Notes From Sohn New York Investment Conference 2018: Einhorn, Robbins, Gurley & More

The annual Sohn New York Investment Conference recently took place and featured top hedge fund managers sharing their latest ideas to benefit charity.  Below are notes from the event.  We've also posted up notes from the emerging manager panel, Next Wave Sohn New York.


 Notes From Sohn New York Investment Conference 2018


John Khoury, Long Pond Capital: Long D.R. Horton (DHI).  He runs a $2.5B long/short fund mainly in Real Estate.  Pitch is DHI is getting asset light by only building on developed lots instead of buying raw land, getting approvals, and building the infrastructure.  So it's an asset-light model with less debt and better ROIC, so deserves better multiple.  They are the biggest US builder based on number of units - average price is $300k, basically entry-level homes, and they built 50k last year.  What about interest rates? Says that is the biggest fear now, but rates could go up 100 bp and housing would still be affordable in relation to current income and net worth of households.  Key is rates would be coming up from such a low place. Says record low inventories.  Expects $5.50 EPS by 2020, uses 13x to get $71.50, or 63% upside.


Li Ran, Half Sky Capital.  Long: GrubHub (GRUB).  2014 IPO.  Felt like the companion pitch to the TKWY pitch in the morning at Next Wave Sohn from Alex Captain of Cat Rock Capital.  Large addressable market, positive unit economics, proof of concept, and support from restaurants.  Painted a pretty rosy picture, didn't really touch on the bear case.  She says $70B TAM on 35% penetration on 110M diners (they have 14.5M now, and many analysts think they are close to fully penetrated in the US.)  She has done surveys of restaurant managers that expect GRUB to keep growing.Price Target $160, on 15x EV/EBITDA, up 60% from here.  Previously worked at Lone Pine Capital.


Jeffrey Gundlach, DoubleLine Capital: Long XOP ETF, short Facebook (FB).  His FB pitch seemed to mainly be based on technicals.  He used the fact that FB is below the 200 day moving average at the time as his reason to be short.  He also cited 2 examples of government regulation hurting stocks - one was tobacco. (He didn't mention other examples where stocks were stronger yet, such as credit cards, banks, etc.).  He pointed out a 'head and shoulders' formation on the FB chart, which is usually bearish.       


Chamath Palihapitiya, Social Capital: Long Box (BOX).  He said BOX was an AI play, and he also said you should have an AI basket of AMZN, GOOG, BOX.  He was less enthusiastic about NVDA, because he believed GOOG's TPUs are "ten times better."  On BOX, he said it goes up 10x in 10 years, even though it has 70% of Fortune 500 already.  Core business stable, adding SaaS revenue.  Big Data/AI play, and 4.3x revenue. Only growing 20% CAGR, yet he expects multiple expansion.


Glen Kacher, Light Street Capital: Long Palo Alto Networks (PANW).  Tiger Cub 1993-1997.  He was up 11% through the end of Q1 in 2018.  He talked about cyber warfare, and how firewalls weren't enough and how you need a platform approach.  $19B market cap, biggest in Cyber, ARPU 4x the competition, which is CHKP, CSCO, FTNT, JNPR and others. Compares their attempt to shift to subscription services that ADBE has done (though he didn't mention the difference is that ADBE didn't sell hardware).  He gets a $360 price target using 10.6x Revenue.  He admits products slipped in 2017, but thinks it comes in 2018.


Seth Stephens-Davidowitz, New York Times op-ed contributor, visiting lecturer at The Wharton School and former Google data scientist.  Gave an interesting preview of his book, Everybody Lies.  Basically, a lot of people have secrets and tendencies, even though they don't admit it, but you can find out because of Google searches, which he calls "Digital Truth Serum."


Scott Ferguson, Sachem Head Capital: Long Whitbread (WTB).  Basically "Dunkin Donuts of the UK, with a budget hotel thrown in.  "Hasn't done well, they have been stuck in it for a year, he says the bad news is now priced in.


John Pfeffer, Pfeffer Capital: Long bitcoin.  The other alternative coins aren't great, stick with best of breed.  The pitch was basically that bitcoin is gold 2.0, similar to what the Winklevoss twins have argued.  Used a lot of formulas in the pitch.  Ultimately says could be a 1% chance that XBT goes to $700k if it's used as a Reserve Currency.  Maybe it's only Gold 2.0, then it's worth about $90-180k per coin, up from about $9k today.


Bill Gurley, Benchmark, with Chamath Palihapitiya:  Interesting back and forth between two talented VCs.  Gurley contemplates the idea of "peak car" ownership in the US.  3.2 cars per household now, could never get higher.  Says Uber is getting turned around, culture improving.  Slack, AirBnB are big ones to watch when they IPO.  He says autonomy could be 2 decades away, because the US is such a litigious society.  FB- he would be long, says this is not an existential threat.  AMZN- "of course, long."  GOOG - he's concerned - they have problems, although he wouldn't short (He also told an amusing story how they turned them down for VC money).  TSLA- says Musk is making it too risky to own the stock.  SoFi- "when you are handing out money there is no barrier to entry and the guy doing the highest volume usually has the loosest rule set."  HTZ- he would be short, even against Icahn.  Several issues:"disruption and debt are bad sisters," 5-15x levered, depending on whether you count the car loans.  Ride sharing is a huge substitute for rental cars in many US cities.  Systematic used car problem - if the macro gets hard at all, this business has zero flexibility due to the debt load.


Larry Robbins, Glenview Capital: Long ESRX, MCK, CVS.  Says AMZN is not going to get into their business, the PBMs aren't really gouging, they only make pennies, and drug prices have actually dropped over the last 4 years.  Says they trade at historically low multiples.  Says MCK goes up 91% in 2-3 years after the spin, and share buyback. ESRX deal with CI will happen.


Sohn Idea Contest Winner, Andrew Walker: Long LQM.  Mispricing due to taxable spin, incentive to keep price low.  This is a popular HF play right now.


Nathaniel August, Mangrove Partners: short EROS."Netflix of India" maker of Bollywood films.  He did a long presentation which focused on how he argues the company is cheating on their accounting every way possible.  He's being sued by the company.  Small cap, doesn't trade much.


David Einhorn, Greenlight Capital: Short Assured Guaranty (AGO).  Bond insurer, beset by Puerto Rico bonds and decline in overall muni bond issuance.  Business is also levered, with smaller room for error.


Be sure to also check out notes from the emerging manager segment of the conference: notes from Next Wave Sohn New York.

Elliott Management Writes Letter to CDK Global; Sachem Head Trims CDK Stake

Two activist investors have been active regarding their positions in CDK Global (CDK) recently:


Elliott Management Sends Letter to CDK Global

First, Paul Singer's Elliott Management has sent a letter to CDK Global.  In it, Senior Portfolio Manager Jesse Cohn outlines how they want the company to adopt the steps in the Value-Maximizing Plan 'without delay.' 

Elliott notes they've had discussions with shareholders that represent more than half of CDK's shares outstanding and many of these investors want the company to improve CDK's business operations and capital return program.

The hedge fund believes that, "Reducing product complexity will shorten product implementation times.  Enhanced leveraging of technology and automation will reduce customer response times.  Improved software version discipline will free up funds for higher overall product quality and a better customer experience as a greater proportion of R&D spend would be committed to new features rather than simply maintaining older products.  Implementing an automated contracting system will deliver a simplified, more transparent set of invoices for customers."

Elliott feels that CDK's share price should reach $81 or higher in 14 months if these steps are implemented.

You can read the full letter here.



Sachem Head Capital Trims CDK Stake

Second, Scott Ferguson's activist firm Sachem Head Capital has filed an amended 13D with the SEC regarding their CDK Global (CDK) stake.  Per the filing, Sachem now owns 6.8% of the company with 10.49 million shares. 

The filing also notes they have additional economic exposure to approximately 3.15 million shares under cash-settled total return swaps.  So their total aggregate exposure is actually 8.8% of the company with 13.65 million shares.

This means they've trimmed their position by a little over 1 million shares since the end of the first quarter.  Their trading data indicates they were selling in mid-to-late April, early May, and early June at prices ranging from $47.50 to $57.74.

Per Google Finance, CDK Global is "a provider of integrated information technology and digital marketing/advertising solutions to the automotive retail industry. The Company's segments are Automotive Retail North America (ARNA), Automotive Retail International (ARI) and Digital Marketing (DM). The Company's solutions automate workflow processes from pre-sale targeted advertising and marketing campaigns to the sale, financing, insurance, parts supply, and repair and maintenance of vehicles. Its automotive retail solutions offer technology that helps supply side of the retail value chain. It offers digital marketing solutions to enable its clients to create demand for their products by designing and managing complete digital marketing and advertising strategies for their businesses. The Company, through its DM segment, provides a suite of digital marketing solutions for original equipment manufacturers and automotive retailers, including Websites and management of their digital advertising spend.."

Sachem Head Capital Files 13D on CDK Global

Scott Ferguson's activist hedge fund Sachem Head Capital has filed a 13D with the SEC regarding shares of CDK Global (CDK).  Per the filing, Sachem Head now owns 7.88% of CDK with over 12.64 million shares.  Their position includes over 4.94 notional shares underlying total return swaps.

This is a newly disclosed position and CDK was spun off from Automatic Data Processing just about a month ago.  The filing indicates that the hedge fund plans to engage management.

Prior to founding Sachem Head, Ferguson worked at Bill Ackman's Pershing Square.

Per Google Finance, CDK Global is "a global provider, both integrated technology and digital marketing/advertising solutions to the automotive retail industry. The Company’s solutions automate and integrate critical workflow processes from pre-sale targeted advertising and marketing campaigns to the sale, financing, insurance, parts supply, repair and maintenance of vehicles, with an increasing focus on utilizing big data analytics and predictive intelligence. The Company’s solutions address the entire automotive retailers’ value chain. The Company operates in three segments: Automotive Retail Solutions North America (North American Automotive Retail), Automotive Retail Solutions International (International Automotive Retail), and Digital Marketing Solutions (Digital Marketing)."

Robin Hood Investors Conference 2014: Summary of Stock Picks

The 2014 Robin Hood Conference took place over the past two days in New York where hedge fund managers presented their latest investment ideas to benefit the Robin Hood Foundation which fights poverty.  Julia La Roche of Business Insider tweeted tidbits from the event and here's an aggregation of them all.


Stock Picks From Robin Hood Investors Conference 2014


David Einhorn (Greenlight Capital): long SunEdison (SUNE), Greek banks like Alpha and Piraeus (via warrants).  Short French debt.

David Tepper (Appaloosa Management): short the Euro.

Larry Robbins (Glenview Capital): long Community Health (CYH), Realogy (RLGY), VCA (WOOF), Fidelity National Financial (FNF)

Dan Loeb (Third Point): long Amgen (AMGN) and has talked to management

Paul Tudor Jones (Tudor Investment Corp): Thinks commodities will be a mess until 2020, likes US stocks.

Jim Chanos (Kynikos Associates): Short Petrobras

Scott Ferguson (Sachem Head): Long Comcast (CMCSA).  He previously worked at Ackman's Pershing Square.

Keith Meister (Corvex Capital): Long Crown Castle International (CCI), also long Allergan (AGN).

Zach Schreiber (PointState Capital): ex-Duquesne guy, used to work with Stan Druckenmiller.  Long Cheniere Energy (LNG).

Nehal Chopra (Tiger Ratan Capital): long Charter Communications (CHTR)

Fred Wilson (Union Square Ventures): Venture Capital, not equities but insinuated he'd be short Netflix (NFLX), Amazon (AMZN), and eBay (EBAY).

Tom Wagner (Knighthead Capital): long American Airlines (AAL)

Matthew Sidman (Three Bays Capital): long Churchill Downs (CHDN)

Ricky Sandler (Eminence Capital): long Telefonica Brasil (VIV) and eBay (EBAY)

Traci Lerner (Chesapeake Partners): long American Airlines (AAL), Gencorp (GY) and Eagle Materials (EXP)

Whitney Tilson (Kase Capital): long Sodastream (SODA) and Micron (MU).  Short Lumber Liquidators (LL) and Exact Sciences (EXAS)

Ivy Zelman (Zelman Associates): long homebuilders, Lennar (LEN), Pulte (PHM), Toll (TOL), as well as Fortune Home & Security (FBHS) and Mohawk (MHK).

Bill Eigen (JPMorgan): Short bonds to play volatility

Nathaniel August (Mangrove Partners): Short Worldwide Wrestling Entertainment (WWE), long Fortress Investment Group (FIG)

Oleg Nodelman (EcoR1 Capital): long Clovis (CLVS)

Amish Mehta (SQN Investors): long Blucora (BCOR)