Winning Entry at Columbia Business School's Pershing Square Challenge

Columbia Business School recently held the annual Pershing Square Challenge.  It is a wonderful event where students at Columbia research and pitch investment ideas to a panel of incredibly distinguished judges.  This year's panel of judges included: Bill Ackman (Pershing Square), AJ Agarwal (Blackstone Group), Craig Effron (Scoggin Capital), Mchael Gerstner (MSD Capital), Paul Hilal (Pershing Square), Philip Hilal (Kingdon Capital), Alex Klabin (Senator Investment Group), Dahlia Loeb (Kensai Asset Management), Mick McGuire (Marcato Capital), Billy Rahm (Centerbridge), Jonathan Schwartz (Seneca Capital Investment Partners), and Whitney Tilson (Kase Capital).  The winning team gets $100k (generously put up by Pershing Square) and the team can then donate or keep that money.

This year's winning presentation was on Hertz (HTZ).  They make the pitch for HTZ being undervalued and worth $36 per share versus approximately $24 where it currently trades (50% upside).  They point to the oligopoly-like nature of the car rental business now that the industry has consolidated as a reason for increasingly attractive economics.  Additionally they believe the divestiture of the rental business would allow HTZ to create significant value.

Here is the detailed 90 slide presentation.

Enjoy.

  Columbia Business School's Pershing Square Challenge

Kerrisdale Capital's Short Thesis onSourcefirce (FIRE)

Kerrisdale Capital is out with their latest short thesis, this one focusing on Sourcefire (FIRE).  Based on their DCF work they think its worth $17 - $26 versus a recent price of $51 or 60% below market.  They do a good job walking through their thesis and the various "red flags" they have identified.

Enjoy. 

  Kerrisdale Capital Short Thesis on Sourcefire (FIRE) by Wall Street Wanderlust

Jeremy Grantham and GMO Capital's Q1'13 Letter

Below please find Jeremy Grantham and GMO Capital's Q1'13 letter.  In the letter Jeremy Grantham gives his usual discussion on the energy and agricultural issues that plague our planet and how it will only get worse.  He doesn't offer too much insight into his thinking on the markets but does make a case for various renewable energies and lays out our existing shortcomings.  Beyond that he goes on to talk about why he thinks natural gas will rise.

Enjoy.

  GMO Capital Q1'13 Letter

Jim Chanos & Bill Nygren on CNBC

Jim Chanos of Kynikos Associates & Bill Nygren of the Oakmark Fund were on CNBC discussing their various positions and ways of thinking. 

In the following video Bill Nygren discusses his long-book and Jim Chanos discusses how he looks for shorts.  Pretty interesting stuff overall. 

Jim Chanos on CNBC

Jim Chanos was on CNBC today discussing a wide range of topics.  In this first video he discusses his short thesis on China and some of his shorts that are China related (steel, mining, etc.). 



Chanos also discloses his largest long positions: Sandisk, Deere, KKR, and VMWare.  He goes onto warn viewers that those longs are mostly to offshet shorts so he would not encourage folks to follow him blindly into some of the investments since they are only getting half of the picture. 

In the next video he goes on to discuss his short positions in Dell and Hewlett-Packard.  He says they have a small long position in Samsung and Apple and are held against some good sized short positions in Dell and Hewlett-Packard.

Jeffrey Ubben of ValueAct Capital on CNBC

Jeffrey Ubben the head of ValueAct Capital was on CNBC yesterday being interviewed about his presence at the 4th Annual Active-Passive Investor Summit. At the conference he disclosed that his firm had taken a $2B stake in Miscrosoft (NASDAQ: MSFT).  In the video Jeffrey walks through his firms strategy of how they are long-term activists effectively partnering with their companies to create value over the long-term.  He talks through his brief thesis on Motorola Solutions (NYSE: MSI) and how he thinks there is a 5-year opportunity to compound at 20%. 




Additionally, here is when CNBC breaks ValueAct's $2B position:

John Taylor on Bloomberg TV

John Taylor of FX Concepts was on Bloomberg TV yesterday talking about gold an bitcoins. He said he was close to being a buyer in gold and thinks we are near a low. He thinks gold will stabalize in the $1,250 - $1,400 range so its in the range as present. John Taylor thinks we have passed the peak and are headed towards a less the awesome second half. He thinks the dollar is the currency to be in for the remainder of the year and the Euro will weaken against the dollar. Enjoy.