market folly

Continuing the series of notes from the CIMA Conference (Columbia Investment Management Association), we turn to the long/short equity investing panel with Whitney Tilson of T2 Partners.

Whitney Tilson On Various Longs/Shorts & Lessons Learned

On His Netflix (NFLX) Trade: over 2 years, they’ve broken even. Shorted at 100, covered at 200, felt smart as it went to 300. Wanted to kill themselves as their short thesis played out, got back long on the day in blew up going from 120 to 77 in a day.

Lessons: what they missed on the short side: very dangerous shorting an open-ended situation with a lot of momentum. Both stock and business had momentum, and they didn’t fully appreciate the quality of the business or the momentum the stock has.

Why was he short? Because P/E was 75x, also NFLX needed to invest heavily in streaming content to grow, which would have compressed margins. It happened, should have been more patient before entering the short. Now, balance sheet has tripled in a year, CEO has given up on core business, has bet entire company on the streaming business, with 3B of deals, which is senior to the debt. Stock could be 1000 in 5 years, or zero in 5 years. Each incremental sub is almost pure profit. Good news is they learned the company VERY well and could act very quickly when the stock collapsed. “We didn’t change, the stock price changed.” Every stock in the universe is a long at one price and a short at another price.


On Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A / BRK.B): 15% position, held continuously for 13 years. Upside, worth 170k, up from 117k. Based on investments 100k per share, then 10x multiple on operating businesses, add it together. Any method you value it, worth at least 150k. Buffett buys it back at book. 8% downside, 50% upside stock. Railroads, housing sensitive business are doing great, insurance business is getting better. What is the bear case? No catalysts. No activists, can’t break it up, no dividend. Cheapness is the only catalyst, and the valuation gap will close. Single biggest area of cheap stocks, they are cheap on risk-adjusted basis.


Tilson on His Short Positions: Says to size your shorts small. Has there ever been a $10B market cap that traded at 10x REV that didn’t collapse?

Lululemon (LULU), Salesforce.com (CRM): good businesses at ridiculous prices

Green Mountain Coffee Roasters (GMCR): OK business, may be chance of fraud of channel stuffing. See David Einhorn's short thesis on GMCR here.

Interoil (IOC): interoil, claims to have found world’s largest natural oil field in Papua New Guinea, they think the value is zero.

Nokia (NOK), Barnes & Noble (BKS): terminal value zero, thinking of adding Research in Motion (RIMM) to the list, waiting for a bounce. Tricky with a lot of cash, doesn’t expect NOK and RIMM to survive in Android business. Bigger, better player can go under- Borders Books failed, BKS will be next. Any time you’ve seen a stock that has moved a lot, and you say, “I missed it.” Instead, stop and do your work, pretend like it never was at a price before. Only thing that matters is where the stock is today and where it’s likely to be in the future.

Two types of shorts: both very tough. Where is it on the life cycle? Broken momentum shorts. Value traps. Best Buy (BBY): value trap, or say it’s trading at 8x FCF?


Q&A Session:

On Hedge Fund Management Fees & Investor Expectations: If you’re having a ballet in an auditorium, that’s fine, as long as you say that outside. If it’s a rock concert, that’s fine too, as long as you’ve labeled it as such. The problem is when you say it’s a ballet and it’s a rock concert. Make investors aware of exactly what your style is. He’s more volatile than the average hedge fund, so they communicate with their clients frequently. Had only single digit redemptions last year, up 12% so far this year. Manages ~$150 million: if he thought cutting fees would get him to $1B, he would do it. The money chases performance regardless of fees anyway. No clever fee arrangement works anyway.


For the rest of the notes from the CIMA Conference, head to these posts:

- Dan Loeb: Lessons He's Learned as an Investor

- David Einhorn Question & Answer Session

- Bruce Berkowitz's Basic Checklist for Investing & What He's Learned

- Distressed Investing Panel (Dan Loeb & Daniel Krueger)

- Bill Miller on What Stocks He Likes Now

- Michael Karsch on Risk Management

- Bruce Greenwald's Market Comments