The Business Brew

By Bill BrewsterBusiness Investing

The Business Brew episodes

November 16, 2022 Craig Moffett - A True Expert
Craig Moffett has covered the telecommunications industry – first as a management consultant and later as a Wall Street analyst – for more than thirty years. He has been elected to Institutional Investor Magazine’s All-American Research Team in the U.S. Telecom and/or Cable & Satellite sectors on seventeen separate occasions, including nine separate appearances as the #1 analyst in America in either U.S. Telecom and/or Cable & Satellite.

Prior to founding MoffettNathanson, Mr. Moffett spent more than ten years at Sanford Bernstein & Co., LLC as a senior research analyst. He was previously the President and founder of the e-commerce business at Sotheby’s Holdings, the venerable auction house, where, in 1999, he led Sothebys.com to what was then the highest first year sales of any consumer website ever launched. Mr. Moffett spent more than eleven years at The Boston Consulting Group, where he was a Partner and Vice President specializing in telecommunications. He was the leader of BCG’s global Telecommunications practice from 1996 to 1999. While at BCG, he led client initiatives in the U.S. local, long distance, and wireless sectors, in both consumer and commercial services, and advised companies outside the U.S. in Europe, Latin America, and Asia.

Mr. Moffett graduated from Harvard Business School with Honors in 1989. He received a BA from Brown University, where he was magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa, in 1984.

Detailed Show Notes -

5:41 - Why Silicon Valley Bank is a good fit for MoffettNathanson

6:50 - Why telecom is a hard business

7:40 - The history of US telecom

10:10 - How cable incubated an industry under AT&T/telecom's business

15:52 - How does cable compete with fiber going forward?

17:47 - High splits, node splits, who gives a split?

22:50 - Cable strategy and why high splits are the current strategy

29:09 - Wireless vs. broadband going forward

35:00 - The physics of wireless

46:00 - Verizon's big strategic decision was correct but implementation left something lacking

51:10 - Cable's wireless offering and how it fits into the competitive set

58:44 - What does broadband's growth runway look like?

1:03:45 - How do fiber overbuilders factor into the future?

1:08:00 - The fiber bubble will burst. Then some Altice discussion.
1 hr 18 min
November 10, 2022 Mark Newfield - Keep Going!
Mark started his professional work life as a consultant with Accenture, where he helped clients for 14 years. He founded his advisory business in 2005, and in 2022 joined Journey Strategic wealth through a merger of his firm with Journey. Prior to graduating from university, he was an auto mechanic, was in the auto parts industry, and spent time as a retail store manager. Mark’s focus has always been either providing advice or fixing things. What drives Mark is helping others reach their goals.
Mark believes both financial freedom and fun can occur concurrently. You will find that he has an active (sometimes too active!) sense of humor. He’s quite proud that his teammates Angela and Melissa have been with him for 14 and 12 years and will do everything possible to make sure Danielle stays “forever”, as well. He’s a little nutty about college basketball, golf, and several other sports. In addition, he loves taking beach and golf trips with his family and is an avid reader.
Mark holds an Accounting degree from Virginia Commonwealth University as well as the CFP® and RICP® designations.

Thank you to @mathewpassy (on Twitter) for the show production.
Please leave us a rating in your favorite podcast player!
Show Notes:
6:00 - Mark's background
17:30 - Embrace your strengths and weaknesses
22:30 - Good moments coming from scary times
27:30 - Starting a business from a passion
29:00 - Building teams
34:00 - Mark's approach to advising
37:24 - Where Mark thinks we are relative to history
46:50 - The power of checks and balances
50:45 - Finding and retaining employees
58:30 - Thinking about planning for aging
1:10:00 - Why you need to get your Power of Attorney documents done!
1:13:00 - Talking to the older member of your family about the aging process
1 hr 28 min
November 03, 2022 Matt Cochrane - Moats and More
Matt Cochrane (@Matt_Cochrane7 on Twitter) stops by The Business Brew to discuss his investment philosophy, how it’s evolved over the past few years, Big Tech, and more. Matt is a police officer with a passion for investing.

He began his investment education by studying The Motley Fool discussion boards. Bill and Matt catch up regularly and Bill always enjoys chatting with Matt. This week they decided to record one of those conversations.

We hope you enjoy the discussion.
1 hr 35 min
October 28, 2022 Alex Morris - TSOH Returns
This episode features Alex Morris of TSOH Investment Research. You can find his Substack at https://substack.com/profile/10489671-the-science-of-hitting. In this episode, Alex and Bill have a casual conversation; mostly about media and cable.

Through the conversation you will hear how Alex thinks about partnering with companies and management teams for the long term. You will also hear how Alex thinks about competitive positions and strategic decision making.

Alex is a wonderful person that is sharing his investment journey publicly. We hope you enjoy the conversation and, should you decide to subscribe, enjoy his research as well.

Thank you to @mathewpassy (on Twitter) for the show production.
Please leave us a rating in your favorite podcast player!
1 hr 42 min
October 14, 2022 Daniel Needham - Multi Asset Investing
Daniel Needham, CFA, stops by The Business Brew for a wide ranging discussion. Daniel is a wealth of knowledge. He is president of Morningstar’s Wealth Management Solutions, which includes software and aggregation capabilities from Morningstar Office and ByAllAccounts, and the individual investor experience across Morningstar.com, and Morningstar Investment Management.

After the recent acquisition, he also oversees the U.K. and international business of Praemium and their core products, which were re-branded to Morningstar Wealth Platform and Wealthcraft, a Morningstar company.

Prior to his current role, Needham served as president and global chief investment officer since 2015 for Morningstar’s Investment Management group, a unit of Morningstar, Inc., that provides managed portfolio services, retirement, and investment advisory for financial institutions, plan sponsors, and advisors through investment management entities around the world.

In 2013, Needham stepped into the global chief investment officer role for the Investment Management group, and he also assumed responsibility for Morningstar’s investment management operations in Europe. Previously, Needham was chief investment officer and managing director for Investment Management in Asia-Pacific, including Ibbotson Associates Australia, where he led the group’s business and investment activities in the region.

Needham joined Morningstar in 2009 through the company’s acquisition of Intech Pty Ltd., where he served as chief investment officer. He also held other investment roles including analyst, portfolio manager, and head of multi-strategy. Before joining Intech in 2002, Needham worked for Zurich Financial Services in Sydney. Needham holds a bachelor’s degree in commerce from the University of Sydney, where he majored in finance and economics.

He also holds the Chartered Financial Analyst® designation and is an interested trustee for the Morningstar Funds Trust.

Supplemental Information -
Following the podcast recording, Mr. Needham sent the following information to Bill (shared with permission):
Here are some useful books to learn more about MMT and Post-Keynesian economics. It pays to tread carefully with all this stuff given the political leaning of the respective economic schools of thought.
Soft Currency Economics – Warren Mosler – provides a lens to why the system is different for certain governments post the gold standard
John Maynard Keynes – Hyman Minsky – one of the best early critiques of the modern economic consensus that dominates central banks and government treasuries
1 hr 17 min
September 29, 2022 Kyle Mowery - Uncovering Hidden Growth Engines
Kyle Mowery, Founder & Portfolio Manager at GrizzlyRock Capital stops by The Business Brew to discuss his investment philosophy. Kyle is a traditional value investor that tends to focus on smaller, cyclical companies. In this episode he talks about why he fishes in that pond, where he has found his biggest winners, how he thinks about investing, and much more. GrizzlyRock does very deep due diligence and Bill thinks highly of their work.
We hope you enjoy the conversation!
You can find Kyle’s Orion Engineered Carbons conversation with Andrew Walker at https://open.spotify.com/episode/7xmapUv85wtAoHpGlcMxmP?si=3wZXGogJT5-zbU5aJxv1NA
or https://yetanothervalueblog.com/podcast
Thank you to @mathewpassy (on Twitter) for the show production.
Please leave us a rating in your favorite podcast player!
Detailed Show Notes:
4:30 – Kyle’s view on the macro environment
7:00 – What Kyle learned in 2008
8:00 – What working in mezzanine debt did for Kyle’s career
10:50 – A case against microcaps
12:00 – Due diligence
14:50 – What was interesting about Darling International?
19:50 – What GrizzlyRock sees in OEC
26:05 – The merits of running a long/short strategy
29:15 – Chicago chit chat
35:15 – Back to investment discussion
36:30 – Why Kyle prefers more of a deep value philosophy
40:57 – What got Kyle interested in Orion Engineered Carbons?
51:14 – What is CoVest Select
1:01:10 – Thoughts on starting a fund
1 hr 18 min
September 22, 2022 Marc Cohodes - An Independent Investor
Marc Cohodes' (@AlderLaneEggs on Twitter) LinkedIn profile describes him as the "Head Bull Fighter at Alder Lane Farm." He is a well known short seller, but in this episode he discusses how he thinks about his long positions more than he discusses short selling. Marc is highly entertaining, informed by deep due diligence, and is not afraid to say what is on his mind.

We hope you enjoy this episode.

Detailed Show Notes:
2:00 – Marc discusses scuttlebutt

7:00 – The importance of getting it right and why Marc runs a concentrated portfolio

8:50 – How Marc deals with emotions with concentrated bets

13:20 – Dealing with talking publicly about ideas

18:05 – What was Marc doing with the AMC “apes”

29:00 – Marc’s thoughts on how the market currently works (or doesn’t work)

38:20 – What Marc sees in TZero

43:50 – Thoughts on position sizing and “having a seat at the table”

50:00 – Discussion about Camping World

58:20 – Enovix conversation

1:09:30 – Does Marc worry about being wrong?
1 hr 20 min
September 15, 2022 Evan Tindell - Where Poker and The Market Collide
Evan Tindell joins The Business Brew to discuss how his background as a poker player influences his investing philosophy, how he got started in the business, and he drops some knowledge about shorting. Bill reached out to Evan because Bill wanted to discuss position sizing and “Kelly betting,” which was the catalyst for this conversation.

Please pardon some construction noise in the beginning, the conversation’s quality is worth listening past some background noise.

You can follow Evan’s firm at https://www.biremecapital.com/ and Evan at @evantindell on Twitter (https://twitter.com/evantindell).

We hope you enjoy the conversation. Please leave us a rating in your favorite podcast player/app.

Detailed Show Notes
2:00 - Evan’s Background
7:20 - Overtrading
9:30 - How poker losses help investing
11:30 - How price impacts analysis
22:50 - Evan’s start as an asset manager
26:30 - Evan looks for cognitive reasons the market is wrong
28:00 - Evan’s view on size
33:30 - A Netflix Discussion
44:45 - Bet sizing
48:20 - Position sizing and merger arb
53:00 - Incentives and money management
57:26 - How to think about Kelly betting and risk reward throughout an investment
1:02:45 - Fighting the bias to sell early
1:05:43 - Shorting high value
1:10:50 - Managing shorting
1:23:00 - Twitter whistleblower discussion and wrap up
1 hr 32 min
August 18, 2022 Scott Reardon - Study The Greats
Scott Reardon, Portfolio Manager at Dakota Value Funds, Author of The Dark Continent series and Bonfire of the Beasts, stops by The Business Brew to chat about what he learned by studying the greatest investors of all time. Scott's work led him to focus on very favorable risk/reward scenarios. While that might sound trite, it's hard in practice.
You can read Scott's work at:
Greatest investors: https://www.dakotavalue.com/stewart-s-bridge-paper
Cyclicality of markets and life: https://www.dakotavalue.com/draper-s-carousel
We hope you enjoy the conversation!
Album art photo taken by Mike Ando. Please see www.mikeando.com.
Thank you to @mathewpassy (on Twitter) for the show production.
Please leave us a rating in your favorite podcast player!
Detailed Show Notes:
6:45 - Scott’s background
9:00 – Scott’s strategy
11:45 – How Scott developed his strategy by studying the greats
15:30 – Could we have stuck with Charlie Munger as a young investor?
18:20 – Within value investors there tends to be two camps
19:45 – Scott’s favorite investors
25:45 – Does value need a catalyst?
28:00 – Microcaps vs Mid Caps
34:00 – Scale advantages and scale economics
44:00 – Scott and Bill discuss learning they may not know anything
General Discussion
1:03:00 – Thoughts on where to fish for investment ideas
1:08:00 – A nonacademic conversation on dividends vs buybacks
1:13:30 – Incentives matter
1:20:00 – Analyzing a wide distribution of outcomes
1 hr 37 min
July 28, 2022 Be Back Soon
Just a quick message to let you know Bill is on vacation with his family, but episodes of the Business Brew will return in a few weeks.
1 min