Graham & Doddsville Latest Issue: Howard Marks Interview & Pitches on SPR, SERV

The Fall 2017 issue of Columbia Business School's newsletter Graham & Doddsville has been released.  In it, they feature an interview with Howard Marks of Oaktree Capital.  We've highlighted many of Marks' letters in the past.

The new issue also features Paul Sonkin of GAMCO Investors/Gabelli Funds who talks about learning from mistakes and pitching the perfect investment.

Additionally, they profile Jeremy Weisstrub's new firm, Aryeh Capital Management.  Prior to founding the new firm, he worked at Greenlight Capital.  He talks about his bullishness on shares of ServiceMaster (SERV), which includes businesses like Terminix, American Home Shield, and more.

The newsletter also features student investment pitches, including long Spirit Aerosystems (SPR), which was the winning pitch at the Women in Investing (WIN) Conference.

Embedded below is the fall issue of Graham & Doddsville:



You can download a .pdf copy here.

Mario Gabelli's Interview on Wall Street Week

Anthony Scaramucci's rebooted Wall Street Week this time around interviewed GAMCO's Mario Gabelli.

Gabelli says you have to work harder than others if you want to succeed, but having a good education is also a good place to start.

They also talked about how Gabelli essentially pioneered private market intrinsic value investing and Gabelli said that, "if a company's publicly traded, what would it be worth if it went private?"  He looked at the spread between what it's trading for and what it's worth.

He tries to stay in his circle of competence, focuses on competitive dynamics in a given stock's industry, and then looks at the balance sheet to determine the downside first.

One of Gabelli's bets these days is a top down view on water.  He notes that it's being consumed and used increasingly around the globe and so he wants to play the infrastructure support.  They've bought Xylem (XYL), Badger Meter (BMI), and Mueller Water (MWA), Gorman-Rupp (GRC), as well as other companies that make products used to test water.

Lastly, Gabelli wants to earn companies that can have earnings in either an inflationary or deflationary environment.  For a short-term trade (1-2 years) he likes Scripps Broadcasting (SSP).

Embedded below is the video of Gabelli's interview on Wall Street Week:



If you missed it, be sure to check Marc Lasry's Wall Street Week interview as well as Steve Einhorn's interview.