The 10 Best Sunday’s Idea Brunch Interviews

The 10 Best Sunday’s Idea Brunch Interviews

This week, Sunday’s Idea Brunch is highlighting our ten favorite past Idea Brunch interviews. And if you know of any other great, off-the-beaten-path investors we should interview please email edwin@585research.com or hit reply. Hope you enjoy this collection!

“Idea Brunch with Dan Roller of Maran Capital Management” (April 24)

Favorite quote: “I wouldn’t say I’m contrarian for the sake of being contrarian, but I just try to be an independent thinker and maintain a bit of an outsider mentality. It is important to remember that good companies are not necessarily good investments. We need to be second-order thinkers in this business.”

Ideas discussed: Clarus Corp (NASDAQ: CLAR — $665 million), Cadre Holdings (CDRE — $702 million), and CTT Correios de Portugal (Lisbon: CTT — EUR454 million)

“Idea Brunch with Harris (‘Kuppy’) Kupperman” (January 2)

“I try and identify themes that have been ignored, sectors that are hated, companies that are misunderstood. I wait until I can see a change in trend, a reason why things will get better, and I get involved right at the moment of inflection—before it’s yet reflected in the public numbers. I only focus on situations where I can make at least 3-times my money and preferably 5-times. That’s my return threshold. Too many people find a stock trading at $20 and figure out why it should be at $25. That makes no sense to me. You’re taking all this risk and not getting compensated. I find a dollar and try to figure out why it will be worth 5 and why it could overshoot to 10.”

Ideas discussed: Lee Enterprises (NASDAQ: LEE — $109 million), Valaris (NYSE: VAL — $3.79 billion), Sprott Physical Uranium Trust (TSX: U — CAD$2.20 billion), Kazatomprom (LON: KAP — GBP5.53 billion), Cornerstone Brands (NYSE: CNR — $3.07 billion)

“Idea Brunch with Josh Young of Bison Interests” (December 26, 2021)

“I’d like to highlight one thing I don’t do that almost everyone else does. I don’t build detailed models on companies I’m evaluating, particularly not early on. They say that building a model lets you be ‘precisely wrong’ about valuation. I’ve found that the model building exercise, particularly in oil and gas public equities, focuses investors and analysts on factors that are hard to predict and in many cases are not the actual drivers of the investment outcome.”

Ideas discussed: (TSX: BTE — CAD$3.91 billion), Journey Energy (TSX: JOY — CAD$286 million), and SandRidge Energy (NYSE: SD — $705 million)

“Idea Brunch with Jon Cukierwar of Sohra Peak Capital Partners” (April 3)

“While screening for strict criteria is quite efficient, an A-to-Z approach is best for finding the diamonds in the rough.”

Ideas discussed: Goeasy Ltd (TSX: GSY — CAD $1.56 billion) and Mader Group (ASX: MAD — AUD$492 million)

“Idea Brunch with Ian Cassel of Intelligent Fanatics Capital Management” (February 27)

“Twenty years ago, I fell in love with the microcap space because even a small investor like me could gain access to management. Even today talking to management is the most important thing I do as a microcap investor. Businesses aren't spreadsheets. Businesses are people. I want to meet them.”

Idea discussed: Cogstate (OTC: COGZF — $188 million)

“Idea Brunch with Porter Collins of Seawolf Capital” (January 23)

“A bubble is usually easy to spot but difficult to time when it will burst. In my view, bubbles always possess the same two ingredients-excess speculation and excess leverage.”

Ideas discussed: Overstock (NASDAQ: OSTK — $1.25 billion), Verano Holdings (CN: VRNO — CAD$2.81 billion), Scott’s Miracle-Gro (NYSE: SMG — $4.25 billion), and Navios Maritime Partners (NYSE: NMM — $723 million)

“Idea Brunch with Matt Sweeney of Laughing Water Capital” (March 27)

“There is a ton of evidence to suggest that the best managers over longer periods of time frequently underperform the markets over shorter periods of time. This is because, with the exception of the last few years where what has been most popular has performed the best, to outperform in the long run, investors have historically been best served by buying what is out of favor rather than what is most popular.”

Idea discussed: Countryside Partnerships (London: CSP — GBP1.35 billion)

“Idea Brunch with Dave Waters of Alluvial Capital” (February 13)

“When considering any microcap security, I like to ask two questions. 1. Why is this company so small? and 2. Why is this company public? If a company has been around for several years but still struggles to generate growth and profits, perhaps something about the company is fundamentally flawed.”

Ideas discussed: P10 Inc (NYSE: PX — $1.28 billion), GEE Group (NYSE: JOB — $61 million), and Auto Partner SA (Warsaw: APR)

“Idea Brunch with Justin Dopierala of DOMO Capital” (December 5, 2021)

“What the market didn’t see was that a lot of GameStop’s losses were non-cash losses due to write-downs and that most of the revenue declines were actually due to asset divestitures (which were actually a great thing and occurred at levels much higher than the market expected). I’m not sure if the market necessarily got GameStop wrong, but the media and the short sellers certainly did.”

Ideas discussed: Alto Ingredients (NASDAQ: ALTO — $326 million) and Pitney Bowes (NYSE: PBI — $630 million). 

“Idea Brunch with Bill Martin of Raging Capital Ventures” (October 3, 2021)

“Is Business Getting Harder or Easier?  A simple but important part of my framework is evaluating the factors that are creating tailwinds or headwinds for a company.  For example, I ask questions like "Is TAM growing or shrinking; where is the company in its product cycle; what are the relevant competitive dynamics; is cost of capital rising or falling, etc."  You can use this mindset to think about both longs and shorts over various timeframes.  Obviously, it is better to go long when a stock is cheap and things are getting easier, or to short when a stock is expensive and things are getting harder.”

Ideas discussed: Liberty Sirius (NASDAQ: LSXMA — $13.6 billion), Five Point Holdings (NYSE: FPH — $272 million), and Exterran (NYSE: EXTN — $158 million)

We are always looking to interview great, off-the-beaten-path investors. If you know of anyone we should interview please email edwin@585research.com or hit reply. Sunday’s Idea Brunch is especially focused on young, emerging managers that are hungry, knowledgeable, and have been overlooked by traditional media.

Thank you all for your support,

Edwin Dorsey