership of WWAV). However, this is a thesis on DF FDD Stub, which remains undervalued. 

Profitability
FDD has a gross profit margin of 20-25% and operating margin ~2.5%; management is expecting 2013 to be another tough year because of high projected milk prices. However even with the lower gross margins, DF will be able to achieve higher profitability through improved SG&A margins and a substantially lower interest expense. Management also sees debt refinancing as an avenue for further cost savings into 2014 as DF has substantially improved its leverage and credit position and will be able to secure financing at much lower interest rates (most recent senior notes were issued at 9.75%).
The upside scenario represents a normal gross margin year, combined with further interest expense savings. The downside scenario simulates an ever tougher margin environment than 2011, when DF experienced what management calls "irrational competition".

Valuation
Below are valuations based on the above profitability scenarios. I believe the base case represents a fairly conservative scenario of compressed gross margins and leaving the low-hanging fruit of reducing financing expenses on the table. As mentioned earlier, the base scenario represents a 67% upside with fairly conservative profitability and multiples scenario. 

    The upside scenario is definitely not out of reach. Management has shown great diligence over the last two   years in reducing costs. If milk margins normalize and management continues to find ways to improve margins, upside scenario is a definite possibility. 

More impressive than the cost reductions has been the managements efforts to unlock shareholder value through deleveraging and separating the parts of Dean Foods. Post WWAV distribution, DF stand alone will be a cash-cow (pun intended) with strong profitability and low capital intensity for an industrial business. Management plans to continue shareholder friendly capital allocation practices in the future through dividends or share-repurchases, which could help target multiples as well.

Risks/Downside scenario: like any other industrial business, DF doesn't have control over its input costs and has little power over its customers as well. Periods of intense competition from smaller, local competitors, could lead to decreased profitability. However the deleveraged capital structure and improved SG&A margins should allow DF to use its scale to out-compete in the longrun. 


Executing FDD Stub
This is an analysis of the FDD business alone, therefore execution must be done such that you are purchasing FDD only and hedging out the embedded WWAV ownership. To execute FDD Stub you should use a long DF 125 shares to short WWAV 100 shares ratio.



Disclaimer: I do not have a position in DF or WWAV, however may initiate a position within 72 hours.

Apple Apple Apple

3 great articles on Apple:

Understanding Apple requires an analysis of Fundamentals and Psychology
Apple has created 3 groundbreaking products over the last 10 years and in the process have created a moat for the company - huge economies of scale, unmatched buying power, ecosystem of products, and a brand associated with quality.
http://www.institutionalinvestor.com/blogarticle/3151025/Blog/Understanding-Apple-Requires-an-Analysis-of-Fundamentals-and-Psychology.html

Why David Einhorn Is Wrong About Apple
Ecosystems are overrated (switching costs are low), every product company disaster has had superfans, the moat is narrow.
http://beta.fool.com/joekurtz/2013/01/22/why-david-einhorn-wrong-about-apple/21906/?source=eogyholnk0000001#.UQaMNoHM-p0.twitter

Apple Versus the Strategy Professorshttp://blogs.hbr.org/fox/2013/01/apple-versus-the-strategy-prof.html