The Canadian Investor - Beyond Meat, Unity, Well Health, Paypal and more earnings!

Episode Date: November 18, 2021

Braden’s Movember link raising money for mental health and suicide prevention 💙 https://ca.movember.com/mospace/14636062 In this release of the Canadian Investor Podcast, we cover the following earnings releases: Beyond Meat Brookfield Asset Management Well Health Technologies Algonquin Power & Utilities Paypal Unity Parklawn Corporation Tickers of stocks discussed: AQN.TO, BAM-A.TO, WELL.TO, AQN.TO, PYPL, U, PLC.TO https://thecanadianinvestorpodcast.com/ Canadian Investor Podcast Twitter: @cdn_investing Simon’s twitter: @Fiat_Iceberg Braden’s twitter: @BradoCapital Stratosphere 🚀 https://www.stratosphereinvesting.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Welcome back into the show. This is the Canadian Investor Podcast, made possible by our friends and show sponsor, EQ Bank, which helps Canadians make bank with high interest and no fees on everyday banking. We also love their savings and investment products like GICs, which offer some of the best rates on the market. I personally, and I know Simone as well, is using the GICs, which offer some of the best rates on the market. I personally, and I know Simone as well, is using the GICs on a regular basis to set money aside for personal income taxes in April of every year. Their GICs are perfect because the interest rate is guaranteed, and I know I won't be able to touch that money until I need it for tax time. Whether you're looking to set some money aside for a rainy day or a big purchase is

coming through the pipeline or simply want to lower the risk of your overall investment portfolio, EQ Bank's GICs are a great option. The best thing about EQ Bank is that it is so easy to use. You can open an account and buy a GIC online in minutes. Take advantage of some of the best rates on the market today at eqbank.ca forward slash GIC. Again, eqbank.ca forward slash GIC. Live from the great white north, this is the Canadian investor where you take control of your own portfolio and gain the confidence you need to succeed in the markets. Hosted by Brayden Dennis and Simon Belanger. The Canadian Investor Podcast today is November 15th, and we have another earnings roundup show for you guys today.

For those who are new to the show, we release episodes on Mondays and Thursdays. Thursdays, we talk news, earnings, what we're thinking about in current markets. And then Mondays, we talk about things happening that we're thinking about investment strategy, investing concepts. For new and experienced investors, I think that there's always something to learn there. All right, Simon, let's get right into it. But before we do that, let's talk coffee shout outs. We have on thecanadianinvestorpodcast.com. You can check out all the episode notes, but also there is a spot to buy us a coffee there. And we're going to shout some of those people out.

Andrew says, thanks for the long-term perspective and discussion to think about businesses that will thrive for years. Keep up the great work. Thanks, Andrew. Somebody, so an anonymous person, bought us a coffee and said, Timmy's or Starbucks? Simon, are you a Timmy's or Starbucks guy? Probably Starbucks because I had a recent experience at Timmy's that was not great. Coming back from my honeymoon in Quebec City, we stopped by this little village or town, never heard of, and the Tim Hortons there was terrible. So we actually bought one, threw it out, went to another Tim Hortons. Oh, no. And then that one had better coffee. Okay. So it's not just all of Timmy's. This is the Canadian Investor Podcast. We got

to support the Canadian Timmy's. That being said, their coffee does taste like it's burnt and been sitting in the carafe for about three or four years, which is not great. Mark Miller said he's been keen and reading for years, but he's never thought that he could listen to the podcast. He was off work due to injury and discovered the podcast and stratosphere, which has given him the confidence he needs. Thank you. Thanks, Mark. We appreciate you. Asher said he hasn't missed a show since he started. We appreciate you. Marco C says, love the show, guys. You've given me the confidence to take on investing. With a set it and forget it approach,

takes the stress out of it. Keep up the great work. Love when new episodes drop. All right, that was beautiful. We love to hear it. We'll do the rest of them over the next coming episode so we don't have to bore you with all these coffee shout outs right out of the gate. All right, Simon, what happened here from a fake meat producer, probably the most infamous one of the group? Yeah, so I'm sure everyone has heard of Beyond Meat. They released their Q3 earnings. We've never talked about them before. I know we've had questions from people about them, so I thought it was good to include them in this earnings release. The earnings was not great. The stock ended up being down close to 20% when the earnings came out on that day. It kind of

bounced back a little bit afterwards, but still there was a good reason for that. Management said they saw increased demand from restaurants and in-person venues, but that was ampered by the Delta variant and did not grow as quickly as expected in that segment. On the flip side, they also said that the retail sales did not offset the in-person venue sales that were not as high as they thought. They also mentioned that there were probably a bunch of other factors to varying degrees that they would have a better sense of what caused this in the months and year to come. But some of the things they mentioned, they said consumers going less frequently to the store, consumers being less open to try new items, less interest in healthy option, although I think

that's debatable with Beyond Meat, reduced sampling program, which reduced kind of new consumers coming to the brand, labor issues, increased competition, which is impacting some of their market share. And they also said that there might have been some pulled forward orders from some of their larger clients in Q2 instead of Q3. Now for the numbers, revenues were up 12% to $106 million on a year-to-year basis, but we really understand how bad a quarter it was when we look at the revenues on a sequential basis. So compared to Q2 of this year, those were actually down 28%. So really not great for Beyond Meat here. Expenses were also significantly up. For example, SG&E, which is general and administrative expenses, was up 70% compared to the same period last year. They had a net loss of $54 million, which was an increase of 180% compared to last year. compared to last year they're also burning a lot more cash compared to last year so just as an example here for the first nine months of the year they were free cash flow negative to the

tune of 250 million that's compared to three times as much compared to the same period last year for the first nine months so as a whole for me just my own thoughts on beyond mean the issue here is I don't see how they really have a moat and even pricing power I mean I've tasted their products before and their competitors and I don't see much of a difference they do have a lot of competition as well so some of the brands that they're competing with are Impossible Foods, but also some directly from store brands, from major grocers. So not a great quarter, but yeah, we'll see what happens in the next quarters to come

for Beyond Meat. You touched on an important point at the end there, which is what's the difference between the competitive landscape out there? I'm sure from a science perspective and from a patent perspective, you could say there is core differences. But I don't know what they are. And I'm just the average consumer who might be interested in eating some of these plant-based alternatives. I would be an early adopter of these kinds of things. I'm an environmentalist.

I try not to eat that much beef if I can. Although you make me a nice steak, Simon, I will still eat it because it's delicious. But the point is, is there's a real need for humans to start particularly eating less beef because it is super intensive on the planet with the amount of beef we use and the amount of land we use for cattle. However, I don't see any of them right now as an investable idea, even though the market opportunity is huge. The market opportunity is ginormous in what's beyond meat trades for like 5 billion in market cap today. So I think given the opportunity, yeah, I know they're only doing 100 million in sales for

the quarter, but the market opportunity is huge, which gives me reasons to be bullish on it. But what is the differentiator between each company? And that makes it very hard to actually invest in for the reasons that you mentioned. Yeah. And just a last thing to add, their stock is up a little bit since they've IPO'd, but it's not been great compared to the market. So just to add a bit to add. Their stock is up a little bit since they've IPO'd, but it's not been great compared to the market. So just to add a bit to that. It's been a wild ride since their IPO. And if you own the stock, I think that's something you'd have to kind of expect from this somewhat speculative, huge market opportunity, but lots of question marks. All right. Brookfield Asset Management, ticker BAM. They reported revenue up 18% to $19.2 billion

for the quarter. That is such a huge, ginormous number, $19.2 billion. Funds from operations was up 36%. Funds from operations is kind of the number to be looking at for pretty much all of the Brookfield subsidiaries, but that's the one that they track the most too. Record inflows of $34 billion since last quarter into their funds, which is spectacular. It is a record for the company. Fee bearing capital is now $341 billion. So that means that they manage $341 billion in the asset management business that they collect fees on, which is an increase of 52 billion over the last 12 months. This contributed to a 25% increase in fee-related earnings over the period. And I just wanted to point out why

I think the asset management business is so great. I included a snippet here on our notes of all the segments. And if you just look at it, the asset management business is the real powerhouse of Brookfield in terms of the entire mothership that is Brookfield. Now, they are all wonderful businesses, but here's the part that's really interesting, is they are able to use their scale and their ability and their expertise in actually operating these renewable power businesses, the real estate businesses, the private equity, the infrastructure investments that they make. They're able to have these kind of synergies between asset management and actual operation of these alternative businesses. And that's what makes Brookfield so damn good as a company.

And they're able to do things that no one else is able to do. They truly are doing exceptionally well. The stock has recovered so well from the bottom of the 2020 COVID crash. It's one I own in size and probably will for a very long time. But Brookfield is business as usual, and they're doing great right now. Yeah, it looks like it was a great quarter for them. I'm also a happy shareholder now of Brookfield Asset Management. Although, you know, your tweet was a little misleading. It's only 10% of my BEP shares that I swapped for BAM, but I might add a bit more in the future just to make sure I at least have a piece of

that asset management business, like you said. Yeah, if you look what is a real driving force that's going to pin the secular growth for BAM and the subsidiaries in the future is the fact that rates are so low. And even if they say they go to like 3% over the next whatever years, however long that takes, I don't know. The real return is still so bad. And where can investors and institutions and pension funds get yield? Not from bonds. They have to look elsewhere. They have to look at alternatives.

And who provides those funds? That's why we're seeing record inflows. $34 billion since last quarter go into the funds, their flagship funds that they operate. So it's a good time to be in the asset management business, especially in this environment and especially if you're operating alternatives. Yeah, well put. As do-it-yourself investors, we want to keep our fees low. That's why Simone and I have been using Questrade as our online broker for so many years now. Questrade is Canada's number one rated online broker by MoneySense, and with them, you can buy all North American ETFs, not just a few select ones, all commission-free,

so that you can choose the ETFs that you want. And they charge no annual RRSP or TFSA account fees. They have an award-winning customer service team with real people that are ready to help if you have questions along the way. As a customer myself, I've been impressed with Questrade's customer service. Whenever I call or email, every support rep is very knowledgeable and they get exactly what I need done quickly. Switch for free today and keep more of your money. Visit questrade.com for details. That is questtrade.com. Here on the show, we talk about companies with strong two-sided networks make for the best products. I'm going to spend this coming February and March in an Airbnb in South Florida for a combination of work and vacation and realized, hey, my place could be a great Airbnb while I'm away. Since it's just going to be sitting empty, it could make some extra income. But there are still so many people who don't even think about hosting on Airbnb or think it's a lot of work to

get started. But now it is easier than ever with Airbnb's new co-host network. You can hire a local quality co-host to take care of your home and guests. It's a win-win since you make some extra money hosting on Airbnb, but can still focus on enjoying your time away. Find a co-host at airbnb.ca forward slash host. That is airbnb.ca forward slash host. Now we'll move on to WellHelp Technologies. They released their earnings Q3 ending September 30th. Keep in mind here that the CRH acquisition, which was a big acquisition for WellHelp Technology, closed in April of this year. Thankfully, they did mention that in their press release and what impact CRH had in terms of their revenue. Overall revenues

increased 711% to $99 million. That's actually quite good from them. Slightly less than half of that was driven by CRH Medical, so we have to take that into account. My Health, which is another acquisition, accounted for $19 million of that $99 million, so the organic growth is definitely less impressive here. Their virtual services revenue increased to $18 million, up close to 600% from last year, which is obviously great to see. Gross margins improved compared to last year's quarter to slightly less than 50%. That's something I would keep an eye on for well-held because the CRH medical margins were not great. They were in the low double digits. I had to look at the

financial statements from last year there. So it'll be interesting to see if they can keep those margins up. They had adjusted EBITDA of $22.3 million versus a negative of $2 million last year. They had a loss of just a bit less than $9 million, which was more than twice their loss last year. The good news is they are free cash flow positive. If we look at their first nine months of the year, they've made about $13 million in terms of free cash flow. Overall, it seems like it was a good quarter for well. If I were a shareholder, I'd definitely keep an eye on those gross margins and make sure that the acquisitions make sense for the company. I've mentioned that before and the CRH acquisition,

I'm still not fully sure why they decided to acquire that my last thing i wanted to mention and we did text about this is on their ir page when they sent out their earnings release they had a statement which i thought was a bit misleading so i'll just read it word for word in q3 2021 over 93 percent of wells revenue was either recurring or highly recurring in nature. Well had $6.1 million of revenue and $86.5 million of reoccurring revenue in the quarter. Recurring revenue is primarily software-as-a-service revenue, while the recurring revenue refers to highly predictable and repeatable patient service revenue. And this extract was actually taken lower

down in that press release. They mentioned this at the top without saying what the highly recurring revenue was. I just think this is a bit misleading because they're putting both together. And to me, recurring is basically something that comes from SaaS software as a service where people pay a monthly fee. I understand that they can probably predict some patient behavior here and say that they'll have recurring revenue for them as well. But I'm not a fan of things like that, just kind of making your own metrics, especially when it's widely accepted in terms of SaaS businesses, how to calculate that recurring revenue. Yeah, this is not like a complete white space where these metrics are not reported on in a very

typical fashion. 93% of revenue is recurring or highly reoccurring. What does that even mean? What is the scale of reoccurring? So this is a bit of a yoga stretch for me in terms of putting this on the press release. I mean, hey, if you want to talk about it on the earnings call and show this is the kind of predictability of our cashflow, but to say like 93% of the revenue is recurring is a bit goofy from my perspective. Save those numbers for software as a service, pure plays. I don't really know where that number fits in. And it brings me to a larger issue, which is why are you trying to sell the stock so much, bro? And this has always been the thing with well is why are you so excited to tell retail investors this stuff? And they do paid ads and

stuff too. it's like ding ding ding red flag but i mean people have done well in the stock so yeah definitely and look i'll give it to them they did mention how they define it but i just didn't like that it was at the top without the definition and then you had to read through at the bottom which i know a lot of people won't necessarily do so that was just my thing but overall i mean it looks like a pretty good quarter for well health i'll give them that yeah yeah they're doing a roll up in clinics necessarily do so that was just my thing but overall i mean it looks like a pretty good quarter for well health i'll give them that yeah yeah they're doing a roll-up in clinics essentially yeah which is fine i think a roll-up in clinics is fine but with some other aspects yeah and that's

this whole crh thing right so anyways i think we've talked enough there's also an interesting uh canate this is i don't have any notes for here but an interesting roll-up in clinics of of dental clinics actually trades on the venture called dntl that i've been just doing a little bit work on maybe i'll do a segment on for the podcast is one i don't know but it's a roll-up in dental clinics and if you think about how fragmented dental clinics are across north america that seems like prime for a consolidation play. So that might be an interesting idea for us to look at in the future. More Canadian names here, Algonquin Power. They reported revenue of $528 million, which was up 40% compared to the third quarter of 2020.

On the surface, that looks really good. Adjusted EBITDA is up 27% compared to the third quarter of last year. Now, on October 26th, they announced that Liberty Utilities, which is their company, that's a company of Algonquin Power, entered an agreement to buy Kentucky Power from a company called American Electric Power, AEP, and the AEP Kentucky Transmission Company. So the power company and the transmission company for a total price of $2.846 billion, which is a very large deal, including the assumption of $1.2 billion in debt. This is a huge deal. This is a massive deal. Now, if you look it up, Simon, this is really weird. And maybe we'll have a conversation on what you think's going on. And it seems so fishy to me. But they said in the announcement that it offers an opportunity for the company to utilize its proven greening the fleet capabilities,

greening the fleet, meaning making it more clean in terms of less emissions, aligning with our commitment to advancing to a sustainable energy and water future. Now, here's where I get confused. They financed this deal through $800 million with a stock offering and whatever they have on the balance sheet. But they did this primarily, you know, by raising money through issuing shares. This is not an insignificant amount of dilution. For like a roughly 11 billion in market cap company, 800 million in stock is pretty severe. Now, I have lost some AQN management conviction recently. I spent some years in renewable energy as an engineer, and they've done some real head

scratchers lately. I wasn't the CFO of one of these power utilities, and I know about finance, and I know about power, so I'm a bit confused here. Okay, so number one, power utilities can surely have a lower cost of capital than issuing $800 million worth of stock. Surely. I mean, come on, they're power utilities. Two, this acquisition takes on coal and natural gas assets as well in a mix of some other thing, but they sell it as some big green move, some big ESG green acquisition. Now, here's where it gets really spooky, Simon. AEP, the American electric power Company that they bought Kentucky Power from, says in their press release of the transaction that it is an opportunity to more green their fleet by

divesting these fossil fuel assets. So this is not a zero sum. This is the press release from American Electric Power. The sale will strengthen AEP's ability to invest in projects that will support a resilient, cleaner energy system. So they're both saying the deal makes them cleaner. Now that doesn't make any sense. One plus one does not equal three here. So I'm curious what you think about this because this is curious, man. And I'm a little confused about their management and their cost of capital structure. Issuing $800 million, I think they're a power utility. They must have cheap debt, no?

Yeah. And I know when we did a deep dive following the poll on them, I think that was one of your biggest flags with them was they, I think that's pretty typical of them to issue stocks for a deal, right? They don't use debt all that much. This was much more than I had ever seen them actually issue stocks for a deal right they don't use that all that much this was much more than i had ever seen them okay actually issue stock so that's why i wasn't surprised when i saw that but yeah the whole thing about coal and then trying to making things more green or however they use

the term that they use especially when you see both companies trying to use that as justification for the move. Definitely that's a head scratcher. I don't know if Algonquin has a bigger idea down the line. Maybe they're just, they have in mind that they'll be using the coal plants for a short period of time and then decommissioning them. Like, I don't know if they have a move in mind. Yeah.

So that's probably the only thing. That's what they commented when they were asked about the coal plants which is like in a interview a video interview he's like well it's an opportunity for us to decommission them they probably would have been anyways but yeah they probably got a good price on it i don't know because i don't think those are very high in demand assets right now so maybe So maybe that's a reason. Maybe. It's also expensive to retire them.

You know that better than I do. Yeah. Oh, I know. It's expensive to retire these assets. It's not cheap. Yeah. And now we'll move on to something completely different. U.S. name that does not do power, whether it's renewable or fossil fuel.

So the company name name everyone will know this it's paypal they released their q3 2021 earnings well the big news for paypal is that they are teaming up with amazon to enable venmo payments for more than 80 million users in the u.s starting in 2022 so that was big news dan shulman definitely addressed that on the call. They also mentioned on that call that Walmart has started offering PayPal for some of its online purchases. In terms of the number we're looking at, they're just massive PayPal Square Visa like MasterCard. They process a lot of payments. or TPV was 310 billion that was up 26% compared to the same period last year net revenue was 6.18 billion up 13% their total active accounts grew 3% to 416 million the I'm not sure I took some notes I'm not quite sure what I'm here but that's okay their gross transaction volume with ebay was down 45 percent and now represents only three percent of transactions that's great because that's always been something

that's been hanging over paypal when that divorce with ebay was everyone knew it was coming and back in the day they were so reliant on that relationship for their transactions and now we see that it's becoming smaller and smaller they had 20 billion in cash on their balance sheet as of september 30th 2021 which was more than double what they would need to cover their debt just as a fun fact guidance for tpv for the full fiscal year they said that it will grow around 33% and revenue will grow 18%. The reason the stock is down is because management guided for a bit of a tougher Q4. It was actually pretty similar to what DAX Da Silva from Lightspeed said on their earnings calls in terms of supply chain

issues affecting some of their merchants and therefore having a negative impact on total payment volume. They also said that this shortage and supply chain issues may force some customer to buy items in store as they don't trust online items to be shipped on time for the holidays, which then makes it less likely that they'll use a PayPal service, even though PayPal does have a point of sale. They're definitely not as present there as they are online. For me, this was a decent quarter for PayPal, but of course the market sees this as potentially slower growth. Are they able to keep up the growth that we've seen over the last few years? Those are fair assessments, but right now, I think PayPal is in a very nice-looking pullback for new, fresh capital into PayPal.

It had some negative sentiment and momentum right out of the gate from the Pinterest deal, and then this on top of it. These things compound in terms of short-term momentum on the stock, and long-term fundamentals of PayPal, I think, are great. and long-term fundamentals of PayPal, I think are great. I mean, I'm not going to be triggered or emotional about the short-term movement in the stock. PayPal is probably a pretty good entry point here. Would you agree? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I own it. So full disclosure there, but it's pretty close to my own entry point in terms of the cost right now. So I'm definitely looking to add some

more shares probably in the next couple of weeks, as long as it kind of stays around the same price, even if it increases a bit, I don't think it'll be the end of the world. And I think the market is definitely short term focus here. In terms of super apps, you really have only two, you have PayPal or Square. So I own both. And again, in terms of payment space, obviously Visa, MasterCard, but they own the backbone, as you would say, more the infrastructure. Like I've said before, I don't think you can go wrong with just owning a basket of those four and maybe a few other names that you might like. Yeah, I think that that's probably a good way to go.

You, of course, know I like Visa and MasterCard, but PayPal would be probably my next best idea in payments because the stock just looks super cheap here. I think it's down like 31% from its high in July. PayPal is not a 31% worse business since July. It's probably even a better business than ever. So I guess that's when we find some opportunities, Simon. So I guess that's when we find some opportunities, Simon. As do-it-yourself investors, we want to keep our fees low. That's why Simone and I have been using Questrade as our online broker for so many years now. Questrade is Canada's number one rated online broker by MoneySense. And with them, you can buy all North American ETFs, not just a few select ones, all commission

free so that you can choose the ETFs, not just a few select ones, all commission-free so that you can choose the ETFs that you want. And they charge no annual RRSP or TFSA account fees. They have an award winning customer service team with real people that are ready to help if you have questions along the way. As a customer myself, I've been impressed with Questrade's customer service. Whenever I call or email, every support rep is very knowledgeable and they get exactly what I need done quickly. Switch for free today and keep more of your money. Visit questrade.com for details. That is questrade.com. Here on the show, we talk about companies with strong two-sided networks make for the best products. I'm going to spend this coming February and March in an Airbnb in South Florida for a combination of work and vacation and realized, hey, my place could be a great Airbnb while I'm away.

Since it's just going to be sitting empty, it could make some extra income. But there are still so many people who don't even think about hosting on Airbnb or think it's a lot of work to get started. But now it is easier than ever with Airbnb's new co-host network. You can hire a local quality co-host to take care of your home and guests. It's a win-win since you make some extra money hosting on Airbnb, but can still focus on enjoying your time away. Find a co-host at airbnb.ca forward slash host. That is airbnb.ca forward slash host.

We got two more. Unity Software. Unity reported 286.3 million in the quarter, an increase of 43% from the third quarter in 2020. Create Solutions and Operate Solutions was up 34% and 54% respectively. That is really nice nice to see and strategic partnerships and other revenue was 17.6 million. Now, the create solutions is basically the subscription for you to use the software and use the gaming engine. The operate solutions is the subscription for actually operating your game and creating monetization inside your game, marketing for the game, like basically a turnkey solution if you're a game developer

to roll out Unity, not only from the perspective of building the game, but actually running it from a cloud perspective, from multiplayer perspective, in-game currency. They make it so easy for developers to do this. And that business is up 54%. So that's really exciting. Full year of guidance was 40% revenue growth. They now have 973 customers that pay over $100,000 in revenue a year. That was compared to 739 last year. So that's the number that consecutively kind of goes up by a couple hundred customers every year. And those are the big whales. These are the big agencies, the big game studios that are using it. They have 93% of game studios paying for it. Sam, what's so funny? You're laughing at me here on the call.

Well, I was going to ask you, is that considered highly reoccurring revenue? Nice. I would say that is highly recurring and not to be confused with highly reoccurring, because those are different. Dollar-based net expansion rate was 142%. This has consistently been over 140%, which is nuts, by the way. This means that customers are spending more and more on the platform every year, and there is low churn. That's basically how that formula works out. When your current customer base is driving revenue growth, even if you don't get new customers. That's really good. That's like the equivalent of same store sales growth for a retail play.

Unity announced that they have entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Weta Digital. Weta is the legendary Peter Jackson special effects firm. They've done Lord of the Rings. They've done Avatar, a good portion of the Marvel movies that have been coming out lately, and much, much more. I mean, the list goes on. But this is interesting as they want to now own the talent pool of the artists from special effects side. And there's no better talent pool than Weta Digital. I mean, this is the Lamborghini of special effects studios. Now the gaming engine obviously provides tech for gaming and industry applications and potentially movies and stuff as well. So they seem to be going to where the puck is going. Now they're

skating to where it's going. And I think that it's smart for them to own the tech and the talent pool from the artists as well. This stock is on a absolute roll. I think it's up 40% in the past two weeks. It's a bit bonkers. Yeah, yeah, it's definitely on a roll. And I mean, it's an interesting play too for the metaverse, right? That's right. Yeah. So they kind of have a stronghold when it comes to that virtual world, I would say. So it's an interesting play if you don't want to invest in the meta or the meta company, whatever it's called, or you don't love Mark Zuckerberg. Like apparently I say on someone tweeted at us, I said, Oh, I'll cover you. I that Mark Zuckerberg is they said that that's what you said on the podcast. Yeah, exactly. Must be my pronunciation. So it's okay. That that's hilarious he kind of looks like a bird all right what's the

last one here on the show today simon okay so to end on an uplifting note let's talk about death so parkland corporation which is the funeral home and cremation services company roll up in Canada. It was a really good quarter for PLC. Here's what the CEO Bradley Green had to say about it. The third quarter exceeded our expectation, especially given the continued decline of COVID-19 deaths served by our businesses. Despite this, we saw an increase in number of families that we serve in our comparable business in both our funeral homes and cemeteries. Likewise, we continued to see an increase in the average revenue per call in our funeral homes as families are now able to memorialize and honor their loved ones in meaningful ways. We attribute this success in large part to the hard work and dedication of our team and families we serve. So in other words, it means that people during the pandemic were doing

much smaller funerals because of the restrictions in place. Clearly, Park Lawn was never stopped operating because it's an essential service, but they definitely had smaller funerals. And they're seeing that now that the pandemic and a lot of restrictions have been lifted, that people are now open to do larger ceremonies for their loved one who passed away. And that's despite seeing less deaths from COVID-19. Overall, revenue grew 14.7% for the quarter to $92 million. They had $9 million in net earnings, which was up 67% versus last year. Their overall free cash flow is a bit lower from last year due to some slightly bigger capital

expenditure. But I mean, sounds like it was a very good quarter for them. Very good results, especially this is the kind of business that won't blow you out of the water when it comes to growth. It's kind of steady as she goes. I used to own it. I sold it because I wanted to take that money and invest in something else. But looking at how it's performed, maybe I should have kept it. But I sold it early on in the pandemic because I saw some other opportunities that I thought my money would be better invested in. It is an uplifting way to end the show here, Simon.

No, this is a steady as they go roll up out of Canada. It's been a great stock, pretty sturdy compounder, death and taxes, death taxes and garbage. That's why you got to throw GFL in there as well. Those are the for sure things in life and park lawn is pretty solid business. And like you said, the return of actual gatherings is good for their business. It is a vent, largely a vent driven business, not to mention the actual cremation services they do as well. Yeah. It's a good company. I mean, they offer a bunch of cemeteries too, right? Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

Very interesting. These aren't the things you really think about, these types of companies, but what's the market cap on this thing these days, PLC? Around 1.4 billion. So still a very small company. Oh, it's small. Yeah. Yeah. Pays a small dividend too, doesn't really grow, but I mean, I think you can sleep pretty well at night owning that and at least you'll get around 1.15% in terms of dividend. Yeah, I'm looking at the stock chart. It's been a really consistent compounder. I mean, again, this is the nature of a very high needed business, very durable in the grand scheme of

things, but the growth is not going to be explosive, but that's okay. That's what you're kind of looking for with this business. All right, guys, that does it for this episode. One last thing before I go here is I am doing a Movember challenge. And Simon, I'm going to throw you the link to put it in the podcast. My team and I, my friends and I, and even my co-founder at stratosphere as well are raising money for men's mental health men commit suicide 3.63 times more than women one of our very very good friends his father took his own life this summer I know this is a very sudden thing to hear on the podcast but it's it's not a secret.

We want people to know. We want people to talk about it. A lot of people that you know may have issues with their mental health. Just something to consider, right? So Simon, if you can throw the Movember link. I am facially hair challenged, Simon. I cannot grow a good mustache. So what I'm doing instead

is I'm running 150 kilometers this month instead of growing a terrible mustache. But yeah, sorry for the really shocking morbid end to this podcast, but it's something important to discuss. And we think that it's important, especially for men's health here with Movember and all mental health. I think that that's just a blanket statement. If you haven't checked out Stratosphere, go to stratosphereinvesting.com. I really appreciate you guys check it out. There is a community for there for you to ask Simon and I questions on just about anything, any stocks you want to talk about. You can share your portfolio there

as well. We're doing constant improvements to the platform. And if you want to find 10-year financial statements, ratios, analytics, earnings release on the stuff we talk about here on the podcast, you can do that really easy at stratosphereinvesting.com. Listeners of the podcast can use code TCI for 15% off of membership. We'll see you in a few days. Take care. Bye-bye. The Canadian Investor Podcast should not be taken as investment or financial advice. We'll see you in a few days. Take care. Bye-bye.