market folly

Barron’s recently ran a bullish story on Hanesbrands where they argued the stock could advance by 25%. The piece references extensively a recent report published by Boyar Research. Boyar was kind enough to provide our readers with this report as well as additional reports on Legg Mason and Liberty Global.

To receive these free reports, please visit:
http://boyarresearch.com/MF-Apr-2017

Boyar Research takes a private equity approach to public market investing by identifying securities trading at a substantial discount to their estimate of intrinsic or private market value. Since 2009, the average return for each company profiled in their flagship publication Asset Analysis Focus has been 83.7%, compared with an average return of 53.3% for the S&P 500.*

Hanesbrands Inc. (HBI)

- Hanesbrands, the world’s largest basic apparel company, boasts a portfolio of first-rate brands that hold the #1 or #2 market share position in underwear, intimate apparel, hosiery, and active wear in 12 countries.

- Several issues have weighed on HBI shares over the past two years, culminating in a sharp sell-off in the stock after the Company reported poor 4Q 2016 results. HBI’s innerwear segment, which comprises 43% of sales and nearly 60% of operating profit, exhibited surprising weakness during that quarter due to soft retail traffic not being fully offset by their rapidly growing online sales. However, we do not believe that this recent weakness represents a secular shift in the purchasing frequency of HBI’s products. Rather, we believe this is a temporary situation caused by a shift of customer purchasing behavior from brick-and-mortar establishments to online distribution channels.

- To see Boyar’s estimate of intrinsic value for HBI and to receive their complimentary full report, please click here


Legg Mason, Inc. (LM)

- Legg Mason, Inc. is a formidable player within the asset management industry, possessing impressive scale (~$710 billion of AUM) and a diverse line of well-established products catering to a full range of investment styles and asset classes.

- Approximately 70% of LM’s strategies are outperforming benchmarks from one-year and three-year perspectives, and the figure for the five-year and ten-year perspectives exceeds 80%.

- The Company has also reduced its shares outstanding by 40% and has raised its dividend seven times since 2010. However, LM shares have failed to achieve significant outperformance despite the Company’s strategic advances. In large part, this likely reflects the difficult fundamentals currently impacting the actively managed fund sector.

- LM is trading at approximately 0.7% of AUM, a substantial discount from how comparable firms have historically been valued in transactions.

- To see Boyar’s estimate of intrinsic value for LM and to receive their full report, please click here


Liberty Global plc (LBTYA / LBTYK)

- Liberty Global is the largest European cable systems operator.

- Liberty Global is underpenetrated in its existing network and has plans to expand its footprint by 6-7 million homes in the coming years.

- Liberty Global shares have de-rated to ~9x EV/OCF, below their longer-term average of ~10x—offering a bargain, in our view, for a high-margin, recession-resistant business best positioned to capitalize on the secular growth in internet data usage.

- To see Boyar’s estimate of intrinsic value for LBTYK and to receive their full report, please click here