The Business Brew

By Bill BrewsterBusiness Investing

The Business Brew episodes

March 11, 2021 Liz Simmie - A True ESG Manager
Liz Simmie is the Co-Founder of Honeytree Investment Management, a firm that lives ESG investing. See the end of this description for Liz' official bio. In this episode Liz Simmie stops by The Business Brew to talk all things ESG. Unlike many "ESG" managers, Liz actually practices what she preaches. Said differently, Liz is the real deal and doesn't just use ESG as a marketing tool. The catalyst for this conversation was Bill thinking about morality in investing. On one hand, owning assets one is proud of seems like a reasonable goal. On the other hand, how do we draw the lines? If cigarettes are bad then why is sugar OK? If tobacco is bad why is alcohol OK? We cover a wide range of topics including: - how ESG is bastardized due to marketing - what real ESG investing looks like - why ESG is as important to Honey Tree - gender and racial diversity driving positive financial outcomes - issues preventing companies from embracing ESG policies - and much more. Bill's biggest takeaway was that ESG can provide a qualitative advantage for investment analysis. We are grateful for Liz' time and hope you enjoy the show. Thank you for listening! Bio: Liz is the co-founder of Honeytree Investment Management, an asset management firm focused on responsible growth, based in Toronto. Together with the team she manages Honeytree’s concentrated active investment strategies for institutional and private clients. Honeytree believes what is traditionally seen as ‘ESG’ data is just as important to assessing a company’s long term growth and risk as traditional fundamental data – and they integrate them both equally in our investment process. Honeytree is proud to be one of the handful of female led responsible asset management firms globally leading the conversation. Prior to founding Honeytree she worked at Bristol Gate Capital Partners a leading active management firm, and before that she worked in quantitative market research for Ipsos. Liz has BA in Economic Statistics and History.
2 hr 6 min
March 04, 2021 Ian Cassel - Micro Machine
Ian Cassel is the CIO at Intelligent Fanatics Capital Management ("IFCM"). IFCM invests in the smallest public companies in the world. They focus on businesses that are run by management teams who are capable of growing those businesses while benefiting stakeholders. Ian also founded MicroCapClub. In this episode Ian discusses how he became a microcap investor. One of his first successes was XM Satellite Radio. He discovered the company when it was a microcap trading for $2/sh and didn't have any contracts with car manufacturers yet. Ian saw they were presenting at a conference in NY, got in a car, and met with the CEO. After that meeting Ian became obsessed with turning into a full time private investor. Ian stresses the importance of doing deep due diligence, remaining rational, and keeping personal expenses "variable." He invests in a concentrated manner (only a few stocks at a time), which is very Buffett like. Unlike Buffett, however, Ian discusses the importance of remaining open to selling winners. This is because Ian is "fishing in a pond" of smaller companies and execution risk must always be monitored. Ian is a refreshing voice in the investment community and we are happy to have him join the show! Note: We reference Connor Haley's presentation in this discussion. That presentation can be found here
2 hr 8 min
March 01, 2021 BONUS: Naufal Sanaullah - Inflation: Not So Certain
Naufal Sanaullah is the macro advisor at EIA Alpha Partners. EIA is a minority-owned firm that has realized very impressive results since inception. Among its many awards, EIA boasts the following (see https://eiaalphapartners.com/):
#1 Net Returns of Top Performing Relative Value Strategies Hedge Funds in 2019

#3 Net Returns of 2017-Inception Hedge Funds in 2019

#4 Net Returns of Top Performing Volatility Trading Hedge Funds in 2019

#5 Net Returns of Top Performing Hedge Funds in 2019 with Less than $100mn in AUM

#8 Net Returns of Top Performing North America-Based Hedge Funds in 2019

#16 Net Returns of Top Performing Hedge Funds in 2019
Naufal is responsible for macro strategy, macro trading, and overall portfolio management at EIA. Prior to EIA, he was involved in portfolio construction and macro strategy at Li Global Investors, a macro hedge fund in New York City. He studied mathematics at University of Michigan and Stony Brook University. His macro research has been highlighted in various media platforms, including Bloomberg, Business Insider, and Financial Times. He enjoys spending his free time producing hip-hop instrumentals and nurturing his puppy Nas. In this episode Naufal joins Bill to discuss Naufal's view on inflation, policy efficacy, and what to watch for going forward. Bill, historically an Austrian leaning investor, found it interesting to listen to Naufal describe his view of the world, which is far more Keynesian and could be called Modern Monetary Theory driven. The Business Brew is proud to feature this conversation for many reasons. One of which is the discussion is counter to the current market narrative/pricing on/of future inflation. If you like to consider both sides of an issue, this is a must listen macro episode. Also, please consider donating to https://www.publicolor.org/ if Naufal's message resonates with you.
1 hr 52 min
February 25, 2021 Oren Falkowitz - No Phishing Way
Oren Falkowitz is the founder of Area 1 Security. He was Chief Executive Officer of Area 1 2013-2020 and currently serves on the Board of Directors. Mr. Falkowitz holds numerous patents and is an avid wearer of bow ties on Thursday. Previously, he was the founder of sqrrl (acquired by Amazon) and held positions at the National Security Agency (NSA) and United States Cyber Command (USCYBERCOM).

He joined the Business Brew to discuss his career and the cyber security landscape. We hope you enjoy.
1 hr 59 min
February 18, 2021 Derek Walin - Entrepreneur and Music Maven
The Business Brew is pleased to feature Derek Walin, @walin on Twitter, this week. Derek is Bill's cousin. They grew up together and Bill has known Derek since he was born. As Derek grew, Bill watched him become the consummate entrepreneur. Derek began landing "gigs" as a magician. He would do magic for kids, elderly people, and anyone that would book him (by calling his parents). After that, Derek took a liking to DJing (before it was cool). He earned money throughout his high school years by DJing dances, birthday parties, and Bar and Bat Mitzvahs. Despite Derek's father having a corporate background, Derek knew college wasn't for him. Instead, he wanted to attend Full Sail and pursue his dreams of chasing a career in entertainment/music. Fast forward to today and Derek and his partners manage ~11 artists. Check out https://www.supermusicgroup.com/ and check out the artists on your favorite music app! As always, thank you for listening.
1 hr 55 min
February 11, 2021 Moses Kagan - Permanent Real Estate Investing
Moses Kagan is a co-founder of Adaptive Realty, the Los Angeles-based real estate private equity firm. Since 2008, through Adaptive and predecessor entities, he has overseen the acquisition and rehabilitation of nearly 100 properties. Adaptive is laser focused on sub institutional scale multifamily. So these are deals between three and 10 million dollars of total capitalization. The firm is unusual in the real estate private equity world because they buy and hold real estate rather than buying buildings, fixing them up, and flipping them as is done in a more IRR driven model. In this episode Moses discusses his journey from running a smaller fund that had a single LP to what he does now. One of the most interesting parts of the conversation he discussed is when he had to sell the real estate in his first fund. To the outside world, it may have appeared to be a success. To Moses, however, it was a lesson in how much taxes hurt returns. That lesson formed the philosophy behind Adaptive. We are happy to have Moses as this week's guest. As always, we hope you enjoy the episode!
1 hr 26 min
February 10, 2021 Bonus: Andrew Walker - A SPACtacular Conversation

Andrew Walker, a PM at Rangeley Capital, author of Yet Another Value Blog, and host of Yet Another Value Podcast stopped by to discuss SPACs and his investment philosophy. We are releasing this episode as a bonus because there are some elements of it that require a faster release than normal. Areas discussed were SPACs, sum of the parts analysis, Getting Better as an Investor, and the current market environment.

Andrew has had an interesting career. He's found "compounders," special situations, and everything in between. He won the 2017 Sohn Idea Contest (that's a big deal for those that don't know) when "La Quinta (LQ) is sold its franchise business to Wyndham and spun off its owned hotel portfolio into a new REIT (CorePoint) in a taxable spin." You can see his presentation here: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/10t7lVjWmNkkm7jwunh46nMLvfVsS4tYgAJrNcFd7DRg/edit#slide=id.p3

We hope you enjoy this bonus episode.

1 hr 55 min
February 04, 2021 Mike aka @NonGaap - Master of the Dark Arts of Corporate Governance
Mike is an ex-activist investor who writes about tech, corporate governance, the power of friction & incentives, strategy, interpersonal board dynamics, and activist fights. In this episode Mike and The Business Brew discuss everything from corporate governance to the potential for charismatic personalities to use their brand to make a run at real companies. Mike has a unique outlook on the world. Mike describes how the clues in corporate governance actions can help investors triangulate their ideas of valuation. At times, Mike will even use corporate governance changes as signals to initiate positions. For instance, he used clues to call a bottom on GrubHub shares and was correct. Join The Business Brew as we discuss how a different analytical lens can potentially help improve analysis and returns. But more importantly, listen to a unique mind talk about how he looks at the world. It was a pleasure to chat with Mike. A big thank you to Mathew Passy and his team for saving this episode.
1 hr 58 min
January 29, 2021 Shomik Ghosh - A SaaSy Conversation
The Business Brew is joined by Shomik Ghosh. Mr. Ghosh is a Principal at Boldstart Ventures, a day one, pre-product partner for technical founders with portfolio companies such as Snyk, Kustomer, BigID, Superhuman, Front, and Security Scorecard.

His career has spanned everything from fixed income sales & trading to investment banking to venture capital. He specializes in enterprise software for his day job and long-term competitively advantaged businesses in his PA (a lot of which are also enterprise software companies 😀).

Shomik has been trying to make Bill less stupid for almost two years now. He succeeded in this conversation. We are grateful for his time and appearance. Follow him on Twitter!
1 hr 56 min
January 22, 2021 Jen Ross - Always Questioning the Narrative
The Business Brew is joined by Jen Ross this week. Jen was a professional short seller. Consequently, she has a unique perspective. It took Bill a while to understand the role of short selling in a portfolio but Jen’s comment about the need (or lack thereof) to hedge a quality equity portfolio really helped Bill understand what risks to think about hedging via short selling.

Her Bio very unique:

Jennifer L. Ross has more than 20 years of engineering and financial experience. She is a principal engineer in Launch and Enterprise Operations at The Aerospace Corporation.

Prior to joining Aerospace, Ross held management and executive positions in the areas of material science and manufacturing, process engineering, and financial analysis. Her focus is analyzing the space industrial base and helping space startups conduct business with the U.S. Space Force.

Ross transitioned from engineering to management consulting and finance in 2007. She spent five years as vice president of a public finance management and municipal bond firm. She later joined a hedge fund as an equity short seller/research analyst, analyzing corporate financials of publicly traded companies and predicting the probability of financial failure for those businesses. Ross joined Aerospace in 2015 when she saw the opportunity to combine her passions for both engineering and financial analysis.
2 hr 1 min