Adrian Croxson Long Ryanair: Sohn London Conference

We're posting notes from the Sohn London investment conference 2016.  Next up is Adrian Croxson head of European Equities at Och-Ziff Management who pitched long Ryanair (LON:RYAN).


Adrian Croxson's Sohn London Conference Presentation

Long Ryanair Holdings (LON: RYAN) 

Och-Ziff have owned Ryanair stock for two years. Ryanair’s own projections suggest that they can grow volumes at 8% per year for the next 8 years. They have enough capacity to do that because they have lower costs. They fly 120 million passengers per year. Demand for air travel will continue to grow. Ryanair keeps taking market share from competitors. It can grow market share from 15% to 25% over the next few years.

It is the lowest cost producer in Europe with 50% less overhead than main competitor Easyjet. Staff costs are low due to route density not necessarily because they pay staff less. They require fewer crews as staff can work out of more than one airport. Landing costs for Ryanair have been flat over the last couple of years because they have gone into airports where other airlines have gone bust.  They have a good record for buying planes cheaply as they tend to buy when demand is low. They are getting better at cross selling passengers hire cars and hotels. They do not spend a lot of money on marketing.

Net income can double in the next seven years and the share count will diminish due to buybacks. The CEO owns £1bn of stock.

Be sure to check out the rest of the Sohn London conference presentations here.

Top Hedge Funds Short Neopost

Last week we highlighted 2 stocks that prominent hedge funds were short.  And this week we have another: Neopost (NEO.PA).  Per regulatory filings in France, the following hedge funds have short positions in the company.


Hedge Funds Short Neopost

Pennant Capital: Net short 1.55% of Neopost's shares as of July 1st.  This is slightly down from the 1.63% they were short back on April 1st.

Och-Ziff Management Europe: Short 0.7% of shares as of July 20th.  This is up from 0.61% on June 23rd and 0.5% on June 19th.

GLG Partners:  Net short position of 0.59% of Neopost shares as of July 9th.  This position has slightly fluctuated from 0.62% of shares on April 14th and 0.52% of shares on March 18th.

Tiger Legatus: Short 0.58% of shares as of June 29th, down slightly from the 0.61% of shares they were short on June 26th.


The company is "engaged in producing and selling mailroom equipment" per Google Finance.  This has been a popular short among hedge funds and we even highlighted hedge fund short positions in Neopost back in 2012.  Pennant Capital had a short on at that time as well.

While this could be a hedge to some of their long positions, it seems more plausible that this is an alpha short given that Neopost is considered a secular decline story.  As the world transitions from paper/print to digital/online, the thesis is that pages/documents will be printed and mailed, instead being stored and transmitted digitally.  Neopost shares are down around 29% over the past year.

A US-traded company, Pitney Bowes (PBI), is involved in the same industry.  While we've heard some hedge funds were short in prior years, there's no way to know for sure who's short (if any) these days since there's no rule of public disclosure of short positions in the US.  Not to mention, the company has shifted its focus to include digital offerings as well.

You can view more of the latest hedge fund short positions here (scroll through).