Yet Another Value Podcast - Randy Baron's "Spicy" Victoria PLC Pitch

Episode Date: January 11, 2026

After a long hiatus, one of the people's most popular guests returns. Randy Baron ventures across the pond to talk about Victoria PLC. Victoria has run into hard times, driven by a bunch of debt a...nd a vicious cyclical downturn, but Randy sees some light at the end of the tunnel and goes into all the ways the company can survive the downturn and the huge potential upside for the common stock if he's right.___________________________________________________________[00:00:00] Podcast and guest introduction[00:01:59] Reintroducing guest Randy Barron[00:02:43] Company overview: Victoria PLC[00:05:16] Stock down 95%, what happened[00:09:58] Audit issue worsens perception[00:11:58] UK flooring market fragmentation[00:15:23] Headlam distress affects Victoria[00:16:40] Business story vs. distressed debt[00:19:44] Victoria's debt breakdown[00:21:04] Coke preferred equity explained[00:25:54] Coke takeover rules in UK[00:28:16] Preferred overhang and resolution[00:30:22] Stock impact from deal structure[00:33:02] Coke debt buyout possibility[00:34:07] Cyclical vs. structural downturn[00:36:36] Housing slowdown impacts demand[00:37:32] 2028 bonds trade at heavy discount[00:41:48] Asset sales to pay down debt[00:43:01] Jeff Wilding's role and strategy[00:47:28] Chairman’s capital allocation record[00:48:01] Assessing market misjudgment[00:50:19] UK market investment case[00:51:46] UK stamp tax impact[00:52:19] Making UK more investible[00:54:38] Macro vs. valuation gap in UK[00:55:16] Downside risk and cash flowLinks:Yet Another Value Blog - https://www.yetanothervalueblog.com See our legal disclaimer here: https://www.yetanothervalueblog.com/p/legal-and-disclaimerProduction and editing by The Podcast Consultant - https://thepodcastconsultant.com/

Transcript
Discussion (0)
Starting point is 00:00:01 You're about to listen to yet another value podcast with your host me, Andrew Walker. Look, it would mean a lot if you could rate subscribe review and base the rate subscription review on this episode because it's a really fun one with my friend Randy Barron. This is his fourth time on. It has been way too long since this come on. And he has, as I say at the start, a spicy one for you. It is a small UK company very levered. So nothing investing in advice.
Starting point is 00:00:24 You know, obviously I just had small UK very levered. That carries extra risks. So, you know, all the disclaimers at the end of the episode. But we have a really fun discussion about a lot. a lot of different things, a lot of different angles here, a lot of different ways they can pull. And, you know, he's one of the people's most popular guests in the past for a good reason. He's, it's a really fun interview. So we're going to get there in a second.
Starting point is 00:00:41 But first, a word from our sponsors. Today's podcast is sponsored by Fiscal.a.I. Fiscal.A.I is a modern data terminal built for investors who want an institutional-grade platform without the complexity. Whether you're an individual investor or professional portfolio manager, fiscal.a.I. gives you instant access to years of financials, earning transcripts, and company-specific segment and KPI databases. all in one intuitive platform. What makes it stand out from other platforms?
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Starting point is 00:01:46 That's fiscal.a.i. slash YABE. All right. Hello and welcome to you another value podcast. I'm your host, Andrew Walker. With me today, I'm so excited to have on for the first time in way, way too long, my friend Randy Barron. Randy, how's it going?
Starting point is 00:01:58 It's good, Andrew. Always, always a pleasure to be with you. I think this is my fourth appearance. I'm working for the jacket. I'm coming for number. We were just talking about one stock that might put you over the finish line for the thing. But I'm so excited to have you back on. It's been so great.
Starting point is 00:02:13 We just haven't connected in too long, but it's been great just catching up 10 minutes before this. Before we get started, quick disclaimer, remind everyone, nothing on this podcast is investing device. Always true. Today, we're going overseas and we're going to, as one of my friends said, when I was prepping for this, a spicy, spicy, spicy one. Because it's got a lot of leverage. So people should remember leverage overseas, extra. risk factors. Nothing's investing advice to your own risk. Randy, the stock we're reconnecting on is Victoria PLC. And I guess I'll just start and turn it over to you. What is Victoria PLC and why are they so
Starting point is 00:02:42 interesting? Well, I like the fact that you use the word spicy because this is a UK security and UK cuisine, not necessarily known for its spice in general. So I like that. But before we get into a deep dive on what Victoria is and why I think its equity is poised and materially re-rate in 26. Let me take a step back and talk about the why, because we're recording this at the turn of the year, and I've been spending a lot of time in the new year thinking about the concept of imperfection, right? So like the world is not perfect. You and I as parents, not perfect. You and I have stock figures, you know, imperfect. Victoria is an example of an imperfect company in what has long been an imperfect equity market, the UK, burdened with an imperfect capital
Starting point is 00:03:28 structure, right? But in imperfection lies opportunity. And so what is Victoria? Victoria is a 130-year-old purveyor, manufacturer, distributor of flooring. They make carpets, they make underlay, which are like the pads that go undercarpet. They make tile, LVT, luxury vinyl tiles. These are tiles that look like wood grain or look like ceramics. They have a ceramics business. They have an astroturf business. They have bamboo flooring. So all sorts of flooring. And while it's UK-based, they are global in terms of their distribution. They distribute to the U.S. They don't manufacture in the U.S., but they distribute there. They manufacture and distribute in the U.K. and Europe. They have a geographically, actually their most profitable businesses in Australia, but that's geographically non-contiguous.
Starting point is 00:04:14 And I think we need to lead with this. They also have a lot of warts, a lot of things that have made the equity price essentially decline by 95 percent. Yep. We'll do a lot of or the last three years. So that's a very high-level view of what Victoria is. And we can get into all those warts, I'm sure. No, that's great. Look, you said, and I'll just reiterate, this was, if we were recording this podcast three years ago,
Starting point is 00:04:41 and it was interesting prepping for it, how many, you know, when the stock price was literally 20 times higher, how many big names were pitching this as roll up, great business, you know, we're already at the bottom of the cycle is turning up already, all this sort of stuff. And the market cap was a billion plus. And today, you know, the stock's down 95% of everything.
Starting point is 00:04:57 So I think that's a great place to start. Actually, let's start there. Again, if we were recording this three or four years ago, we would have said, hey, we've got all these great compounders in here with us. The cycle is going to turn. This is a great roll-up story. And the stocks down 95%. What's gone wrong over the past three to four years that have kind of led to the distressed investment? Let's start with why the market cap was where it was.
Starting point is 00:05:18 Because I think that's important. And then we'll come to the distress. So this is a company 1890, 1895 gets founded. 1963 listed in London. Okay, so this is a long-standing company. It gets downlisted in 2013 to what's called the AIM market, the alternative investment market in the UK.
Starting point is 00:05:38 We can get into all the nuances of that. But the current chairman, a guy named Jeff Wilding, came in around 2013, and he's a roll-up guy. This is a guy who, in his career, has done at least three very successful roll-ups. Two were in the packing,
Starting point is 00:05:56 or no, the big one was in the packing space, and the other two were in, like, fleet logistics, like, you know, vehicle logistics spaces. But the concept of, like, buying businesses and rolling them up. So since he came in in 2013, 22 acquisitions, okay? Like, totally rolling up in industry. And this matters because the UK, which will get into, so conservative, that ideally they would want one-time levered.
Starting point is 00:06:17 So I don't know how you can have a roll-up if there's a ceiling on what a culture will allow. But revenue grew every year, both organic, and through acquisitions from 2013 to 2023. And really interestingly, at the end of the COVID cycle, this was a second derivative COVID play, meaning you and I are sitting there at home and we're looking around our house or our office
Starting point is 00:06:41 or wherever we're at and saying, boy, my floors need some work. Or your puppy peas on a carpet or your wife says, hey, you know, you scuff this, whatever it is. Flooring tends to have a seven to 10 year cycle of replacement just because they get beat up. Think about carpet. It gets beaten down. And so what should be,
Starting point is 00:07:00 generally speaking, a GDP grower, you know, volume should grow to 3% a year. In COVID, you pulled forward a ton of demand. So you have a double-digit growth. That's the spike to that market cap you're talking about.
Starting point is 00:07:13 And just to frame it for your audience, we're talking a stock price roughly 12 or 13 pounds at the time. Today we're talking 40 pence. Yeah. That's the 95% retrend. Since then, since that COVID acceleration of demand, you know, interest rates started to go up. The consumer gets a little more cautious.
Starting point is 00:07:33 Maybe you put off a flooring replacement. People like Lowe's and Home Depot work through their inventories and they're not ordering as much to distribute. And so you then have 23, 24, 25. Instead of 3%, you know, Ishkager, you've got 14% decline in revenue. You've got 9%. This year we're on pace for, and by the way, fiscal year end March 31st, which I hate it. I know. I was doing it.
Starting point is 00:07:59 On such a level, I can't even tell you, like, even to think what is the fiscal year we're in. So anyway, we are in fiscal 26, but my goodness, it's a pain. Anyway, we're on pace for like a 7% and volume and revenue, a pretty line decline. And then simultaneous to that, you know, so you've got that macro backdrop. Simultaneous to that, you had a capital structure. that was done to fuel these roll-ups. And Coke Industries, the private company in the U.S., become the big lender.
Starting point is 00:08:32 It lent several different times I preferred, which we'll get into, to roll up the flooring industry. Coke has a flooring division in the U.S. as well. And, you know, acquisition slow down. That's not going to happen because the macro is what it is. And then simultaneously, and this is where the British press, when they smell blood in the water, I think it was calendar 23.
Starting point is 00:08:56 Grant Thornton, which had been their auditor going back since 2015, bring on a new auditor, and he smells blood in the water and finds, one of their subsidiary company called Hanover, and I should frame,
Starting point is 00:09:12 by the way, Victoria in total, about 1.2 billion pounds in revenue, so about a billion and a half US dollars, you're talking at that time, around 190 million pounds, of EBITDA, okay? They find in their audit
Starting point is 00:09:26 that they can't find an invoice for one of the orders. So in other words, no cash meeting. This is not like a qualified opinion. There's no cash missing. It's in the till, it's in the balance, but they can't find an invoice over 150,000 pounds.
Starting point is 00:09:40 So again, 150,000 pounds over 1.2 billion and they flagged the audit. And that in the British press becomes a huge opportunity. the British press a little more salacious than ours in the U.S. I don't know if that's true anymore, but I'd like to speak generally. And by the U.K. food also spicy, more spicy than it used to be.
Starting point is 00:10:02 You know, if we talk about generalities. But the point being, the audors who pause on that one year later come back in and say, not only clean opinion for 24, but also they went back and reordered 20, totally clean, no issues. But by then the damage is done, right? And then simultaneously, you've got this debt cliff. that was coming due in 2026, and therein begins the pressure. And also one other thing, we'll get into all these things in detail.
Starting point is 00:10:29 The Coke preferred is, I'm sure there's a more technical term for this. But it's a spiral. It's an uncolored preferred, meaning straight equity. But as the equity price fell from 10 to 8 to 6 to 5 to 50 pence, you know, the denominator, the amount of shares that's going to convert into, you know, there's 114 million shares in this company today. if you were to convert or redeem that Coke preferred today, that would be roughly $870 million.
Starting point is 00:10:57 Yeah, no, a death spiral. It doesn't matter until the share price gets really hit, and then all of a sudden, you know, they're taking literally every share. All right, that's a great overview. Let me hop into a few things. I guess the first thing I want to hop in. In the U.S. market, listeners may or may not be familiar, but the U.S. market is for flooring is dominated by two firms.
Starting point is 00:11:17 There's Mohawk and they're Shaw, and Berkshire Hathaway owns Shaw. And I think the two of them have more than 50% of the market. It's roughly split between the two of them, right? Internationally, it is just so fragmented. And this thesis behind the Victoria Rollup was, hey, let's go roll this industry up and we'll make it look like the U.S. So I mean, we can talk about the puts and takes the rule up, but why was the UK market so fragmented? And it doesn't seem like this rollup has been that successful, ignoring macro.
Starting point is 00:11:46 Like, I just don't think it's done as well. What are the barriers that make, you know, as I'm just thinking about it, why is that market so much different than the U.S. market where it's kind of consolidated to duopoly? I mean, you could, well, first off, you can make a joke about, you know, English homes being a lot colder than the U.S. Like, that's where my head went initially for the comedy perspective. But, you know, there's something fundamental about the U.S. liking big box, right? Like, I do think there's a correlation for housing between, like, why is Lowe's and Home Depot so successful, right? And Victoria, by the way, distributes to these players.
Starting point is 00:12:27 There were more mom and pops. I think there's also more history. You know, like I mentioned to you, Victoria started in the 1890s as a carpet company. Along the way some of the businesses they divested was like a wood, a wool spinning business, right? This was a terrible business, you know, kind of making it. These are the things to get outsourced to, you know, other countries. This is what the U.S. apparel industry has gone through in a material way. There's Bertranda again, right?
Starting point is 00:12:51 You just talk to styles apparel. Well, yeah, and we own a company Unify, which is doing the same thing in North Carolina. And they have to go to South America and they go to Asia. And there's reasons for that. But I think fundamentally the U.K. is a smaller market in total than the U.S. And therefore, Mama Pops. There's less opportunity for scale. Right.
Starting point is 00:13:11 So, like, the three main publicly listed companies for flooring in the U.S., And I don't even like phrasing it that way because, again, Victoria is more global than just the UK. But there's Headlum, which is H-E-A-D. There's likewise L-I-K-E and there's Victoria VCP. And what's been fascinating, at least in the UK, is those three players have seen similar pressures, right? Likewise is doing a little better on revenue, but also they've never made any money for their investors. Headlam, which is not the purpose of this podcast, but is in distress. There's some theory that they're going to go bankrupt this year.
Starting point is 00:13:49 I have no opinion on that. They did hire a restructuring firm, Alvarez and Marshall. Harry Alvarez Marshall, you're probably filing at some point. Again, I'm not saying that, but they did a couple restatements of their expectations. This is, again, Headlin we're talking about. They did a couple restatements this year. They fired their CEO. They put in the chairman who's not really an operator.
Starting point is 00:14:11 and like what was 600 million in revenue is now on pace, certainly to be below 500 million, but maybe even less than that. So like the question is for headlum, can they cut costs enough? Because they, you know, you've got fixed leases. You've got things that are really tough to do.
Starting point is 00:14:27 If revenue is going down, the only way you get the profitability is you cut costs more, and that looks really difficult. At this stage, what I would say about that market is headlum was the price competitor. Right. Victoria's always been a premium. The appeal of Victoria has been, if you're a small shop, like on a Main Street or High Street in the UK,
Starting point is 00:14:46 you get treated as a commercial entity, meaning even though you're small, 85% of the UK is next day delivery from Victoria. I'm the small mom and pop. I call up. I get treated. I get my palate, whatever it is I need for flooring. The customer is happy. It's service. And so for that service premium, Victoria was the premium, meaning maybe 10% price premier. So as headlum stops gouging on price. relatively speaking, you know, as the pricing goes to be more rational, it's probably a good net move for Victoria. And I certainly wouldn't be surprised that Victoria starts taking some business from headlum in distress. So, I mean, I think the headlum thing, it's interesting, right? Like, you've got this industry rollout probably hasn't worked out well, but it's not just the UK.
Starting point is 00:15:31 It's the U.S. too. You know, I was reading Victoria's call and they said, look, we think the floory market is down 20 to 25 percent kind of below trend right now. U.S. residential. it's the exact same thing, right? Across the board, you're seeing the COVID hangover, whether it's flooring, betting, whatever you're talking about. So that makes sense. And then they might have a little bit of added of, hey, headlum's been aggressive on pricing. If they go bake, BK, they file, they kind of take the monkey off their back. Maybe you get more rational pricing. So you've got those two. But I guess I want to ask you, this is a company, as we noted, some of the bonds, the 2028s, I think, are trading at 20%
Starting point is 00:16:03 par. We just, I use the term death spiral for the prefers that I think can convert next year. How much should we be thinking about this as a business story, a fundamental story, versus how much should we be calling up distressed debt lawyers and thinking about, hey, we need the cycle to turn right now or else we need to start thinking about how we're going to knife people and negotiating with the Coke family and how much like, you know, if they convert and they get 95% of the equity or 99% of the equity and then the cycle turns, well, that's great. But as equity holders ourselves, we're not really getting any upside anymore.
Starting point is 00:16:36 So how much you need to like kind of that distressed death has? versus the business app. So it's funny when I was preparing for this and thinking about how I wanted to talk about because I know how you're going to get deep on stuff. In my brain, this was not like when you and I talked about data centers, which are core to my heart and 60% EBITDA margins and I love them as a business.
Starting point is 00:16:53 I don't have an opinion on flooring as a business, right? It's a 10 to 15% EBITDA margin business, steady state grower. Over time, it comes back. I view Victoria as an idiosyncratic one-off special situation. I like the fact that it's a roll up, and I disagree with something you said in passing, which is it's unsuccessful. It's successful in the stock price, right? But it also affords them a lot of opportunity to divest of things. I think it would be worth going through all the different
Starting point is 00:17:25 debt instruments and kind of for your audience explaining what we're talking about. But like some of the stuff they bought, like artificial grass, private equity wants and would pay eight to ten times for. Australia geographically, you know, non-contiguous. I wouldn't be surprised if we saw sale of that at some point. Just a little bit away from the UK. Right? But before we even get into what the positives are and why I think this is poised to materially re-rate,
Starting point is 00:17:49 let's just take a snapshot of that balance sheet that you mentioned because it is in distress and just frame it for your audience. So if I look at an enterprise value, there's 114 million shares, you know, 40 pence roughly is where it's at where we're recording today. So your market cap is, you know, somewhere around 50 million. All this is in GDP just to keep it coherent. On the debt side, you have three main pieces of debt. You have a super senior credit facility that was just issued in 2025.
Starting point is 00:18:21 That's due in 2030. You have a 2029 note. This is the big one that replaced two notes, which I'm going to come back to in a second. That's $530 million drawn on that today. That's the one that's trading at 80 cents, 80% apart. Then you have these 2028 notes. So that's the nearest maturity is 2028, which is 145 million pounds drawn on that trading. At one point in the fourth quarter, 12% apart.
Starting point is 00:18:46 But I think the mark to market for the people that own it was roughly 17% or 18% of par. So call it 20% apart at year end. And then you've got some other minor things. But in total, you're talking about 900 million pounds of debt face value. If I market to market, again, two of those significantly distressed, you're at 680 million mark to market. On top of that, I have the toxic convert from Coke Equity Development, which is just under 350 million.
Starting point is 00:19:16 That's a pick instrument, so it just keeps accruing. Why that matters, and this is what's really stressed the stock price, is in November of this year, 2026 is when it is first putable to the company. And when they put it, again, it can convert into just the stock. And it's just, hey, it's an equity, it's an equity, instrument. And we should probably at some point talk about the difference between IFRS and GAP, because you know, you and I came up in Gap and I get it a lot more. IFRS, I have a lot of issues with. But one of which is, one of which is like leases have to get treated as debt, even though it's an operating lease and something you can get out of.
Starting point is 00:19:51 But two, you know, they have to treat that. It's totally a debt instrument, even though it is straight equity. It is straight equity. And like we said before, 800 and something million shares that would go. Well, let's stick with the prep. Actually, before we say, the prep. It is funny, as I was researching this, we've mentioned Berkshire two times already, and I'm just going to make it, you know, follow the rule of three to make it a third. You know, this investment does remind me of a lot of the, like, the famous Todd Weshler investments in kind of 2000 that got his career started where, you know, you've got this highly levered player, there's firm asset value there. If it works, the stock is a multi, multi-backer.
Starting point is 00:20:26 Now, the heavy, quote, emphasis on is on if, because I also know ones that have been if it works and it goes the other way, but I think it's just because, as you said, like, they do, have, they've been selling real estate. They've got a little bit more real estate. They can sell. They can sell the Australia operations. They can sell the term. And they've got, like, I do think the kind of critical thing is they've got till maybe November with the press, but on the debt side, they've got till 2028. So they've got a little bit of breathing room there. But let's talk about the prefs. Again, I think because they're death spiral press, you're in a situation where you need either the stocks go a lot higher or I don't think you can go higher so you negotiate the press. So like,
Starting point is 00:21:00 how do you think the prefs kind of play out? Because I think that is the critical swing here. Okay, so just to be totally candid, and again, we put as many disclaimers as we can. This is a levered stub in the UK, like all these things. It can go a lot of different directions. But I think the preferred securities don't get addressed until the 2828 notes do. So from my brain, the sequence of events would be resolve the 2028s got the nearest maturity in terms of like proper secure debt, and then the prefs, which seem at least from the outside to be aligned.
Starting point is 00:21:33 with Victoria's management, and I'll get into what I mean by that. So the history that preferred is that in some time, the COVID era, 2020, Coke comes to Victoria. I'm not clear on that origin story. I'm not sure if it's they were trying to buy Victoria. The chairman, by the way, of this company owns 20% of it. So like when we talk about eat your own cooking, like this is a guy who paid himself for the longest time, 60, $65,000 a year, GDP, and all of his, you know, net worth would go up or down with the stock price. So this guy on paper, lost 250-some-odd million pounds. I mean, it's real numbers.
Starting point is 00:22:07 Because there's other times when you and I talk about companies and, like, the CFO doesn't own any share or the CEO, and it's really frustrating. You want me to hop up on my soapbox and talk about directors and CEOs and CFOs not only enough stock. I'm always ready to dust off the soapbox. So Coke shows up in whatever mechanism. But again, like you said, it's a big space, but small space,
Starting point is 00:22:26 you know, the players. And Coke starts supporting and writing checks for Victoria to do this roll-up. and they didn't do it once. They did twice or three times. And as they got a board seat and saw the way that these guys are operating, they said, we want to be involved. So they kept writing bigger checks.
Starting point is 00:22:41 Ironically, at that time, again, 2020, the coupon was going down as they kept writing it, right? And so in that era, that's when these two initial pieces of debt, what were originally a 2026 note, which has been resolved last year, and at 20-8 note, the one we're talking about trading at 20% apart,
Starting point is 00:22:59 that's all like the backstop that goes into it. So what happens over time? Coke keeps the board seat and gets really involved in operations. And today, and they talk about this publicly in their calls, Victoria is benefiting despite 100 plus years of history from best practices from Coke industries worldwide. Now, what's really interesting to me is if you say to yourself, would Coke take this company over, right? And I think we should get into that for a second. thing that's important to stress is that if people don't on this podcast don't know the history of the Koch family, they are traditionally in the pre-2020-2016 era, a super supporter of conservative
Starting point is 00:23:44 political actors in the U.S. And not surprising from that train of thought, the thing that's been in the last couple years that no one's really picked up on is that Coke has exited, or at least Coke Actory Development, KED, has exited its UK and European operations. They closed their London office to focus on the U.S. and U.S. operations. So when bankers conceptually may have met them in London before, now they're flying to Wichita to meet with them. Okay. So I would argue there's a fundamental canary in the coal mine
Starting point is 00:24:15 that these guys are less interested in owning U.K. or European operations than U.S. I don't think that's a bold statement. Simultaneously, I'm going to take a tangent here to talk about the difference between the U.K. and U.S. on an important thing, which is disclosure. So I think your listeners will understand, generally speaking, the UK investor and the UK investor base is more conservative than the U.S. base. And so it won't surprise your listeners to realize the thresholds at which they have disclosures are different.
Starting point is 00:24:48 So in the U.S., for example, when we cross 5%, you file a 13D or a 13G, if you're going to go passive or active and, you know, this is all reported. The threshold in the UK is 3%. Right? So when you look at the register, you know, there's even a podcast guest of yours, philosophy capital shows up on there. And, you know, some known players is the point. The interesting thing for this company today is Coke owns the preferred and it also owns some of the equity.
Starting point is 00:25:16 It owns roughly 10% of the equity. If any company or any player crosses 30% in a UK security, there is, and I'm laughing as two white men talking on a podcast, there used to be something called the whitewash rule. It's now called Rule 9 of the takeover panel. But basically it means that unless the company whitewashes you or creates a circular and has an annual meeting to allow it, you have to make a takeover for the entire company. It's not uncommon in all of your, I believe Sweden has this law. I think there's, it is not uncommon in European.
Starting point is 00:25:53 But I say that because in the U.S., like we know like short form mergers at 91%. The thresholds are totally different. And so, like, that's 30%. And that's why, so 29.9 is going to be important for the story because you don't want to cross 30. And why not? In this instance, you could say on paper, okay, Coke can take all the equity and they're going to have,
Starting point is 00:26:15 but by the way, once you cross 90%, which is what that $950 million odd on plus 114 would end up being, you have not only is it a change of control, mandatory, which means that the bonds are callable at par, but the way the indenturers read is there's a 10% premium. So then you say to yourself, all right, so you're going to be spending an extra $300 million for something that I can give you 20% of the company in equity or 19 point whatever to get under 29.9. And if we are right in this scenario, you're going to get upside that will more than make up that difference. And so I think the Coke, again, this is me speculating,
Starting point is 00:26:56 the way I see the Coke playing out is there will be some resolution before November of this year because they don't want to let it come to that point. And I think Coke has been generally supportive, at least when you kind of hear what Victoria, which is biased, has been saying, which they'll have some other debt instrument,
Starting point is 00:27:15 some equity dilution, and, you know, in so doing, take out what is perceived under IFRS as debt to the tune of 50 or 100 million pounds just on that alone. So, just to clear, so again, this is UK law. You go over 30%, you have to make an offer. And if I remember, the offer has to be at, like, the highest of the share, the highest
Starting point is 00:27:36 price you paid, like, there are, it's very favorable to minority shareholders. And what you're saying is they are not going to want to go over 30%. And so in November, when this comes, you think there's a negotiation probably involving the 2028 notes, these co-preferred, and the company. You think there's a negotiation that gets resolved favorably. to equity in some way, shape, or form. And, you know, I don't think it's crazy to say, hey, with notes straight into 20%, preferred that I just said death spiral, that is a huge overhang on the company.
Starting point is 00:28:07 If that happens, you know, the stock can kind of just on the extended optionality of liquidity alone goes screaming higher. Yeah. And my yes to all of that, except I think anything resolved here is favorable to equity. So when you say it's like favorable to equity, I mean any resolution, because this is an overhang for supplier, for distributors, for investors. Like this clearly is something that's pressuring them. But I think, again, I want to reiterate, I just feel that when people look at this,
Starting point is 00:28:34 because this is a company that screens terribly to our opening comments about imperfection. This is something that screens, you're not going to dig into it. And so people don't realize the corollary that if Coke were to take it over, they have hundreds of millions of payments to the bondholders that they otherwise would not have to make if they were stayed under 30%. And that's what I'm trying. That's my soapbox. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:28:54 As a radical actor. No, I guess if I was, why would I not just, I mean, you don't have to put it all at once, right? So why would it not just come to November, instantly go from, they have 10 right now, convert enough to get to 29.9 and then look to sell down or if I love the cycle, like kind of hold that and ride that up. Like, why would they not be a little bit more aggressive? Why would they kind of want to get it all the time? And listen, your crystal ball is as murky as mine, right?
Starting point is 00:29:18 There's lots of iterations on how they could come out. And you're right. Maybe it's 10% of it gets resolved, 20%, whatever the point is. My point is, you have 114 million shares for every 100 million of debt you take out. You're adding, you know, rough numbers, 90 cents, a pound of equity to somebody that's trading at 40 pence. And I think your point, if I'm just like over, my worry was death spiral, right? This comes to November. The stock prices are up.
Starting point is 00:29:43 They convert it all. And all of a sudden, Coke owns 90%. I think the nice thing here is you just list, you've laid out four ways and reasons why they can't death spiral, right? They're capped at it. So that just means, even if we don't get 2028 bond resolution, even if we don't get full resolution to purrs, it just means, hey, we've got, you know, probably another 18 months to try to get the cycle to turn. And if the cycle turns, you know, as I mentioned, you go from 20, 25% below demand to at demand or cycles, the longer they're depressed, they tend to turn really violently. You go above demand, like all of a sudden,
Starting point is 00:30:17 this thing could be looking a hell of a lot different. Go ahead. I just want to say, and this cut two things on that. One, this company has said for every, I think it's 5% volume recovery. And again, we said the outset. So if you compared 2019, so pre-COVID spike levels, we are 20 to 25% below on volume. For every 5% increment, it's 25 million pounds that flows through the net income. Which is, and again, we're at 190 million of EBITDA.
Starting point is 00:30:47 Today, we're at 115 or even 135. if you include the synergies that they say they're captured, you're going to add 100 million to it. I mean, these are big numbers. Again, you can't control the macro. You can control your costs, right? And the more you can take out, they're taking out 80 million of cumulative costs
Starting point is 00:31:05 on a company that troth EBITDAs, $115 million. I mean, that's remarkable. The other thing you mentioned in passing with the 2028 notes, and I think it's important for your audience to know that they're not sitting idly by watching the clock
Starting point is 00:31:19 and waiting for it to get to next year. So in the fourth third or fourth quarter of 2025, they made an exchange offer to take out those notes at 55% of par. They then pulled the exchange offer. And of course, you know, with this kind of company under distress, people assume the worst.
Starting point is 00:31:35 What your audience may not realize is, you know, when we look at a 13F holding, you know, we can see who the equity holders are. As I mentioned, you can look at the top 10 holders of Victoria. You can see philosophy capital, et cetera, and spruce and all of them. On the bond side, it doesn't work that way. So I am of the opinion, again, this is my speculation,
Starting point is 00:31:55 that they use that exchange offer to flush out the dentist in Germany who's got it in his drawer. You know who maybe the big holders are, but you don't know the tail. And so I'm of the opinion that while the exchange offer at 55% of par was pulled, that is going to be resolved this year. Something else that also happened, and this is just one step back for history,
Starting point is 00:32:16 this company had, past tense, had 500 million of, now we're in euro, of euro debt that was due in 26 and 250 million that was due in 28. That that 28 note still exists. When they, you could, the indentures were so broad, you could drive a truck through them. So when they were resolved and those 26es were resolved last year with the new note, that's the 29 note now, you could drive a truck through it. And what they did was basically treat that as one class, meaning the 250 notes became subordinated. So that's why I said they issued this new super senior note.
Starting point is 00:32:46 These guys, that's why the thing is trading it 20% apart. Interestingly, you could make an argument that you could just buy that debt and 5x by 2028, and that would be a prudent investment. It's really hard to buy. I've tried that. It's really hard to buy. You know what, I'm going to come back to the second, but let me ask another question just on the cycle, right?
Starting point is 00:33:07 So I think my questions or my framing has been a lot on trough on trough, right? You've got this low multiple and you're just hoping to kind of stay alive, stay breathing, until the cycle can turn. And then if it turns and you know, you get back to trend and it's plus 20% on volume. As you said, you're basically adding the whole market cap in that income or more than the whole market cup. If it goes even higher, I mean, you know, when these cycles, go look at coal in 2020, right? When you've got something that's been underinvested in 10 years and it gets hot, it gets really hot. They did have a question on their most recent earnings call. And somebody said, hey, you guys keep saying we're 20% below demand line. It's been three years of this.
Starting point is 00:33:43 why should we believe that this isn't a structural, not cyclical change, where this is just the new demand line? And to me, that is, it gets asked at the bottom of every market, right? People say, hey, it's a structural drawdown. We're never going back. But it's a question worth pondery because there have been sometimes what's happened. So why should we believe this is not structural? Why should we believe, like, this drawdown is cyclical and we're just kind of waiting on the term? Well, I don't think it's new news to anyone that's listening that the housing market has been in distress, right?
Starting point is 00:34:12 We all know interest rates have gone up, the consumer fill stretch, et cetera. 90% of Victoria's business is, I was going to say the word replacement, but basically buying a home, like a used home. Like you have two-themed home. You have a new construction, and the vast majority of us have homes
Starting point is 00:34:29 that were owned by other people before us, and we, you know, life cycle in and out. Most people, when they come in and out of a house, in the first two years, is when they spend the bulk of their money on upgrading the house, whether that's the paint or the floor. floors, whatever it is.
Starting point is 00:34:45 In this case, because housing is so below trend, both in new housing starts, but also just in the general velocity of housing turnover, and again, it's my opinion. You may be right. Maybe this is dire straits and people who live in their parents' basements forever and we're never going to have a house. That's totally, to quote something else that you and I have talked about before recording, a totally Malthusian appropriate approach to, you know, to, you know, to, you know, to, life, I'm just of the opinion that, you know, you're going to get to some normalized housing,
Starting point is 00:35:18 and especially we're going into a cycle where interest rates are coming down. But that having been said, let's say this is worst case scenario, right? We're now at this, this is the new trend, 2019 minus 20 or 25%. They have taken out, or by the end of 27, fiscal 27, which is March of 27, they will have taken out 80 million in cumulative savings. So while I have Trotty the dollar $115 million on that same call you just referenced. They talked about how they have now realized 20 million that by, you know, the end of this fiscal year in two months is fully there. Next year, there's another 20 coming on top of that. So I'm at 115 plus 20, right? So I'm at 135, plus another 20 is 155. And by the way, where is consensus for 27? It's at 160. I don't view it
Starting point is 00:36:06 as a stretch. And I don't think, you know, the only thing they can control their costs. They can't control the customer coming back to. And again, I'm also not saying we've got a COVID cycle coming, thank goodness, where everyone's going to be trapped and everyone's going to do this whole cycle. I think we just go back to normal. We go back to growing 2 to 3% a year. If we have that, that's whatever is not even grand. It's like beyond. It would make owning the equity much more attractive than owning the 2028 debt with has a 5x return by 2028. Let me ask the 2020s up. So I can understand why the equity is trading down here, right? And you've got it's 8x levered.
Starting point is 00:36:43 You've got the death spiral prefers, as we've mentioned a few times. And that death spireows, my words, not yours, not an official term or anything. That's just my words. You've got all these issues in front of the equity. For the debt, the 2020 bonds, which as you said are very liquid, but still, they're trading at about 20% of face, right? And when I look at this and I say, hey, a company that's trading at kind of 8x trow EBITDA with assets to sell, as we've talked about, the real estate assets, the cost cuts they've
Starting point is 00:37:09 done, the maybe non-core businesses. like 20% of face. Now, it's only 120. There's a super senior risk here, but it doesn't imply you're creating the business for much. So I just ask like, what are the bonds so worried about? Because if you told me distressed, trial earning, I'd say 60%, 70%, 70%, 20% is like hard core distress.
Starting point is 00:37:29 So what are the bonds are worried about that they're trading so low? Well, again, these are subordinated, right? Like as the dominoes fell, the 2020 were the ones left out in the cold, right? And so part of the reason, and again, this is my thinking for like economic rational actors, is you have a bunch of, okay, so this note conceptually is held by some institutions and some individuals. Like I mentioned anecdotally the doctor in Germany. The institutions just marked their year-end 20-25 note at 20% apart, right?
Starting point is 00:38:03 If conceptually Victoria can come in and offer 35, 30, whatever the number is, 32. percent of par in the first half of this year to then set up the next resolution conceptual of the coax that's really interesting like if i'm a p.m sitting with a book that i can say you know i'm just doing it here in the calculator you know a 60 to 70 percent notion of return look i don't disagree with any of that but though we'd start working with but the pms can do that math too right and the the math would work the same if i said hey the bonds like we could go buy the bonds and we could keep trading the months of 40. And then we say, hey, they come and offer us 50.
Starting point is 00:38:43 But like, you're trading at 20 because people are worried that you're going to file and like you might not get a lot of recovery. And I understand. Which that also mean that you're more willing to take a cash buyout then? Like, the thing that changed when they made the offer last fall for 55% apart with a new note, which would have been a 12% coupon, is they really, and we should come to what I think the positives are, is they have realized they have real sources of cash that for a host of reasons the market is not realizing.
Starting point is 00:39:10 And I think they can pay out these 2028 notes instead of issuing a new note with some function of cash. Maybe there's some note involved in it. But the point is, you know, this is a company with 86 million in cash on the balance sheet today. And one of the buckets, you know, and I don't know if we can get into the ethics of it's appropriate or not. But like when I spoke to the real turn Belgium, you know, saying, hey, what's for sale?
Starting point is 00:39:34 Like not talking about as a Victoria owner, but just curiosity. you know, I think they have, they had bought a business called Balta in Belgium, and they've been selling. They sold one of their properties there last year, early in 25, and the losses from Balta, the legacy losses, they were able to keep through the subsidiary, they had a $20 million gain on the real estate, but they only paid $1 million tax. So the tax leakage is really, really de minimis here, which is fascinating. But anyway, there's three pieces of property that are for sale. And the CFO talked about this in the recent call, not the numbers. I think those three in total are worth somewhere between 80 and 100 million in a realized value in the market. And the first one, I'm of the opinion only because when you speak to the realtor, they're saying you're not taking bids.
Starting point is 00:40:22 I think the first one's already sold. I think it's somewhere in the 45 to 50 million euro range. You've got another one that's going to come to the market in January, February this year. And then the third one. So you took 100 million of asset value there that is in the process. they've said in the process of being realized. You've got another, call 10 million of properties being sold in the UK, another 40 to 50 in Italy. They own some stuff in Spain. I'm not going to probably sell because that would be a wholesale leaseback thing for them. But the point is,
Starting point is 00:40:50 I can get conceptually in my brain to 125 to 150 million of realized value. In Belgium, you do have to pay because they're, they have 5,300 employees total, but they aren't to pay severance. Belgium is a super pro-labor state. So you've got, you've got, you've got, you've got, I think they've said 30 million or 40 million, whatever the number is it comes out of that. But the point is you take 86 million of cash in the balance sheet. Today, obviously there's baskets and restrictions and whatnot. You add some cash.
Starting point is 00:41:16 I then go to the 28 notes. I say, hey, guys, you know, you think we're not going to exist, to your point, right? You think we're under, so do you want to take 35% apart and be done with it? And that's a win all around. So for me, I view that as, I'm not as concerned about why the company is perceived by those 28 note holders other than I know that they're junior in the stack. But I can see as a rational actor that like if you get that offer, at least you have a conversation.
Starting point is 00:41:45 I'm not saying you take it, but I imagine you have a conversation. Let me hard pivot to the CEO, right? And I mentioned this because you gave some of this background, right? He takes over in 2012 or 2013. I mean, this is a screaming home run. If I remember correctly, the stocks two at a time. He says, hey, if I can pay you $2 per share in dividends over the next two years, then I want an option to buy 50% of the company.
Starting point is 00:42:08 And I think shareholders sign up for that. And he does it. So, you know, that's crazy. That's where all of his ownership comes. When I go to the IR website, just, I think this is interesting. The IR website, when you look at it, the front page is his photo. And then on the right, it says if you had invested a dollar into the company, or I guess pound into the company when he took over, you'd have $2.50.
Starting point is 00:42:28 And now I'm sure they did that, you know, four years ago when the answer was a lot higher than $2.50. Right. But I think that's interesting for one reason. I think you put that there when you're proud of your returns and when the only thing you're thinking about is creating shareholder value. Now on the other end, as you said, he used to take like 60,000 pounds in salary.
Starting point is 00:42:44 Now he's taking $1.2 million. So I guess my question is like, how do you think about the chairman? He's the same guy who created this great empire and then kind of ran it into the ground. It isn't there yet, but all the troubles kind of the buck stops here. How do you think about him? Now he's taking a salary.
Starting point is 00:42:58 How do you think about his end game? How do you think about all of that? So I like that you just said that Truman line about the buck. stops here because I looked at the same site you did, which is why I chuckled, because I'm sure at some point when it was a 12 pound stock, that, that too, like, I'm sure the number was like a lot more compelling. I was thinking he did that. He was like, it's the proudest moment I live, 10 X and now it's just like I would say to you, and just to, I'll look through the math real fast, just to give your listener some perspective. He was about 23 million shares. So when that
Starting point is 00:43:29 was 12 pounds, that was, you know, almost 300 million pounds. Okay. I can look at it as two ways. And I know the latter from personal experience, which is it's either they got really lazy in their IR site, which I think it's a decent. Like I think their slides look decent. Like I think it's nice. I think they're pretty good.
Starting point is 00:43:47 Yeah. They could have a lot of work. So I think that means that they're not being inattentive to the investor relations approach. So I think it's the latter, which is you said he's proud of it when it goes up. And while you're not proud of being the steward of that going down, he also hasn't hid.
Starting point is 00:44:02 Right? and he has stood up and taken his lumps. And this guy, you know, it's funny. We talk a lot about flooring and about, you know, kind of that overview. I'm invested in this company because I'm of the opinion that Jeff Wilding is an excellent allocator of capital, like full stop.
Starting point is 00:44:16 And it just happens to be that this roll-up is in flooring. And it just happens to be that's what the opportunity was in. But he's someone that when you speak with him, and you've mentioned Buffett three times, so let me make it afford. He totally speaks in the paradigm of value, creation in a real way. Like, I love the fact that he's taken pain alongside with any of us that may have owned, you know, in that time. And I love the fact that he thinks about, you know,
Starting point is 00:44:43 he talks about things like share buybacks. I mean, you go back to that 2028 conversation with, you know, this thing traded 20% apart. In what rational world would someone be talking about buying your stock back, right? But the point is, he's saying, you know, I see a lot of lever of value here that the market's not realizing. And if the market's going to, let me buy something on the cheap. Why wouldn't I benefit all shareholder? So I think he thinks really strategically. You did say one thing you called him the CEO.
Starting point is 00:45:13 He's the chairman, right? The CEO is actually retiring in this upcoming summer. So I think he gave like a nine months runway for them to bring in people. One of the other, you know, Randy spitballing things, I wouldn't be surprised to see two CEOs named, right? because at the end of the day, this is soft flooring rugs and hard flooring tile ceramic, right? Like the synergies between the two aren't the greatest.
Starting point is 00:45:40 I was actually going to ask that. I'm glad you mentioned that. The multiples are also different across the board. Ceramics have a higher depreciation cycle. So anyway, it's a little different. Like, how about this as a potential endgame? And again, this is like three derivatives of Randy thinking like through the whole thing.
Starting point is 00:45:56 You know, we have the price today. You benefit from sorts or some sort of, 2028 refinance. You benefit from a potential Coke resolution, whatever form that comes. You benefit from land sales. You benefit from maybe selling, like originally I approached at thinking, okay, Australia's geographically contiguous. It does $14 million a year in EBITDA. When you look at the numbers, both the like the US dollar, the Aussie dollar has been really weak relative to the pound. And so it looks not great. But when you look fundamentally, it's growing every year. It's doing really well. And it doesn't make geographically, it doesn't
Starting point is 00:46:28 make geographic sense. So if you sell that at 14 times on the multiples, you know, it's roughly like $7,8, 9 in that range, you get $100 million of, again, realize value. So I keep looking at the levers. But the real kind of endgame, if all these things happen and the stock price doesn't re-rate, which is a total possibility, then I think you put two CEOs in, you sell one of the divisions, and you just take all the debt out. And just say, screw it, we're done. We're totally done. And by the way, when I say he's a great capital allocator, that that's what he's done before. So the 2026 and 2028 notes that the 26 has just got resolved at 28s, I think, are in the process getting resolved.
Starting point is 00:47:07 Those were at like 3.8, 3.6 percent respectively. Well, initially, those were like 5 percent notes that as he got leveraged down, he refied. Like, you see a history in this company of just financial architecture. So while we are talking about flooring as the engineering of a house, what really appeals to me about the story is the financial engineering. engineering. This is a tough one to ask, but I'll try to frame me in the right. You know, we mentioned, again, this isn't just you. People can go look at the, the AltaFox stack in 2021. This person, this guy is really highly regarded, right? And I guess it just says, for somebody who's really high regarded, we've mentioned, this will be the fifth mention of Berkshire. And nobody's saying he's war on them about them. But, you know, things, it's actually, we've mainly mentioned on the distressed Todd Westler angle. But for someone this highly regarded, this good at capital allocation, like, how? How did he get over his skis like this? I'm not in his seat.
Starting point is 00:48:02 So that's a huge disclaimer. But I think, you know, I think he saw the, as we said, the difference between the U.S. and the rest of the world is there's a lot of mama pops. And I think he's a guy who's a relationship guy who's going out and meeting the ceramics, you know, grandma in Spain that's doing this. And so the reason the CEO versus chairman distinction is that is like if a chairman to set strategic priorities. The chairman is also the person who's out flushing for ideas so that the CEO and CFO can execute, right? The business goes on and it, you know, the trains run on time.
Starting point is 00:48:37 I think if you had said to me that flooring was going to be down 25% off peak levels, I don't know what my opinion of that would have been. I probably would have said, no, that seems extreme, but maybe I should have thought I said it's going to be down 50%. I wasn't in the name at that time. So for me, like this is looking at it, Like you always make a decision about the player is gonna put on the field today. We're talking in January 2026 about an opportunity today. But I imagine knowing this guy that he,
Starting point is 00:49:08 you know, the Coke support shows they're good operators. And so when, you know, they have this new factory V4, there's a video on their site, anyone who will look at it. It's really kind of amazing that they're going into Spain. They spent 30, I think 31 million on this factory. It's for, you know, basically overhauling and being more efficient, and just having more throughput and more production, they do it really, really well.
Starting point is 00:49:31 And then by the way, like we're in year four of the Ukraine war now. Like, you know, Middle East and Russia are big ceramics markets, right? They sold the division that was selling to them. But like, who would have thought that like, you know, Gaza would happen? And guess what?
Starting point is 00:49:47 Or look, there's a lot of energy that goes into these, right? And it's not like Europe's been easy on energy. So prices, I guess, you know, it's just tough for me because I look at the UK hopes, Well, it's dropped by like 33% from 2007 to 2008, 2009, right? So that's an extreme drop. But, you know, I do think these guys in flooring and cyclicals, like, you know, there's a cycle.
Starting point is 00:50:08 So it's just hard for me when I look at this guy and we've comp into a great catholicator and it gets overseas. But then on the other hand, I'm like, hey, it's not like we were ever like talking about top of cycle numbers. It's just like really dropped. But this is really interesting, too, because the middle imperfection I talked about was the UK market, right? And it's actually where I was supposed to go.
Starting point is 00:50:26 And the UK has been a pariah since Brexit, which this is the part that's jaw-dropping to me is 10 years ago this year. I mean, that's crazy town. And I always used to kind of have this tongue-in-cheek adage that even mushrooms can grow in the dark, right? But the truth is, this was a loaths market. They lost their financial center, goes to brothel, the whole thing. And yet when you look at what happens, at least that's the perception, right? But when you look at the actual things
Starting point is 00:50:55 and what happened in the UK in 2025, meaning this is now the canary in the coal mine, maybe things are changing. You know, the UK market Futsi, we're talking now, beat the S&P by five points, right? Last year, really? Yeah, so here's the numbers.
Starting point is 00:51:11 This is local return first and then total returns like another five points. So the S&P was up 16 and a half. We know this. Futsi 100 is up 21.5. Oh. On a total return basis, So that difference is five points.
Starting point is 00:51:26 Total return base is eight points to Futsi's favor. And okay, so then you say, fine, this isn't a macro cap. This is a micro cap. So don't look at it that way. So then I started saying, all right, well, because this is a value podcast, what are the PE multiples? U.S. forward PE, 12-mile forward PE right now, 23 and a half, roughly. U.S. large cap is 28, U.S. small caps 30, but roughly speaking, 23. U.K. is 13.
Starting point is 00:51:50 So I think the UK is the most the I think we mentioned in a prior email. I think the UK is the most interesting market in the world right now because Japan's been cheap forever might be changing. But UK, you get active. There are roles for activists. It is allegedly a Western market roles for activists. There's room. A lot of these companies have a lot of these companies have assets outside of London. And you're talking about an economy that's just been bombed out.
Starting point is 00:52:15 I mean, it is an inefficient market to me. And on your on your podcast. about the UK housing market, which I listened to. You described it as a third world, conceptually third world, maybe. But, you know, I would argue almost it's punitively first world, meaning, for example, most of your audience probably won't know this. You remember why the U.S. revolution happened?
Starting point is 00:52:36 There were stamp acts put on. I read the tariff book in April, so I did know how much the stamp acts had to do with it. Yeah. And do you know what you have when you buy security in the UK? Oh, I do. A stamp. You've got to pay 0.5% of your transaction ball.
Starting point is 00:52:50 to change. I mind you, you can do options. You can get around that if you're in people like... If you're big enough, but I mean, I think that's one of the things
Starting point is 00:52:58 they need to change. If you're a retail person, the kind of person that would look at a Victoria, like you're paying, their friction is the point. And there was all this concern and consternation
Starting point is 00:53:08 about Rachel Reeves in the September, November timeframe coming out the new budget. Taxes were never going to get cut, but they didn't spike in a meaningful way. And when you look at what they're trying
Starting point is 00:53:18 to do, and this is the beginning, chapter one in a whole process. They're trying to make the UK more investable. They've limited the amount of their individual savings accounts. It's kind of like our 401ks, where if you by putting a ceiling, you can get more money into the stock markets locally. They're trying to, they've done a pause on the stamp back. AIM securities don't have a stamp, but that's a different point. You know, inflation seems to be moderating. You look at growth in the UK of the G7 as the number two in 2025. So like, if I were to just blindfold you and say, forget biases, forget anything. You just look at something
Starting point is 00:53:55 where I'm 10 points cheaper on value. I've got interest rates going my way. I can find ideas here. And by the way, the Japan distinction is really interesting because if you do international stuff, the MSCI index is still 30-some odd percent on the small cap side, Japan, right? That's a legacy of the 80s. The UK is not, but culturally, and I've lived this experience to be able to access a Japanese company to be able to do the real work versus a UK company with the cultures and the mores being very similar. It's a lot easier. So I feel, and again, this is a hopeful comment, but I feel the UK's moment is coming.
Starting point is 00:54:32 Maybe it hasn't really come today, but it's sooner than later. And we're 10 years in the wilderness. I've got a few friends who would be, including me, who'd be very happy. Let me ask one last question. I've mentioned cycles and everything a lot here. You clearly are seeing a path for them to. It resolved and it prefers in November, address the 2028, you're seeing a path. I just want to ask, if the cycle, forget if we went down another 20%, we'd be talking about
Starting point is 00:54:58 something completely different, right? But if the cycle doesn't rebound, as we've talked about, and it could rebound four years for now, but if it doesn't rebound in the next 12 to 18 months, is there a path through them to doing all these kind of getting over this on their own? Or do you think you need at least a little bit of moderation in the cycle for them to kind get through all of us. Yeah, I think that's a really valid question given what they just went through. But I think realistically, if we said it's going to turn down another 20%, right?
Starting point is 00:55:25 Oh, forget that. I mean, anything does. I think it's important because it means there's a nuclear event. Like there's something so, you know, external to the Black Swan that we're dealing with a lot of other issues than this. I think in a kind of realistic life and living, let's say there's 5% downturn. they can dig their way out of that. Like I've said a couple times on here, 80 million of cumulative cost savings on 150 million of troughs. So like, you know, I did this kind of just because I came
Starting point is 00:55:56 from a free cash flow world, but this was fascinating to me. Like when I just, I just did it for myself. I asked them, they're like, we've never looked at this way and it's a levered stuff. You wouldn't. But if you kind of just do a free cash flow analysis on this, it's really fascinating. So this is on pro forma EBITDA. So I've mentioned 115. million. They'd realize 20 million of savings. So just make that $135. And your contention, I guess all the saving you think are dropping through to the bottom line. Well, that's the 20 that on their December earnings, they said, we've realized this. It's here. So I'm going to say 135. Consensus, 27 expectations, 160. I'm not going to that. I'm just saying 135. Let's flow through.
Starting point is 00:56:34 Cash tax. They've got huge NOLs. In this decade, they're not paying cash tax. So cash tax is roughly $2 million a year. Maybe three. Interest, which at people, peak in 20209 will be 74 million. The way they structured this 2029 note is that for the first 12 months, it's 1% plus 8.5% pick or 8.7% pick. So in terms of cash, we're doing just cash,
Starting point is 00:56:56 it's going to be 56 million of cash interest. So again, I'm at 135 minus 2, 2, 1⁄2, 2,5, minus 56, then capex. They used to be 60 million in CAPX. Now they're at 50 million. That's the new run rate. They've done all the bills they have to do. This is what I'm trying to telegraph.
Starting point is 00:57:11 Like, they're saying this publicly, we've done all the work. And then you have severance. So the severance is going to be 10 million this year, 30 million. So I'm just using 10 here. I get to a free cash flow of 16.5 million pounds,
Starting point is 00:57:23 which on a per share basis is 14.5 pence, which is a 36% free cash flow yield. And by the way, when I look at the competitors, you know, likewise has never made money. They pay a dividend, which is why people are attracted to them.
Starting point is 00:57:40 Headland may not exist. So if you think, Victoria could even maybe take some business from Headlum's conceptual demise. That's found money. I gave you troth. Yeah. No, the Headlum is the angle until we got on the podcast. I hadn't really thought about where, hey, it's not just you're at the bottom of the cycle.
Starting point is 00:57:57 You've got a competitor. And, you know, sometimes this is how it works, right? You just, you hope you're, they've got the levers to pull and they've got the liquidity runway. You just kind of wait for that one competitor to die and seed all their share. And, you know, trucking had this and then the cycle took another. the turn, but you know, you kind of wait for yellow to hit the drain. And then once they hit the drain, it's a free-for-all. Everybody takes it. And, you know, the whole thing resolves and everybody's just partying like it's 1999, I guess. Yeah. So again, I'm not telling your audience a certain share price.
Starting point is 00:58:26 I'm not telegraphing anything. I'm just saying when I look at my universe, you know, if the downside risk is, to your point, 20%, let's just use that as a number. The upside potential is pretty incredible. Perfect. Perfect. Well, Randy, I think we're going to have, to wrap it up here unless you have any last thoughts because we've been, we talked to 10 minutes before, we've been over an hour and at some point I've got to go pick up the kids from daycare. But anything else you want to hit on this? No, we're good. Andrew, good to see you again. This has been great.
Starting point is 00:58:53 And, you know, similar to the Fast and Furious for the 10th episode, I think we've already got eyes on the fifth episode. We're going to space, baby. So looking forward to- Paul Walker forever. Looking forward to having you on and we'll chat soon. All right. See you. A quick disclaimer.
Starting point is 00:59:10 Nothing on this podcast should be considered. investment advice. Guests or the hosts may have positions in any of the stocks mentioned during this podcast. Please do your own work and consult a financial advisor. Thanks.

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