The Business Brew
Bill Brewster
Welcome to The Business Brew
This podcast’s mission is to dig deep into the thought patterns and analysis of investors and business people. The podcast stemmed from Bill Brewster consistently feeling like he was listening to prepackaged material while listening to podcasts. Instead, he wanted long form, in depth, discussions about finance, capital allocation, and the psychology of investing/business.
We are interested in interviewing portfolio managers, Wall Street sell side analysts, buy side analysts, private investors, owner operators, and anyone that is willing to go in depth about running a company/division. So, if you are interested in participating please email us with the subject “Guest Appearance.”
Disclaimer: This podcast is for informational and educational purposes only. Nothing in this podcast is investment advice. All information in this is opinion based, potentially biased, and requires verification.
Bill and his guests make no representation, warranty or undertaking, express or implied, as to the accuracy, reliability, completeness or reasonableness of the information contained in these podcasts. Any assumptions, opinions and estimates expressed constitute the participant’s judgment as of the date thereof and are subject to change without notice. Any projections contained in the information are based on a number of assumptions as to market conditions and there can be no guarantee that any projected outcomes will be achieved. This podcast does not accept any liability for any direct, consequential or other loss arising from reliance on the contents of this presentation.
This podcast series DOES NOT CONSTITUTE AN OFFER TO SELL OR THE SOLICIATION OF AN OFFER TO BUY ANY SECURITIES MENTIONED OR DISCUSSED. Seek the your financial, tax, legal, accounting, or other advisor’s advice before making any investment decisions. We are not your fiduciary or advisor.
This podcast’s mission is to dig deep into the thought patterns and analysis of investors and business people. The podcast stemmed from Bill Brewster consistently feeling like he was listening to prepackaged material while listening to podcasts. Instead, he wanted long form, in depth, discussions about finance, capital allocation, and the psychology of investing/business.
We are interested in interviewing portfolio managers, Wall Street sell side analysts, buy side analysts, private investors, owner operators, and anyone that is willing to go in depth about running a company/division. So, if you are interested in participating please email us with the subject “Guest Appearance.”
Disclaimer: This podcast is for informational and educational purposes only. Nothing in this podcast is investment advice. All information in this is opinion based, potentially biased, and requires verification.
Bill and his guests make no representation, warranty or undertaking, express or implied, as to the accuracy, reliability, completeness or reasonableness of the information contained in these podcasts. Any assumptions, opinions and estimates expressed constitute the participant’s judgment as of the date thereof and are subject to change without notice. Any projections contained in the information are based on a number of assumptions as to market conditions and there can be no guarantee that any projected outcomes will be achieved. This podcast does not accept any liability for any direct, consequential or other loss arising from reliance on the contents of this presentation.
This podcast series DOES NOT CONSTITUTE AN OFFER TO SELL OR THE SOLICIATION OF AN OFFER TO BUY ANY SECURITIES MENTIONED OR DISCUSSED. Seek the your financial, tax, legal, accounting, or other advisor’s advice before making any investment decisions. We are not your fiduciary or advisor.
Episodes
Mentioned books
Feb 11, 2021 • 1h 25min
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!
Feb 10, 2021 • 1h 55min
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.
Feb 4, 2021 • 1h 58min
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.
Jan 29, 2021 • 1h 56min
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!
Jan 22, 2021 • 2h
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.
Jan 15, 2021 • 1h 42min
Tyrone V Ross Jr. - A Powerful Advocate
We are fortunate to be joined by Tyrone V Ross Jr. What started out as a connection over BitCoin turned into something much more important. In this episode Tyrone discusses many issues that seem to be forgotten as the stock market hits new highs. We cover a wide range of issues and potential financial solutions. We recommend listening to this one at 1x speed. As always, thank you for listening.
Jan 8, 2021 • 1h 24min
Sean Stannard Stockton - A Renaissance Investor
Sean Stannard Stockton, CIO of Ensemble Capital Management, discusses running an investment firm during COVID-19, the need for companies to lead by example, thinking about serial acquirers, and his thoughts on position sizing. He also provides the best answer to an error of omission.
Dec 25, 2020 • 2h 25min
Jack Rohrbach - A Success Story
This episode details the successful career of Jack Rohrbach. Jack began as a salesman and worked his way up. He made the most of every opportunity. While he often attributes his success to luck, it’s clear he was a team player who found out how to help those above him. In doing so, he became a leader. Our favorite quote of the interview occurred when Jack was talking about his later career. When asked how it felt to have a lot of employees working for him, he responded “I don’t look at it that way. I always thought I worked for them.” This episode show what persistence, hard work, and an open mind can accomplish. Jack went on to be Chairman of the Board for 10 portfolio companies at Kohlberg & Co. We hope you enjoy this holiday edition of The Business Brew. Thank you for tuning in. Happy Holidays and Happy New Year.
Dec 11, 2020 • 2h 35min
Tobias Carlisle - A Modern Walter Schloss
Tobias Carlisle is a well known author. He's written extensively about value investing. In our view, Deep Value is one of the best investment books ever written. He is also the founder and managing director of Acquirers Funds, LLC. See acquirersfunds.com We hope this interview answers some of the tougher questions people have for him regarding “value’s” underperformance. And, more importantly, we hope to introduce a really unique individual to the investing community. We are grateful for his appearance on the pod.”
11 snips
Nov 27, 2020 • 2h 16min
Dan McMurtrie - The Next Market Wizard
The second episode of The Business Brew features Dan McMurtrie, PM at Tyro Partners. In this episode Dan pulls back the curtain on how a true hedge fund manager thinks. He discusses: A tough launch (13:20) Pivoting from "value" investing (17:50) Agency costs hurting "value" investments (20:35) Convergent & iterative thinking (32:40) Risk management and buying higher (44:20) The dangers of the value investing inoculation (46:50) THE DATING PAPER (58:00) Being early on COVID (1:08:00) TINA + Liquidity Shortages + FOMO (1:22:11) Businesses as networks of people (1:37:45) The anointed companies (1:46:00) Inflection points and when it "gets simple" 1:54:00 When paying more can reduce risk (2:00:00) We are grateful to him for sharing his mind. Please enjoy the episode.
