Yet Another Value Podcast - Adam Wyden: buying someone else's pain in Stagwell $STGW and Driven Brands $DRVN | ADW Capital

Episode Date: July 7, 2026

Adam Wyden runs one of the most concentrated books I know, and he came on to make the case for two stocks the market has basically left for dead: Stagwell ($STGW) and Driven Brands ($DRVN). On Stagwell, his pitch is that this is not a dying ad agency but a marketing-services and data business compounding toward $700M of EBITDA by 2028, sitting at a 20%+ free cash flow yield because it came public through a no-fanfare reverse merger and carried a dual-class and TRA overhang that kept institutions out. On Driven, he thinks the sum of the parts (Collision, Autoglass, and a 50-year-old franchise stub around Take Five) is worth far more than a low-teens stock, and he has been loud enough about it that the company started disclosing numbers within 48 hours of one of his letters.I push back on both. On Stagwell I keep coming back to the agency model itself: WPP, IPG and the rest have trailed the S&P for 20 years because the human capital walks out the door every night and takes the economics with it, and AI arguably makes that worse. On Driven I press him on why a business this cheap has stayed cheap for four years running, and whether the corporate cost and the leverage ever get fixed without a private-equity owner. Adam's answer, more or less: the market doesn't care until it cares, and the best money he has ever made is buying someone else's five-year pain right before the aha moment.This episode is sponsored by fiscal.ai: https://fiscal.ai/yav. Fiscal.ai is a modern financial data provider for global equities and one of the leading data connectors for Claude and ChatGPT, so you can pipe real-time fundamental data straight into your LLM. I signed up with my own money to plug it into my Claude cowork setup: more than 20 years of statements, ratios, segments and KPIs, updated within minutes of earnings, not days. Use my link fiscal.ai/yav for 15% off.Chapters:(00:00) Intro: Adam Wyden and two names, Stagwell and Driven(02:44) Stagwell $STGW: the bull case on a marketing-services roll-up(05:00) Mark Penn and how modern Stagwell came together(08:40) Does AI break the ad agency model?(12:50) The data moat and Stagwell's agentic operating system(19:00) Is Stagwell a jockey bet on Mark Penn?(24:20) Free cash flow, buybacks, and a stock priced to die(28:20) Undervalued for four years: what is the market missing?(32:15) Adam's activist stake and the August 14th tease(37:00) Driven Brands $DRVN: the auto aftermarket bull case(41:30) EVs vs ICE and why the aftermarket keeps compounding(45:20) Sum-of-the-parts: Collision, Autoglass, and the franchise stub(51:30) Activism at Driven, Roark, and where this business belongs(58:30) Closing: the AI losers that become AI winnersLinks:Yet Another Value Blog - https://www.yetanothervalueblog.comSee our legal disclaimer here: https://www.yetanothervalueblog.com/p/legal-and-disclaimerProduction and editing by The Podcast Consultant - https://thepodcastconsultant.com/

Here we go. Someone's already claiming this is our year. Someone else said that last year too. A round of Jameson, Ginger, and Lime arrives at a table. Smooth enough for kickoff, smooth enough for extra time. New friends pulling up a stool. Debates about whether that was a handball.

Cheers rising like a roar around the room. Because match days are about the shared moments. How did Jameson to your match day lineup? Jameson, it's what you bring. Please enjoy our products responsibly. listen to the yet another value podcast with your host, me, Andrew Walker. We've got a great one today. It's my friend Adam Whiten from ADW Capital. I'm laughing because most of the people in the small value investor value investing community have a story with Adam and you're really going to enjoy this one.

We have a really thoughtful conversation on two interesting names, Sagwell and then Driven. We talk about both of them. Adam's got really interesting thoughts. Both are really interesting angles. Disclosure I own driven. This is my second podcast. You can listen to the podcast I did with Kyle Maori for a full dive into it. But, Adam's done interesting work on both, and I think you're really going to enjoy the podcast. I really enjoyed the conversation. So we'll get there in one second, but first, a word from our sponsors.

Today's podcast is sponsored by Fiscal.A.I. Fiscal.competre data provider for global equities. In addition to their web-based terminal, Fiscal is one of the leading data connectors for Cloud and ChadGGBT. With their self-serve API, you can connect in real-time fundamental data directly to your LOM. And look, I sent it in a podcast before and I'll say it again. I am, they're not just an advertiser. I've been doing lots of cool stuff with

Claude and cowork in particular, building all sorts of awesome tools, and I need an API. So guess what? I signed up with my own money, toss my own credit card down and said, hey, fiscal.a.I, I need you guys to plug into my cloud code for me so I can keep building these cool tools and

abass that's real-time, fundamental data, and stock prices everything. And that includes more than 20 years of financial statements, ratios, filing segments, KPIs, and all sorts of other things. Like other providers, their data updates within minutes of earnings reports, not days. So whether you want powerful out-of-the-box terminal or the real-time AI connector with API, you can use my link at fiscal.a-I-i-slash-YAB, that's fiscal.a-I-slash-Y-A-V to get 15% off.

And there'll be a record of show notes too. All right, hello, welcome to the yet another value podcast. I'm your host, Andrew Walker. And with me today, I'm excited to have on Adam Wyden from ADW Capital. Adam, how's it going? Going well. Thank you. Looking forward, this is my first time with you.

Look, I'm super excited. I think back when I started the podcast, you were one of the first people I reached out to. And that was like in the first 10 episodes and we didn't quite make it happen then. But now here we are 400 episodes later. And look, let me start the podcast the way I do every podcast. Quick disclaimer. Remind everyone, nothing on this podcast. Investing device. There's a disclaimer in the show notes and a full disclaimer at the end of the podcast. So you can see that there. Adam, I think we're going to talk about two stocks today, though. You keep telling me that the first stock we're going to talk about it is quick. And I, I feel like I know you, so I think Quick is kind of in the eye of the holder. But the stocks we're going to talk about it today are driven in Stagwell. Let's start with Stagwell. The ticker is STGW. And let's just dive into it. What is Tagwell and why are they so interesting? Okay.

So Stagwell is a marketing services company. So I think, you know, for most listeners, you would sort of think about an Omnicom or a publicist, you know, sort of a traditional ad agency marketing services company. And these types of businesses have been around for, God knows, maybe even more than 100 years. I mean, if you go through publicists and WPP and Omnacom, I mean, these companies have been an amalgamation of a variety of different agencies throughout Europe and the United States.

And now they're truly global businesses. Obviously, Omnicom just merged with Interpublic. And so I think they might be the largest now as a function of EBITDA. But, I mean, look, the reality is, and I think the reason why Stagwell is interesting today, is, you know, I think there's a lot of time being spent on sort of AI winner and AI loser and sort of what is the value of a human being today. And what is the value of sort of original thought and creativity? And, you know, look, I'm wearing my, my Ottomar, Pige, swatch joint venture, you know, watch. And, you know, I asked myself the question,

would have a robot have been able to figure that out? Or was that a human being basically going to the CEO of Ottomar Pigay, who had never done historically any marketing and say, hey, we think we can do a collaboration between Otomar and Swatch and make Swatch, which is an accessible entry-level watch, merge it with a penultimate brand of Otomar, create a watch for $400. You know, the average Automar maybe chart is $20,000. And allow that, allow both brands, automar access to new customer and Swatch elevate their brand to create business opportunity. And that was a human being who did that. I don't actually know which marketing service company did that, but I can promise you some did.

And so I think at the end of the day, you know, our view is that, you know, the robots and the alarms are backwards looking. They tend to try and generate solutions from the past as opposed to generating solutions for the future. And our view is the combination of creativity, experience, you know, creates, you know, branding and marketing opportunities. So that's why we're interested in the space. And then, you know, look, I'll tell you a little bit about Stagwell and the CEO and sort of how it came together.

So Mark Penn grew up in the Bronx, middle class guy, and he went to Harvard undergrad and I believe Columbia Law School and very quickly figured out, very interesting computers, actually, and figured out, like, basically the first modern polling system. So, you know, for all of the purposes, Mark Penn has a political background. He was a pollster. he was Hillary Clinton's campaign manager, advisor in her campaign race. So he was sort of a Washington, D.C. insider. He sold his business to WPP, worked there for many years with his lieutenant, Jay Leviton, who is the resident or number two or sort of partner of Mark. And they did that for a while. And then Mark went to become the global head of strategy at Microsoft with Steve Balmer

and learned a lot about, you know, sort of continued to sort of build his technology background and strategy background. And then I think Stephen him had the idea to say, hey, you know, maybe we can build a better marketing services company. And so with capital from us, Balmer's family office and I think a few other sort of independent sponsors, they basically started rolling up, so to speak, you know, smaller ad agencies. And so, you know, that business got to, I don't know, 150 or 200 of you, but I'm not really sure. And they were actually approached, this is Stagwell, they were approached by, I believe, Eli Samaha, who had been involved in MDC partners. His mentor, Jeff Hallis, who was from Tyndall that put, you know,

that basically helped them start Newton, Madison Avenue. Jeff was a high school, school friend of Mark. And I think Jeff sort of said, hey, you should talk to Mark to see, you know, how to fix MDC. And, you know, Mark came in as CEO of MDC. I think Stagwell put some preferred capital into it, you know, sort of to help sort of resuscitate it. And I think Mark quickly figured out that like Stagwell and MDC together would be a very powerful sort of force in the marketing services agency industry. And so I think late 2021, you know, Mark Stagwell, which is the role he had done with Ballmer's Capital and his own, they decided to merge that with MDC partners, which is sort of what I would call the modern Stagwell, Inc. And what's interesting about it is the company

sort of went public at exactly the time that, like, you know, people were pulling back on marketing, spending, and technology. And so it was a company that sort of was a reverse merger. No, it did not get a lot of fanfare because it wasn't a traditional IPO process. And then at the same time, you know, they basically had peak numbers sort of into 22 with the political cycle. And so it's, It's sort of a company that sort of really escaped people's radars over the last four years because the last four years have basically been cleaning up some of the legacy messes at MDC partners, divesting sort of non-core and unprofitable businesses, and then building out the technology infrastructure to allow them to win the big business that they're winning now. So I'll take a

break there and have a sip of water, but that's stagua. All right. And look, you said it's quick and here we are 10 minutes in. We're just taking No. Okay. So I think there's a lot to talk about. Let me start with this. I mean, I think the way you framed it was AI loser. So you were kind of talking to overall industry. And then you narrowed it down to Stadball. So I'll start my questions in a similar way. Let's talk AI loser or overall industry. You know, Omnicon, WPP, FG, like these are big names in media. But I think traditionally, the issue has been like, as you mentioned, they buy lots of these small things and bolt them into the to the main company. But traditionally the issue has been, this is, almost a consultancy model, right? And the tough thing with consultants is the consultant, you know, the famous Warren Buffett thing, the assets go out the door every day. And, you know, the huge pay, they're paying up for all these things. And like WPP, IPG, Amici, they haven't done that well over five years, 10 years, 20 years, like they all trail the S&P 500. And I think that's because like the human intellectual capital sucks up all the excess returns. So if I'm just building

on that with AI, like my worry would be, hey, hey, the human. And I think that's a lot. And I think, we're already in this industry where the human intellectual capital moves really easy, sucks up the economic returns. We go to an AI world where a lot of the reasons, if you think the ad agency, if you go to music agency, all this sort of stuff, a lot of the reason you go is the back office support. Well, now you don't need that. If you're one really creative individual, and I agree with you, the human creativity, especially in marketing where you need unique things that kind of grab your eyes,

that will ring with the human. But the most creative humans might look and say, hey, I don't need the back office tech support. I can service huge clients on my own with an AI but running everything. So I think I threw the overall industry structure at you and then kind of brought it to AI. So I'll pause there for how you kind of think about those. Yeah. So a couple things here. One, I think the stock market returns, I think probably might be even endemic of a future return.

I think these things used to trade at larger multiples 12 to 15 times and now the multiples have contracted. I mean, publicists, I think, trades at like a 9% free cash full yield. I'm not really sure what that translates in terms of EBITDA. but probably, you know, high single digit, low double digit. But yes, I mean, historically, these things have traded at higher multiples. I think the multiples have contracted maybe wrongly. And again, what happens is these things get very big and they become hard to manage. People leave, all the rest, assets walking out the door, totally germane, right?

But that doesn't mean that there aren't human capital organizations that beat the trend. You know, I think the way I think about, you know, Stagwell is, you know, I think these are almost like investment bankers, right? Like, if you think about, you know, smaller companies, the smaller companies, you know, they might be relying on going to Facebook or Google or, you know, they might use some small agency or try and do their own creative with AI. But like when I think about the companies that Stagwell has won recently, like a Mondalese, like a Hershey's, like a Starbucks, like the Navy Federal Credit Union, like Heineken, these are names where your marketing budgets are very, very large. I mean, shoot, Heineken's got their advertising on every soccer stadium in the world. I mean, how much money is Heineken spending on marketing and advertising a year, you know, enormous sums of money? And so, you know, these companies, they have investment bankers to decide their investment bankers. I mean, a friend of mine actually was up in New York listening to a pitch and the large CPG companies, these companies that are spending $200 million, they're bringing in their own advisor to sit in the pitch. So, you know, think about that for a minute. You have an investment banker deciding which investment banker you're going to use.

this is a this is an industry that is not really going to be lost to AI very very quickly and I would also tell you that like yes there are people to have great ideas but you know I have great ideas you know but you know am I someone going to hire me instead of center view partners to go and do a multi-complex spin-out carve-out you know of you know United Technologies I mean you know United Technologies carrier Otis you know rate the I mean you got bankers through that there's credit this it's the same thing there's a lot of plumbing that goes into this There's media buying, there's technology, there's one P data. There's, you know, I mean, political separate, but I mean, on the commercial side,

I mean, they have so much legacy data that helps to inform the decisions for their customers. And their customers are happy to pay a margin to someone who has that data. And so I sort of refuse to believe that some guy with a computer and AI is going to be more efficient and more, how would I say this, more accurate than, you know, a company that has, you know, years and years of data, right? I mean, this company, Stagwell itself was started 11 years ago, but if I leverage some of the agencies that MDC has, I mean, we're talking about 30 plus years of data. And obviously now, you know, what Stagwell is doing is they are creating their own agentic operating system for their customers. I mean, if you look at IBM, which is, I forgot

about IBM, of course, that's the most recent one. I mean, IBM took all the products and took, you know, they took the machine, which is their new, you know, agentic operating system that they're developing with Palantir. But, you know, again, it's sort of like, all right, let me, you know, use their tools to interface with all the data I have on my back end as a CPG customer or whatever client. And then it's like, okay, can I access all the data, you know, that Stagwell has on their software systems and their software tools and one P data? And then, of course, you know, it's like, it's basically its own agentic operating system, LLM, to ask it to do stuff. And so, you know, again, I think it's sort of a hybrid model where

you're using your own operating system, your own software tools, your own 1P data. And then, of course, it's the AP swatch example. It's like, are there guys in the organization that are, you know, that have these things that the robots can't think of. I mean, at the end of the day, we're all prompting an LLM at some point in our life. But, you know, as an activist and, you know, we do a lot of activism, I ask myself the question, you know, you know, is the LLM going to be able to figure out, you know, who was their Harvard Business School section made or who, you know, these are things.

that are behind Wall Gardens paid. You know, you got to call some, you know, it's like there is information that the creativity and the ingenuity, it goes into the LLM. And, you know, whether you're an investment banker or you're a marketing services guy, I mean, there's someone who has the experience, the chutzpah. I mean, it's really it's really hutzpah, right? The hutspah to do things that the robot can't think about. And so that's why I like this industry.

That's why I like these people. I mean, these people had hutzpah, right? You know, they started this thing with a blank piece of paper, got it to 200 of Ibitah, right merged it with MPC, which was sort of like a shit show. And now I've got a business, which I think is going to do 700 of EBITDA in 2028. I mean, that's pretty incredible in 11 years. Let me try. Let me just ask one more.

So we start with the AI and I think you said why you don't think the AI. But one thing you kind of identified in there was, hey, Stadwell, you know, you mentioned that they've got the data, right, and this data. And I guess I would ask, okay, but if I'm just thinking of the industry and you used investment banking, which is kind of how I was thinking about this industry that I'm not crazy familiar with, but I was thinking investment banking too, right? You go at the top and you've got the JP Morgans and everything's, and then at the bottom and stackwell kind of fits into the middle to me, right?

Like they've got some scale, but they're more focused. So, you know, it's kind of thinking of a hoolahan or something, right? How would you say, like, if I frame it out like that, would you agree or disagree with that framing and then why do you think just going forward again because i i kind of mentioned how the industry has been tough for returns and everything why do you think going forward stagwell like in particular kind of generates economic profits excess returns all that type of stuff yeah i mean i think they're just approaching the industry differently i mean i almost think that like a lot of their focuses on digital transformation so helping these guys utilize ai and you know again you know my you know

We are active owners and engagement players with our companies. We are not passive owners. So, you know, whether we are a 13D activist or whether we're actively engaged constructively with owner operators. I mean, I think we spend a lot of time talking to CEOs. And I think this model is quite different. I mean, remember, you know, Mark owns whatever he owns 15%. Jay owns a bunch. And then, of course, Bomber. This is an owner operated endeavor. These guys are owners. And so I don't think they want to consider themselves strictly in the marketing box. So I think a couple of things to think about. One is I think the digital transformation and their ability to help use these tools, I think is very much a consultancy in an area where people need to do that fast and you need

smart people and you need margin. It's not some BPO thing over in India. The second thing I would sort of riff on is that like when I look at, you know, McKinsey and those sort of traditional strategy consulting firms, I sort of think about them almost in that bucket is to say, okay, you know, is there an opportunity for these guys to get almost, you know, beyond this digital transformation, really getting into strategy and, you know, sort of how do I create bigger, you know, sort of economic outcomes? And so I guess what I would say is, look, at the end of the day, yes, you know, the most interesting man in the world, Jose Cuervo, like someone came up with that with an advertising. I believe we have that account now. But my point is, is that, like, you're always

going to have that. But I also think that there's sort of an element to this where it's, It's like, you know, is the guy at McKinsey going to be the better guy or the guy at Accenture to be the better guy to help you, you know, develop your iPhone app and integrate all this stuff and think about that. I mean, I do think the lines are sort of blurring a little bit. And so that's why I keep going back to investment banker. It's like, you know, and by the way, maybe these guys, you know, start helping, you know, they launched a smart, small venture capital firm. I mean, maybe they're starting to incubate some of these companies. I mean, I do think that, you know, I have an investor who says to me, you know, the old ways are the right ways, right? People in the 80s, they were doing green mail. And now everyone's afraid to do it. But that's where the money is going and making offers for companies that are really cheap that no one wants to touch. You know, I sort of look at this. And I say, well, look at the merchant banking model. In the old days, we used to be investment bankers, but we also used to be principal investors, right? And if you think about all these wire out, these firms that you're talking about JP Morgan, they were all merchant banks, right? I mean, look at JP Morgan. I mean, the guy was, you know, funding. Thomas Alba Edison and all these things. And they'd be like, I'm going to short the stock so he goes

out of business. And these guys were multi-dimensional. They were advising. They were investing. And I do think on some level, you know, when I think about Stack, well, I sort of think about it multidimentially. It's a consultant. They're doing digital transformation. They're doing marketing. And, you know, look, I think longer term, I think there are opportunities for them to employ these skills into other sort of principal investing, you know, opportunities. So, you know, I think it's not black or white is what I would say. That goes nicely into one of the questions that I. So just as to know,

how much is this a jockey bet, right? Because you clearly like the people here. I think you use owner operator, founder operator a lot of times. Penn, he's got a fabulous track record, all this sort of stuff, right? But he is 71. So you're talking about, hey, we're going into this evolving AI world, whether you believe, but you know, you're going with a 71-year-old. And even if you think he's sharp, like time catches up to all of us pretty quickly.

And, you know, I do kind of worry, even if we're talking, hey, in three years, we're going to sell this whole company. Well, when you sell it, you know, you've got a 75 year old at that point and he's kind of stepping away. How is a buyer going to value that when like the king man will not be here forever? So how much is this a jockey bet versus how much is this, I like this, you know, kind of mid-tier advertising agency bet? I would say like in the beginning it was more of a jockey bet. I would say that if I look at the team that he's built with with Jay and and some of the the sort of the agency heads, I mean, look, when he buys these businesses, you know, these guys oftentimes take half the consideration in stock and cash. And our view is, is that there's been relatively low turnover. So, you know, whether it's code in theory or anomaly or some of these other things. I mean, I would just tell you that like they've had very, very good retention at the top. So, you know, look, obviously, uh, there are other people. involved and invested, you know, we know about bomber, you know, obviously Madison Avenue. You know, I think there's a number of jockeys. Clearly, I do not want to belittle Mark.

You know, he's obviously done a tremendous job, but I do think that like, you know, I do think this business survives and thrives without him. Obviously, I'd rather have him walking into IBM to win the next big contract. But like, that doesn't mean that like, you know, Jay, his number two, you know, couldn't fill his shoes tomorrow. But again, I come back to it. it's like, you know, if the culture is an ownership culture and they're continuing to expand, you know, I do think that, you know, that can take a life of its own. But, but, you know, look, in any organization, you know, there's less risk as the business goes on and more risk at the beginning. And so, you know, I would say that like, you know, when Blair Ephron used

as an example, Blair Ephron starts Centerview with one, you know, Robert Prouz and whoever it was, you know, it was all them. And then, you know, obviously Centerview has a huge private. an equity business, advisory business, you know, it will, you know, it will survive without them. So same with KKR, right? I mean, like any human capital business, you know, the longer it does well, the more the brand sort of stands as opposed to the people. But yes, I mean, look, I think Mark is a very young 71. And I do think that there is a very good succession plan. And I'll tell you something else, you know, there's a season for every business. I think the season from 21 to 26 was a season of sort of recalibration and right sizing. And I do think that like this season from 26 to 30 is going to be, I mean, I think their guidance is like a billion dollars of EBITDA by 29. I mean, look, I think they could exceed that. I mean, they're definitely going to hit it. So yeah, I mean, look, I would tell you that, you know, a billion dollars of EBITDA is a real company. I mean, to go from zero to a billion and 15 years is pretty incredible.

completely agree. That was a really interesting point on the human businesses as they evolve over time becoming more businesses than just key man businesses. And I'm just, I'm thinking about that in a lot of different areas. And it's interesting, the one that that, the one place that seems to escape is had funds, you know, generally tend to be one man shops, not always, but, you know, like the value investing style that we practice since be one man shop. And when Adam is gone, ADW, which is named after Adam, you know, it's tough to say that. But neither here in there just something. Hopefully my son will be old enough by the time by the time my son my son is seven and I'm 42 so I'm being I'm being told I can do this at least until my 80s well he'll be 50 by

then so you know maybe we might be we might be fighting over 80W at that point it maybe he doesn't want to be an investor well I do not wish the icon style succession on anyone so let me go back to something different Q4 call I think if anyone's interested in Stagwell I think the place to start would be their Q4 call of this year. And why? One of the reasons why is because right at the end, the IR guy comes on and says, we have a question from ADW and they start breaking through their sum of the parts, right? And you actually built on something that the CEO, Mark Penn says earlier where he says, hey, look, we think we've got a billion, 1.2, I believe, is the number, 1.2 billion of value coming from our political business in their cloud marketing business. So I'd love

to just ask you, you know, what is he referring to? Can you kind of walk us through the sum of the parts and how you view value here with as you and I are recording on July, July 3rd, Stagwell is trading for 740 per share. You guys both come out with the sum of the parts clearly higher. We'll talk about this, but the CEO's out here saying, hey, we're not doing acquisitions right now. We're buying back shares like crazy. I think they buy back like 20 million shares in 2025. So he's saying we're way too cheap. He'll tell it to anyone who says it. It's in every conference he does. Why does he think it's too cheap? What is the sum of the parts here? Okay. So what are the sum of the parts? Well, you know, to be honest, I sort of look at it both ways. I actually don't. I prefer not to look at it on some of the parts. Like so, you know, right now, you know, we think they're going to generate, let's see here. They'll generate about $340 million of free cash flow over the next three, you know, I would say Q2, Q3, Q4, right? They burn in the first quarter just as seasonality. We think they'll buy back about 150 to 175.

million in the you know of of stock you know based on what sort of we know about the restricted payments buckets and sort of what they're allowed to buy within their credit agreement so you know and there's carve outs i think they can buy from blocks and insiders but from here i think we could probably buy another 150 to 175 million um and then you know there's another 170 of cash so so the way we look at it is you know we think that they can probably buy depending on the share price probably another 20 million shares from here. So I guess, you know, the way I think about it is sort of year-end balance sheet, year-end share count. I'm at like $2.8 billion of enterprise value. And, you know, I think they've sort of communicated the business is going to grow next year. So I think

the midpoint of the guy is 500 this year. We think they'll beat that. I think next year, you know, they'll, you know, I think the number is, I don't pick a number, 570. And then the year after in 28, you're going into a big political cycle. We're at like 700 or so. And this is not without, and this is without M&A. And so, you know, our view is, you know, next year with the buyback and sort of hitting the EBITDA, we think they're going to do about a buck 60 of free cash. And so, you know, publicists right now trades at like a 9% free cash flow yield, I believe. You know, if this were to sort of trade at like a 9% free cash flow yield, and there should be some arguments that it should trade better than that, that'd be like an $18 stock. If it were to trade

at, you know, I don't know, pick a number, like a six or a seven. I mean, a six would sort of be like a traditional market multiple. That's like a $25, $26.5 stock, right? 16 times earning, 16 times cash flow. So, I mean, look, you know, I think what you riffed on is you're like, well, you know, should I do it on some of the parts? I'm like, look, the software business is a good business. But at the end of the day, I think comes down to what you think businesses are going to generate in earnings. And so, you know, if this is a company that has good software and it, like, allows the business to grow, you know, maybe we just look at it on consolidated earnings. And so I look, could this thing trade at 16 times earnings and be $26.00 a share? Absolutely.

I mean, we're sitting here at 740. The company on our numbers is like a 22% free cash flow yield in 27 and 26 and a half and 28, not including any capital allocation. I mean, these businesses are prices if they're going away, not like they're growing. Well, look, I will say one thing. I completely agree with you on the sum of the parts. And I know you are not an investor who is opposed to using some of the parts valuations. But to me, it's just like it's all one piece and everything. I guess let me come with, you know, one thing I thought when I was researching this, you mentioned Stadwell and MDC merging.

You know, I thought one of the things I was going to say as a bear case was, oh, they merged and they missed all their targets. But they've actually hit all of their targets kind of since they merge or they've come within spitting distance of them. I guess one thing I would ask is, hey, they're out here saying we're cheap. They've been saying we're cheap for years, right? Like I can go back. I did this thing where I just looked at the Q2 earnings calls for the past three years.

In Q2, Q2, 2022, we continue to view our shares as being grossly undervalued. Q223, at an estimated 80 cents of adjusted EBDA, we remain way undervalued versus both this year and what we're going to do in 2024. In 2024, they're talking about, hey, we're looking to sell a small piece of our business and all of the multiples we're getting suggest that we are way undervalued. So I guess my question is, now, they are acting, right? They're getting more aggressive on the buyback. They did announce a big buyback in 2022, but they're getting more aggressive on the buyback. But I guess it just says, hey, at some point, you know, they've been saying they're undervalued for four years now. At what point do you kind of look in the mirror and say, hey, why for four years running is this market undervaluing this business?

what risk or what is the market picking up on here that maybe they're missing, I'm missing, all this sort of stuff. Because again, it's four years running. They're saying our stock's undervalued and the stock is going nowhere. Well, okay. So you have had some multiple contraction over that period of time, right? And then you've also, so some of it is just the multiple contracting, right? And so they have continued to grow.

But like in all value investing, you know that the multiple can go back for so long. And look, again, I don't want to get into too many specific. but like what I would say is there was a dual class before there was a TRA there were a number of reasons why people couldn't be invested in this right you bought MDC MDC was screwed up no one I dealt with this API group I mean you know that no one likes declining revenue in the stock market right everyone is everyone likes revenue they want revenue and earnings they want they want they want speed and power right in basketball it's LeBron James you called speed and power right you want braon james he's unsigned as a pre-agent right now so do people so one of me he's got offers but he is 42 I'm not sure people

Well, let's go with, let's go with 26-year-old LeBron James, speed and power, right? You want revenue growth and earnings. You want revenue growth and margin expansion. They want the trifecta. And so what I would say is, you know, there was a really nice underbelly inside of MDC, but they needed to sort of figure it out. And, you know, I would just say that, you know, you're getting to the other side of divestiture and you're getting accelerated earnings growth and margin expansion.

And look, we as public market investors, I think, oftentimes take take for granted how hard it is to build a business. And so many of these businesses are done in the private markets. And so if they had done this thing in the private markets, I think it would have been a lot less messy and a lot, you know, and so, you know, you said, well, the market doesn't care. And I'd say, well, you know, the market doesn't care until it cares. And I've seen this so many times in my career. And it's absolute torture where you see this and you're like, they're doing everything right. No one cares. And then suddenly you have that aha moment. The stock's up 300%. I mean, it's happened to me more than once in my career. And so what I would say is,

is, you know, if you're a stock market guy, it's like, you know, we talk about feeding off someone else's pain, the best thing to do, and I've made many mistakes in my career, we can talk about them on another pot, but, you know, the best type of investing is buying someone else's pain, right? Buying the five-year struggle of Mark Penn and Jay Leviton to only be able to get the other side of the earnings, earnings, growth, multiple expansion, margin, revenue growth. And that's really why I think it's different to your original question, which is they're pruning bad business. They're getting rid of the SMB. They're making investments in technology. Okay, investments in technology are leveling off. So CAPX and G&A is leveling. Now you have the

benefit of AI. They have the highest revenue per employee of any of the ad hold. Because I should know the number. I can't remember what it is. But they have the highest revenue per per employee of any of the holdco advertising. So they're getting efficient. They're using AI to reduce their costs, right? And then on top of that, you know, they're now winning high margin software. They're getting the machine. They're getting all this stuff. And so, you know, again, you know, we as public market investors think it's so easy. Like, it's just a light switch. You turn it off, you turn it on. And what I would tell you is that, you know, it's just not that, it's just not that simple and that, you know, streamline. But at the same time, I tell you that like, when I think

about the earnings growth, the organic revenue growth, the free cash flow, the free cash flow margin, free cash flow growth, all of those metrics are going to improve. And these companies are what I, they go through these things called growth spurts. And I think, you know, Stagwell is about to go through a meaningful growth spurt. And that's why we think it's going to re-rate. I agree with so much what you said there. But let me ask this and then we can turn to driven. Last question.

You mentioned that you are active owners of your company. Sometimes you're activists. Sometimes you're just talking to the CEO pushing. Look, you run a concentrated portfolio. I'm just pulling numbers from Bloomberg. But you have like, you know, seven positions. and Stagwell is your fifth largest. It's a meaningful position. I've looked at, this is Bloomberg you're the ninth largest holder of Stagwell according to Bloomberg. Could be right, could be slightly right,

could be slightly wrong, whatever. But this is a big position, a meaningful position. You know, you're an active owner. What are you, you know, if you have your way, what is the push here, what is the suggestivist, activist, whatever it is, push here from ADW to Sagu. Well, I mean, this one's not that crazy. I mean, they've been buying back stock. I'm Obviously, we think the business is worth more than what do we have it here? 28, I think it's worth less than, I think it's worth more than four times 2080, but $4.9 times 27, given the organic growth rate and the cash flow and the growth and cash flow, I mean, you know, if there's no multiple expansion, you know, we're getting to like, you know,

we like to look at things on what something that's called Buffett math. So what way Warren Buffett looks at companies is he looks at the free cash flow yield and the growth rate. And then that's what we call our Buffett return. the way Buffett looks at securities. And so we're getting to like almost a 50% return on Buffett math, no multiple expansion. And that obviously doesn't contemplate them using that free cash flow to buy back stock or invest in companies. So if that incremental cash flow is deployed intelligently, then obviously we can get a higher

return than the Buffett return. And so, you know, I don't think this is a 50% cost of capital investment, right? I mean, I think that so I mean, look, I think that, you know, buying back stock. here is very, very intelligent. I think they are doing it. I think we have continued to encourage them to do it. There is some seasonality in the business, such that the pre-cashel is really going to start getting going. And, you know, middle of Q2, Q3, Q4. So I think you'll see a meaningful buyback in the back half. You know, obviously they have been buying, but I think they're going to put their foot on the gas is my guest just based on the seasonality. And then obviously you're going into 27 and 28, 27. You're going to get more software, continue, you know, efficient. from their AI investments, and then obviously you're going into 28. So, you know, I'll just abbreviate it.

The holdings that you have there, 5 million with a million of options, I would just tell people to stay tuned for the August 14th filing. They might be amused by what we have. But, yes, it's definitely a nice position for us. We think that, you know, with the stock trading at $7.40, and we think we had to market multiple, the things in the mid-20s. and we've got, you know, capable human people that have, you know, extensive imaginations who see the power of a human. I mean, look, you know, Alex Carp does not do business with everyone.

I mean, look, you know, Stagwell is, I believe the head court, I mean, Mark is in Miami. They're New York and D.C. I mean, look, you know, the locus of power in the United States now has been moving to Miami. Yes, I am biased. I live there. Yeah, I was about saying, where is your, where do you live? But I would say that like, you know, look, you know, Alex Carp is, is obviously doing really interesting things. And I think, I do think, you know, sort of zooming out from Stagwell for a minute, I do think that the power of the human being is actually more valuable today in a post-LLM world because I think so many people just rely on what's being spitted out of the LLM. And I think, you know, the ability to find

smart people and come up with interesting things, I think, is more powerful. And so, you know, look, I do not think this business should be trading at four times earnings. You can argue with me, whether it should be trading at 16 times earnings, but it shouldn't be four and or five. And so, you know, look, I think they should be buying,

buying the piss out of the stock. And I think they are and will. And I think we're just, as I said, it's like buying everyone else's pain, the investments they've made and the time and energy they've made to build this sort of company.

And I'm just sitting around as in the driver, what is the passenger seat reaping the benefits now. It's a conversation, but I do think you're right in a post-LM world, especially for smart creative people. I actually think the, it increases quote unquote alpha. And that's not necessarily saying in an investment world,

but just in general, I think as more of the world is AI, people who are doing nichey, creative things, I think it actually stand out and there's more opportunity for them. Now they're here, an activist thing for you, you mentioned the machine.

That's the thing they're working on with Paladin's here. I mean, I think the first activist thing you do is you say, hey, guys, if you're building something that's AI powered, you cannot call it the machine. People are going to think you're building a death robot. Like, you just cannot call things the machine. but let's move on to driven.

Driven brands, you have been activist there. You're not above 5%, but you're close. You put out a lot of press releases. You put out an offer to take them private. I have, disclosure, I have a big position here too. I've done a podcast with Kyle Maori, but as long as we've got the man who is, like,

in my mind, holding works feet somewhat to the fire because I think they really need it. I think they've done minority shareholders a disservice with their just overall stewardship of driven brands, but maybe I'm putting words in your, putting words in your mouth. Let's just talk driven brands and we can start anywhere you want. Yeah, I mean, look, you know, driven brands is, how would I say this? Driven Brands is a sad story, but, you know, it's interesting. You know, I think the genesis of

Driven Brands was in, was good. I mean, look, you know, take five was, you know, basically, you know, built inside of Driven and that's worth more in the entire market cap. So don't take that away from them. But I mean, look, at the end of the day, you know, I'm very bullish on automa, so let's start at the top, right? I am personally very bullish on automotive aftermarket, right? I believe cars are being driven on the road for longer. I think it is getting cheaper to service these cars. I think the technology is actually changing much slower than people actually think. And cars, new cars are very expensive. And so, and then you have all the case-shaped economy dynamics. So what I would say is, I like, I like the, the,

the macro factors that they are exposed to as it relates to, you know, sort of aftermarket, right? I think, you know, people are getting away from the dealer. People are doing more and more work outside of the dealer. It's cheaper. I mean, look, an oil change at the Porsche dealer where I go to, I think there's like $400. I hope they're not listening to this. But, you know, at Take Five, it's $75. I mean...

Would you take your Porsche to the Take Five for an oil change? Yeah, sure. Why not? I have no clue. I'm not a car guy. I was just wondering, you know, people get using it. I have to ask. I mean, if they have the right oil on, if they have the right synthetic oil there, I mean, it's easy. You just basically take you, you, I mean, think about the labor, right? I mean, at the Porsche dealership, I bet you the labor is probably like 200. I don't know what it says on the recession.

I don't know. If it's 175 an hour or 270, it's something ridiculous. They pay these texts, you know, in, what's not 275. Maybe 75 or 100. The numbers are crazy, right? You know, the per hour labor. I mean, you can get a guy to do an oil change for, you know, 15 or 20 bucks an hour. And so, you know, I think, and by the way, that's why they won't do it at a minus or a minor key because that same tech is doing mechanical and he charges more. So, you know, that's why I like the quick loop model at take five. I think the unit economics are good. They don't, obviously, they don't have the basement, the way Valvaline does. So the buildouts are cheaper. All these things that I'm sure you talk about with Kyle. You know, I just think the unit economics are better for franchisees. I think it's, you know, people want to get in and out. They don't want to leave their car at the dealer.

you know, obviously you have the skew towards synthetic, so the margins are going up. You know, you'll figure out a ways to sell windshield wiper blades and other stuff. I like that business. And I like the whole ecosystem. I like the advanced AutoZone or Riley ecosystem. Like, I just like the ecosystem. I think people are keeping their cars for longer. I think there's also a trend a little bit away from DIY to DIYFM.

Do it, do yourself to do it for me. And so I think they're really in the sweet spot of DIY. do it for me versus DIY. When I first started researching space, and this was several years ago, I could not believe how many people still do it yourself. Like, I actually think it has to be an error in the data because I just can't believe so many people are still doing their own oil changes. Yeah, well, do you need a lift?

I mean, how do you get under it? How do you pull the plug out? I mean, you know, it's just you need a lift. You need to have it on a thing. It's just, it's an occupational hazard. People don't have time. So, yes, I think at the end of the day, like getting your oil changes. you know, sort of a, is gone from being a discreet benefit to, you know.

On oil change, I mean, I feel like I have to bunk this, but the most frequent pushback I get when I talk to smart friends is, hey, man, we understand electric vehicles aren't going to take over the car park tomorrow, but if you run this out and you start saying where electric vehicles will be in 2032, like my bear case for driven is actually, hey, Chinese tariffs come way down and we get flooded with cheap Chinese EVs the same way, that Europe is right now. Like, that's kind of a scary bear case. So the pushback I keep hearing for people is

electric vehicle car start taking over a big share of the car park at some point in the next 15 years. And then you start saying, hey, what's the terminal multiple of this value when electric vehicles start accelerating? Yeah, I mean, look, I mean, we've done the math on car parks and all the rest. I mean, Chinese EVs, like, you know,

that's not happening given the political climate. So I, and again, I don't know all the math on getting the EVs in here. But also, you just, you need You need the charging infrastructure. I mean, there's so many parts to the electric ecosystem that are just sort of like, oh, my goodness, it's like fantasy land. So, you know, whether it's the charging stations, whether it's the grid, the power, like we're just so far away from that.

And look, the statistics do not support that, right? I think last quarter, 97% of vehicles were ICE versus new vehicles, by the way. This is new vehicle sales, right? It got down to like 92 and 93 and 7, and now it's like 97 and 3 or something like that. So, like, you know, this is the new vehicle sales, right? And so of the, you're still getting 97% or whatever, pick a number, pick your number of ice sales, right? And then, of course, you have the car park aging. So then you have more and more people keeping their cars longer, right?

I mean, it used to be at seven and a half per seven and a half year average age of the vehicle. Now I think it's like 13. Why can it go to 17? So in the end, I think the cars are getting older. They're getting more expensive. I, you know, again, this is not a, this is not a conversation for enthusiasts. I will do my auto enthusiast because, as you know, I was a big Ferrari guy, and my first business growing up was car detailing. So I do love cars. It is my weakness. You know, shame on me.

Everybody's got their thing, man. There's no shame. If you like cars, you like cars. What's the big deal? More and more people are rejecting hybrids. And, you know, now, you know, if you see the resale prices on manual transmission cars, whether it's Porsche or anything, people, people really enjoy the active drive. In fact, I will go as far as to say that, you know, there was a video I was watching the other day about a guy driving manual transmission cars. And they actually said that it's very therapeutic and that driving a manual transmission car is therapeutic because it focuses you on the act of driving as opposed to being on autopilot, that it's good for your health and it's good for mental decompression. So I won't say that driven and oil changes are going to be around for longer. But I will say that like, I will say that, you know, if you're out in, you know, pick, you know, you know, wherever, you know, middle of Texas, you know, Saratoga Springs. You know, you know, horse country, whatever it is, and you've got your Dodge RAM or your old F-150 and it's a manual transmission and you're, you know, yeah, you're going to keep it because it's doing better and because you're used to it. And you like, it's an opportunity for you to, you know, be, you know, be therapeutic. You have your Jeep Wrangler, it's manual transmission. Well, let me tell you something. You can't have a manual transmission EV. Can't do that. Right. And so I would just

tell you that, like, I do think people like driving. I do think that, you know, all the economic and structural factors lend themselves to owning internal combustion. engines for longer. And I would tell you also that like, you know, the unit economics on a company owned vehicle, you know, remember, they're at like 13 or what are they, 400 units or something. They said they're going to get to 3,000 or something. The cash on cash returns on a new take five or 40%. So, I mean, you're getting paid back all your money in the next two years anyways. And I, and I, and what we haven't talked about, Andrew, is what the other businesses are worth, right? Well, you know, we can and we should. There is real value there. But take five is

such a crown jewel and it is so much of the value. Like if you get take five right, then the other businesses are a cherry on top. And if you get it wrong, like the other businesses, okay, they matter. But like take five is so much of the story. Well, you know, if I go, I agree. But, you know, again, you know, when I look at sort of my sum of the parts, you know, and I say, well, you know, let's say, I think for my numbers, I have them at like 550 of EBITDA in 20. And by the way, if I can just add one of the things I really like about this story, and we can talk this later, they're going to do, let's call it 450 in 2006 because they've got all these. This is the company that loves to add back everything about for some reason. We can't add that the accounting rest statements. But you start running 2007 with the take five growth that they're doing. The 2025 take five store seasoning because these stores take about two years to three years to season and all these adjusted and all these accounting receivments go away. Like, I actually think you're low on 550, but I would take 550 from here, but I actually think you're going to be proven low. And I hope to be smarter than you on this one. This never happens to me.

I'm always not too high guy. So I'll be the too low guy for a minute, whether it's a 550 or 560, I mean, remember, they have an inflated corporate. And so when you think about sort of the, you know, can they get corporate lower? And I think they haven't really communicated that because I think they're focused on just hitting numbers and just, you know, tripping over themselves. But I do think there's an opportunity to have a lower corporate number. I look at auto glass now, you know, whatever, pick a number 30 or 35. Like, you know, we think that that could be sold for like 15, 16, or 20 times. I mean, that's a big number. You know, we can get, you know, someone could use that as a platform because they've invested in an enormous amount of money to basically get that

insurance business. And so we think that that, you know, if you were to, you know, go back to a cash pay business, that business could do 60, 75 of EBITDA. So they're saying, that that's worth $600 million is not a stretch. Would you want them to sell? To your point earlier on Stagwell, hey, you want to be there once you're buying other people's pain? I'm not saying they put pain, but they put so much into auto glass. And I know they're convinced they're going to land a national insurer in the next two

years. Now, they've been saying that for a while. But would you want them to sell when they're maybe like on the cusp of getting the big contract that takes it over the edge? I mean, if the stock starts a $2.4 billion cap, if you could get $6 or $700 million in pay no tax and buy back. 30% of the company, I'm open for business. I would say the same thing about collision, right?

Like, collision also, you know, the thing that people don't realize about collision is that, you know, that's a 50 or 60 million of Ibita business, we think. And, you know, if they can get 13, 14, 15, 15, 16 times for that, you know, that's, you know, that's really, really, really powerful. And, you know, we think they can, actually. Just, you know, sort of poking around. And so, you know, and the other thing is these company-owned systems like boy groups, and caliber and whatnot.

You know, those guys need businesses to buy. So if you bought that franchise system and then those franchisees as they retire, sell you the company owned, that's just like it's like a built-in drop-down, like an MLP type deal where you have built-in drop-downs, but opposite drop-down, built-in buy-downs. And, you know, we like that dynamic. Not to mention as you join a larger system, you're going to get leverage on your DRP program and your supply chain and whatnot. So obviously, lots of opportunity there.

So we think collision is very liquid, as I would say, liquid liquid as a tradable asset. I would say on the glass two. And so you sort of start thinking about what you're paying for take five when you reverse those out. And then you're really, really, really getting a good deal. I mean, you just pay down, right? And I'm using your numbers, not mine off the top of my head, but you basically just pay down their all their net debt with those two businesses, right? And more. Fine, more, a little bit more.

Oh, I'm sorry. All of their net debt. Sorry. You're saying if I do 600, 600 for glass, and then you get 50 times, no, not quite all of their net debt. But I mean, it's very accretive on a multiple basis, right? Because when you think about the multiples you're selling and the fact you're not paying tax on those assets, you're clearing, you know, you're clearing in, you know, on glass, you're clearing, you're clearing 20 times or whatever it is versus seven of 13 turns, right? And then on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, you're clearing six to nine turns also. You said collision 15 X.

And they have not disclosed this number, right? But you think that it's doing 60 to 70 million inside of, inside of 50. I look, every, every, they don't disclose it. This is just me doing my own sort of primary scuttle butt, but we think 50 to 60 million. But it should be 70. Sure. Why not? Let's just use 60 because it's going to make my numbers worth.

60 at 15 is 900. 600 for Auto Glass. That's 1.5 billion. This is 1.5 billion in debt. All the debt. Yeah. Absolutely. And then you're left with a $2 billion market cap that still has, you know, the first.

franchise business, which will be doing, I'm sure there'll be some stranded costs up, but that's $100 million in EBITDA without the, without the collision business, you said? Hopefully a little bit more, but yeah. And hopefully that's worth at least seven. And I would also challenge, you know, this is a purely franchise business. How many times have you seen franchises with 50 years of history and a pretty stable industry? You go for seven. I don't know, maybe. Maybe.

It's been probably a little bit mismanaged, but who knows? So you get 100 of that. And then you get take five, which, you know, is a crown jewel. I think it's doing 400 million EBIT. Now, there is a massive corporate drag behind that, which I will acknowledge. But, you know, we just paid down all their net debt. And I just laid you a path to 500 million plus an EBITDA before corporate on a 2.4 billion market cap company. Like, this is kind of a big position, right?

Like, I think the math really starts to work. I'll let you riff off that or I've got some other questions for you if you want. I mean, look, you know, validling trades at 11 times EBITDA. And I mean, look, you know, again, don't, don't laugh at me. but, you know, the alt data said that driven, it's the take five had better comps last week, last week. Okay. Last week.

Last week. Well, I will say I was a little disappointed by the Q1. Like, take five was a little lower than I thought. I mean, we're kind of splitting hairs, but. Well, it's a really hard comp. I mean, that's the problem. Like the, I mean, if you look at it on a two-year stack, I mean, you know, on take five, they were doing like 20s last year or something for some of these weeks last week.

So last year. I hear you. Everybody like say, oh, it was a hard comp. We did great last year. It's like, okay, well, unless you're talking about, you know, this is a real problem for like a fitness brand or something, right? Hard comp because your business is topping out, right? You can't get another person in the class. That's one thing.

But then you're saying, okay, our business is no longer deserves a growth multiple. And they're saying hard comp. You were still open in stores. I don't know. I never know. Let me, we mentioned active owner. You, I mean, I think you have really lit a little bit of a fire on this company. You know, it's not lost me.

I can't remember the exact time. But you came out with your first or second letter and the company finally started putting out numbers within 48 hours are announced they're going to put out with numbers. So I think they're feeling some pressure despite the fact Rourke owns 60% plus of this. Like they can tell everyone to go after themselves as they really have no regards for the public market. Did you see the returns analysis we did for Rourke in our third letter? You know, I'll let you speak to them if you want, I don't feel like, but I guess I would just say that, you know, Rourke controls a lot of this. I think Rourke, they are a creature of the public markets because whether they want to

not they are a private equity firm they they're going to IPO inspire they need to deal with the public markets in 15 different ways going forward uh you know what what do you think the what do you think the go for path should be here or kind of where what would you nudge them to well i got to be careful here i mean look obviously that's that's what that's what i did i think i would say i would say we made an offer for the company it was public you can look at it um we obviously you know i've also posted our sum of the parts so we obviously you know our offer underscored is what we think the company's worth because we obviously put what we think

are some of the parts are in both letters. So we made an offer that we think is good value, immediate value for shareholders, but also underscores the underlying value of the company as evidenced by the sum of the parts that we disclosed and it's all public. I don't know what Rourke's going to do. I mean, Roark obviously has a different time horizon.

They always do. And that's sort of part of the schematic. And we can talk about through Sherry duty and, you know, doing things. But, you know, when the stock was at, you know, $12, you know, offering whatever, $18, you know, seemed like, you know, immediate value for them. Now, the stock's at 1450. Now, to be fair, you know, Valvaline has, the multiple has expanded dramatically, you know, so since we made our offer, Valvine's multiple has expanded massively. So obviously, you have to take that into account, right?

Like, I mean, given how much the EBIT does take five, but, I mean, what are they going to do? I don't know what they're going to do. I mean, I think they should be repurchasing shares right now. I don't know why they are not. I think this whole leverage thing is ridiculous. In terms of like, you know, they're like, oh, well, you know, we're not going to be taken seriously if we don't hit our leverage targets. I'm like, really? How about all the money?

How about all the money you blew on carwash and, you know, the accounting restatement. Like who you really think that that's the people that are buying your stock right now. The people that are buying driven stock are people like Adam Wyden and Andrew Walker, or people that are willing to really buy the dirty, the dirty garage fine Porsche to go back to cars for a minute, right? Like the car, you know, the Porsche in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, in the garage that, you know, look, you know, has, you know, rusty, you know, rusty, you know, but an engine with 25,000 miles on it. And, you know, do I think driven can be a public company on a standalone basis?

I don't know. I mean, I, I do think it's subscale if you were to sell off all the pieces. Like they had, they, their corporate is very high. So I, I do think it's subscale. But, you know, I do think that, you know, could they sell collision and glass and it be non-core and return a lot of capital? Absolutely. Do I think that, you know, take five could be, you know, sold to somebody else? Could it be merged with Valvlin? I don't know. There's probably some antitrust things. They definitely have to actually, you know what? No chance. No, Balvling couldn't buy Breeze. Balvlin couldn't buy Breeze. Valvaline couldn't buy Breeze because of the geographic locations. I will just make one point on that for the matter. So, you know, when I look at where. where the Take 5 locations are, they are primarily in lower income and more rural and they're not main and Maine. I actually asked myself the question, like, would there be too much market share in the country if they did that? I mean, I think, I think, well, I had the statistics somewhere.

I think Valvaline and Take 5 are like 10 or 15 percent of total oil changes in the United States. It's not that much. And then obviously, you have oil changes moving to Quick Loop from dealers. So I think the issue with Breeze was more so that they had sold the FTC issue, at least my understanding. We actually, we know who bought the duplicative Breeze locations. It had to do that they guaranteed certain geographies to Valvaline franchisees. And so what had happened is they were basically putting a breeze location, you know, basically adjacent to a Valvaline franchisee location. It was a breach. I believe it was a, again, this is just my understanding.

There was some sort of breach with the. franchise agreements. Why would the FTC care about that in terms of antitrust? Wouldn't that just be a lawsuit between? I don't know is the answer, but I know that that was, I know that on the Valvillin side, that was a big issue. I'm not sure. It might just be that they didn't care, that they didn't care about the franchise agreement.

They just cared about, you know, them owning too much at Maine and Maine. But if we're going back to the original question, which is could take five in Valvene merge if take five is sort of the lower end or sort of the more, you know, middle class customer sort of, you know, VALVAL. value conscious customer. Could they merge and it get through antitrust given the total number of oil changes? I think it could actually. You know, I don't think it's here. But there's other buyers. I mean, there's may this. I mean, there's lots of other companies. I just think this belongs in this belongs in the private markets. Like, it's clear than public markets a few years ago. I don't think there's any

public market franchise outside of like growthy fast food and even growthy fast food. I mean, it's not growthy, but look at Wendy's. Look at, like, I just don't think the appetite is there in the public markets for, and this is, T.5 is not slow growth, but slower growth, high leverage businesses that deserve like the whole co-securitization things. I just don't think that's there. This belongs in private equity hands to me, or what the strategic would be awesome. I just, after Breeze, I don't even know why you'd bother if you were a strategic, but this just clearly belongs in private equity hand and somebody who is going to take a sharp eye to that corporate cost, because I know the company keep saying look at it on a revenue basis, which is insane. And I don't think we have time to talk

about, but the corporate costs here are too high. And like somebody who went a whole, 100% of this and actually was taking an eye and it acts of the corporate costs, I think would just make all this and sub. Anyway, Adam, I've got a hard stop in one minute. We got it in under an hour. I didn't think we, I will be honest in my head when I was playing this. I was like, I'll give them 50 minutes for Stagwell and we'll get 10 minutes of driven if we're lucky at the end. But I think we split it nicely like 40, 20. Any last thoughts or anything? No, I mean, look, I think this is an interesting time to be involved in event driven and value. You know, you and I have been suffering.

You know, I say it's like Moses wandering in the desert trying to get to Israel. You know, we've been sitting here wandering in the desert, you know, and AI and semiconductors. And suddenly we're talking about Stagwell and driven or getting hyped up about it. Like that feels like it's turning, right? Well, I'm always hyped up on it. But I do feel like the rubber band has just stretched so far. And, like, for the first time I've been doing this whole dark arts series, I'm seeing just, like, across the board, there's all these companies that look cheap to me. And I'm seeing, like, insiders getting really bullish. And all these companies, like, two years ago, I would say they should be private equity. And now, like, private equity barely needs to borrow to take these things out. And they're just, I think it is fascinating. And, you know, everything gets hit with the AI loser. And, you know, you think Stadwell's an AI winner, not AI losers. There are going to be a lot of companies that are, quote unquote, losers today that are going to be AI winners and generate mass returns. But we can talk about that on a few. future pod. Adam Wyden, ADW Capital, thanks coming on. Thanks for the work had driven,

because I do think that has been, at least holding their feet to the fire a little bit, has been really helpful. And we will chat soon. Thank you. A quick disclaimer, nothing on this podcast should be considered investment advice. Guests or the host may have positions in any of the stocks mentioned during this podcast. Please do your own work and consult a financial advisor. On July 16th, the Hawk lands on Netflix. From the mind of Will Farrell. Oh, Mama. I'm back. a new original series. Get ready. Get ready. That's it.

Did I stutter? When an iconic pro golfer. Lonnie? Money. Hocked! Takes one last swing of greatness. You were a big shot golfer. I still am a big shot golfer. No one. Dad, I'm the Hawk now. We'll stand in his way.

That's how it's done. The Hawk, only on Netflix, July 16th. Thanks.