Mega-Brands: Investing in Mega Trends Through Mega Brands

Travel has always been a very important spending category for consumers globally. Post pandemic, we still see strong travel demand and better profitability for key online travel platform Expedia, EXPE. Through Expedia brands like VRBO, Expedia, Travelocity, Orbitz, Hotwire, CarRentals.com, and Homeaway, Expedia is getting its mojo back. There's a huge gap between the market cap of EXPE and its two key peers, Booking and AirBnb. As Expedia gets back on track and the industry continues to flourish, we expect a major catch-up opportunity in shares of EXPE. Using a conservative comp with ABNB, the VRBO division on a stand-alone basis would likely be worth at least 50% of EXPE total value making the rest of the business exceptionally cheap. EXPE trades at 9x, BKNG at 16x and ABNB at 27x earnings. We think EXPE can expand the multiple well and the company seems to agree with its new $5B buyback authorization.

To learn more about investing in the world's leading brands:

https://www.globalbrandsmatter.com/dynamic-portfolio

In today's quick video, I discuss our allocation to a more defensive, stable consumer spending industry, auto parts and retail auto maintenance via the two leaders, Autozone and O'Reilly Automotive. I'm sure you have seen each brand in your community. AZO has 7165 stores and ORLY has 6111 stores so they are well represented in most communities. They have been strong compounders as stocks in a very important but boring industry making them solid investments over time.

For more info on how to invest in leading global brands:

https://www.globalbrandsmatter.com/dynamic-portfolio

Eli Lilly has been a monster stock over the last 5 years. It's compounded at 40%+ a year versus the market at roughly 11%. This great biopharma brand spends $6B a year on R&D, organically grows well, grows the dividend 15% a year and has a full pipeline thats diverse. This management team is second to none. The stock is not cheap anymore and it's a bit crowded but long-term we see great things for this brand. Mounjaro and Tirzepatide get alll the attention given their blockbuster potential but this company does $33B in annual revenue and very little is coming from the obesity and chronic over-weightedness theme thus far. In this quick video, I update people on what we see and why we still like the name long term.

For more information on investing in dominant, innovative growth brands:

https://www.globalbrandsmatter.com/dynamic-portfolio

Mr Softy has been a monster stock for over 40 years. The business is incredibly stable and predictable and management continues to keep innovating and growing. We see nothing that changes that on the horizon. The Mega Brand core equity position is still intact. Cloud and AI is driving the growth now and we are still early days in that opportunity. The small dividend grows each year and the stock has performed well in most economic environments. When it gets clocked, as every company does on occasion, you get a chance to own more.

Apple could be the greatest consumer tech staple ever created. Sometimes we feel like we can't live without our phones, laptops, and airpods. Apple embodies everything a Mega Brand should be: high brand love, innovator of products and services we love and can't live without, globally dominant, demographically diverse consumer base, super strong balance sheet and quality management team. Would you expect a business described like this to trade at or below a market multiple? I certainly wouldn't. Apple is a core holding for the brands investment portfolio and we love the opportunity to buy more when it dips. iPhone sales and top line revenues have flatlined generally after a massive pull-forward from the pandemic but we expect sales to re-accelerate going forward as iphone 15 really kicks into high gear for consumers. In the meantime, they pay a small dividend that grows every year and they buyback a large part of the float every single year. There's always risk to any business but we see nothing systemic too stop Apples dominance, particularly as India ramps up.

The global luxury goods market is expected to be about $320B over the next 5 years. Strong demographic tailwinds exist as younger, aspirational luxury goods consumers spend more on the category than older baby boomers. Between the largest wealth transfer in history ($45Trillion moving over the next 2 decades) and the high brand love LVMH, Hermes, L'Oreal,, and Ferrari have with consumers, we see big things ahead even as the economy cools off a bit short-term. Luxury spending tends to be less cyclical and more stable in slowdowns than most other categories. Here's a quick review of LVMH, Hermes, and L'Oreal's dominance in their categories.

Athleisure is a lifestyle trend for global consumers. Nike & Lulu are dominating this trend along with a few other mega brands and emerging brands like Vuori. When you appeal to kids through older adults, men and women and on a global basis, you have strong growth prospects. These all drive great stock performance over time. Nike is a more mature growth brand, Lulu has experienced much better growth off a lower base. Both have strong tailwinds going forward from a demographic perspective. Here's my take on both brands, the thematic and the charts.

For more information on investing in global brands:

https://www.globalbrandsmatter.com/dynamic-portfolio

A solid, well-balanced portfolio holds great growth brands and steady-eddy, singles and doubles brands that have a history of beating the S&P 500. In this episode, I talk about the stable, predictable allocations in Visa and Costco. Dividend growers, FCF generators with stable, revenue and EPS growth offer a lot of value for investors, particularly as the economy gets less certain.

More assets are migrating from public bond and equity markets to private markets each year. Why? The volatility profile and return profiles have been better and the private markets can act as a solid diversifier to public markets. Institutions have known this for decades, they have 25-50% of total assets in private markets across Private Equity, Infrastructure, Real Estate, Energy Transition, Private Credit, Growth Equity, etc. HNW retail investors are in inning one of this transition. The best part: the mega brands get the lions share of the asset flows which makes them great investments. These are some of the smartest, most savvy investors around the world and they have $trillions of dollars of dry powder to put to work over time and at attractive prices. This drives better earnings for the asset managers, which drives the stocks over time. Here's the rub: very few investors have private market exposure and even fewer own these stocks. Blackstone recently was added to the S&P 500, I feel confident KKR and Apollo will be added in due time. Currently, about 12% of the brands portfolio is BX, APO, KKR, we love these companies and we love them as investments that also pay a dividend and grow it over time.

When a company is a verb, it's become part of the social consciousness. When that happens, Mega Brand Status is a sure thing. That tends to be a great thing for a stock. Uber finally got its act together, thanks to Dara, the CEO. He inherited a horrendously run business but a great consumer service. It's only a matter of time before UBER is added to the S&P 500, that is a great catalyst for more upside in my opinion.