Yet Another Value Podcast - Value Situations' Conor Maguire shares Marlowe plc $MRL.L thesis + TIC segment catalyst
Episode Date: September 23, 2023Conor Maguire, Founder and Editor of the Value Situations Newsletter, joins the podcast for his second appearance to share his thesis on Marlowe plc (LSE: MRL), provider of a broad range of compliance... software and services in areas which pose a high risk for businesses. For more information about Conor Maguire and Value Situations Substack: https://valuesits.substack.com/ Chapters: [0:00] Introduction + Episode sponsor: Stream by Alphasense [1:41] Overview and investing thesis on Marlowe plc (LSE: MRL [13:49] $MRL's TIC segment - what is the catalyst here [18:11] Potential bidders for TIC segment [25:12] Management incentives [30:58] Marlowe $MRL.L bear case [40:58] FCF and $MRL.L moving forward [47:24] Risk factors / what worries Conor about $MRL.L [53:09] How does $MRL.L thesis fit Conor's overall investing framework? Today's episode is sponsored by: Stream by Alphasense Are traditional expert calls in the investment world becoming obsolete? According to Stream, they are, and you can access primary research easily and efficiently through their platform. With Stream, you'll have the right insights at your fingertips to make the best investment decisions. They offer a vast library of over 26,000 expert transcripts, powered by AI search technology. Plus, they provide competitive rates on expert call services, and you can even have an experienced buy-side analyst conduct the calls for you. But that's not all. Stream also provides the ability to engage with experts 1-on-1 and get your calls transcribed free-of-charge—all for 40% less than you would pay for 20 calls in a traditional expert network model. So, if you're looking to optimize your research process and increase ROI on investment research spend, Stream has the solution for you. Head over to their website at streamrg.com to learn more. Thanks for listening, and we'll catch you next time. For more information: https://www.streamrg.com/
Transcript
Discussion (0)
Are traditional expert calls in the investment world becoming obsolete?
According to Stream, they are, and you can access primary research easily and efficiently
through their platform.
With Stream, you'll have the right insights at your fingertips to make the best investment
decisions.
They offer a vast library of over 26,000 expert transcripts powered by AI search technology.
Plus, they provide competitive rates on expert call services, and you can even have an experienced
by-side analysts conduct the calls for you.
But that's not all.
Stream also provides the ability to engage with experts one-on-one
and get your calls transcribed free of charge,
all for 40% less than you would pay for 20 calls
and a traditional expert network model.
So if you're looking to optimize your research process
and increase ROI on investment research spend,
Stream has the solution for you.
Head over to their website at streamrg.com to learn more.
Thanks for listening, and we'll catch you next time.
All right, hello, and welcome to the yet another value podcast.
I'm your host, Andrew Walker.
If you like this podcast, would mean a lot.
If you could rate, subscribe, review it wherever you're watching or listening to it.
With me today, I'm happy to have on from ValueSits for the second time.
My friend Connor, Connor, how's it going?
Go down, Drew.
How are you?
I'm doing great, man.
I'm really excited to have you on.
I've been, as you know, I'm an avid fan of yours.
I'm a day one subscriber.
I've been meaning to have you back on.
And then you put out the idea we're going to talk about today, which I instantly hit
you up and said, hey, I think this is perfect.
But we'll get there in a second.
Let me just start, quick disclaimer, remind everyone,
nothing on this podcast is investing advice.
please do your own research, consult a financial advisor, all of that jazz.
That always holds, but maybe particularly true today because my audience is largely domestic
and we're going to be talking about a international London listed stock.
So kind of that all out the way.
Let's turn to the company we're going to talk about.
The company is Marl.
The ticker over in London is MRL.
And I'll just toss it over to you.
What is Marl and what's so interesting about them?
Yeah, thanks, Andrew, and thanks for having me on the podcast again.
So, yeah, Marlowe is an interesting situation.
I think it's a small cap.
It's about a 580 million pound sterling market caps,
so about 720 million US dollars listed on the AIM exchange in London,
which is the small cap exchange.
And I suppose essentially what the business does,
it's a roll-up or serial acquireer business.
And it has an interesting ownership profile
in that it was basically set up by the CEO Alex Dacre,
who is a kind of a protege of the main shareholder
who's a guy called Lord Michael Ashcroft
who's a former Conservative Party treasure in the UK
so he's a you know he's an interesting character
if I could be a guy he's Lord Ashcroft
the former Conservative Party treasury member I mean
that sounds like a like low grade novel invented villain
does it just like Lord Ashcroft the former treasure
I always laugh when I hear that I don't know
I didn't know much about him until then but that's just
His name would always float around and I would always think that.
Yeah, so I mean, I suppose he is an interesting character in terms of,
I suppose the best way of I describe it, you know,
he is a habit of making money in that he has backed a number of listed companies.
Probably one of his best known wins in business was that he sold the ADT security business
to Tyco International, I think, for over $5 billion some time ago.
So his focus has been on kind of business support services.
And certainly Marlowe really fits that bill in terms of it's, I mean, what is Marlowe?
It's essentially two businesses today based in two kind of complementary sectors.
So the first, you know, the first segment is really the testing, it's in the testing inspection and certification business.
So that's basically around, you know, fire safety and security, you know, water and air filtration and testing and that.
So really kind of a business to business services business focused on premises and buildings.
And, you know, it serves a lot of, you know, government departments in the UK,
the National Health Service, the boots retail chain, so Walgreens Boots,
part of that business in the UK, you know, and really across a whole range of sectors.
So that's one side of the business.
That's about 60% of revenues and approximately the same in terms of the run rate EBTA.
Then the other side of the business is in.
the GRC or governance, risk, and compliance, and that's really kind of focused around kind of
the people within businesses rather than the premises.
So that's about 40, balancing about 40% of revenue and earnings.
And so that really kind of is focused on kind of a number of kind of key sub sectors.
So occupational health, HR compliance, you know, data management, that, you know, those kinds of, you know, kind of
middle and back office kind of functions in in businesses. And so I suppose initially Marlowe
started out focused on the TIC or the testing inspection certification. And in more recent years,
it's, you know, kind of built up the GRC side of the business and focused maybe more on that.
So that's, I suppose, at a very high level, that's what the business does. I mean, why is it
interesting, I suppose, after, I mean, this business was originally set up. It was initially a cash shell.
or similar to I suppose what you call a SPAC in the US,
you know,
and Lord Ashcroft kind of backed it initially
and then hired the CEO Alex Dacre at the age of 27
to lead this business.
And this is really Daker's project, I suppose,
in terms of he, from his previous roles in previous Ashcroft backed businesses,
he spotted an opportunity to, you know,
for a roll-up kind of private equity type model,
but focused on instead of, you know, kind of traditional kind of, you know,
kind of, you know, maintenance and service type, maintenance service type
business, maybe focus more on, you know, business, I suppose, how do you describe it,
kind of more professional services type related, you know, business lines.
So, yeah, so, I mean, from a cash shell in 2015 to today,
As I said, 580 million market cap, it was briefly, I think, over a billion before, you know, the share price has declined by about 30% in the last 12 months.
And that decline is kind of unusual in that there's been no real negative news around the business.
So, I mean, when you think about it, I mean, they've hit their targets in terms of, you know, their kind of target was to hit 500 million in run rate revenues and 100 million in run rate EBITA by, I think, by 2024.
They've done that this year effectively.
So they're on target, produce very strong results, you know, good organic growth,
underlying organic growth of, you know, about 8 to 10% across the business in terms of revenues.
And then obviously the headline growth because of it, you know, the roll-up model is much higher.
It's in the kind of, I think it's growing at a 38% revenue caggar over the last five years.
So, you know, they're doing what they said they would do.
and yet the market, the public markets, at least, you know, it seems to fall in out of favor.
And maybe partly, part of that is maybe attributable to just UK equities are out of favor generally.
They're unpopular.
This is also, it's a small cap.
So, you know, it's less liquid.
There is, I suppose, on the one hand, there is high inside ownership, which is attractive in terms of between Alex Staker and the CEO and Ashcroft.
They own about 18% of the company.
But on the other hand, maybe there's a, there's a kind of a question or perception of, you know, full shareholder alignment, potentially.
I mean, I don't really see that because, as I said, you know, Ashcroft has a habit or a track record in making money.
So I think, you know, based on previous experience, you know, an exit or, you know, a liquidity event of some kind is kind of how he would, he and the CEO,
will make their money and kind of monetize what they've built.
So, I mean, there's an interesting backstory or backdrop to that, to the business.
And I suppose why is it interesting to me?
I think for two reasons.
Firstly, it's just fundamentally it's cheap at the moment.
It's, as I said, it's down 30%.
It's trading about nine times LTM EBITDA,
but that's really about seven and a half times run rate EBITDA
when you factor in the full year effect of recent acquisitions.
So, you know, and that compares.
to kind of, you know, 16 times L-TM EBITDA for listed peers in the UK and in Europe.
And that compares to kind of an average of about 20 times EBITDA.
That's Marlowe's own historic multiple over the last five years.
And then similarly then when you look at the private market multiples for, you know, comparable assets,
that multiple, those multiples are in the range of, you know, 15 to 33 times EBITDA.
So at seven and a half times kind of the run rate EBITDA, this is just,
very cheap and which you know which seems odd just given that there's no negative news there's no
profit warnings uh so that that that jumped out at me but then what really interests me in this
is is recently there's been media reports around uh management exploring the sale of the tic
business which is as i said earlier 60% of the revenues um so when you when you think about that
and what would that would be worth i mean that's probably worth north of 600 million pounds
And that's even allowing for some cash leakage in terms of costs and taxes and so on.
So, you know, 600 million for, you know, a little over half the business is more than the entire market cap of the whole business today.
So, you know, if they, you know, the TIC business is the older part of the business, which they've been in since, you know, 2015 when they made their first acquisition.
So, you know, it would make sense that maybe they would look to monetize that, certainly if the public markets aren't really rewarding it.
in terms of what they've built to date.
So, you know, you're effectively, you know,
they sell that business
and you're effectively getting the GRC
or the governance, compliance and risk business for free, essentially.
And that's a much higher margin business.
Just so just to kind of to touch on that,
I mean, the GRC segment, I mean, that's growing well,
good kind of, you know, 8, 9% organic growth,
but 25% to 30% EBITAM.
margins compared to about 13, 14, 15%, maybe EBITDA margins on the TIC segment.
So it's growing nicely, but it's much higher margins.
And that's because there's a SaaS software component to it.
And about approximately quarter of the revenues at the moment are SaaS related.
And that's going to grow over time.
So, I mean, for me, this is really, it's fundamentally cheap,
but it's also a breakup event type situation.
as well where you know this company could be sitting on its own market cap and cash in 12 months time or within the next 12 months and then you know that also the interesting follow-on implication that you know you leave behind the the GRC business that's 200 million in run rate revenues that's probably too small to be publicly listed realistically and so then you look at again look at private market comps you know at 15 to 30 times or 33 times
EBITAL multiples
and there's been a lot of consolidation
in that space
you know
I could easily see them selling
selling out of that business
as well at a nice multiple in time
so
you know
there's kind of a couple of levers here
for for the value
to be realised so I mean
you know essentially
the business is trading at a big discount
not just appears but to
to its private market value
so I think
in all likelihood
I would expect there to be some
kind of event
within the next 12 months
and interestingly they put out a trading update recently
which was very very brief
and didn't mention the TIC segment at all
it only mentioned the GRC business
so I thought that was interesting
you compare that to the trading update around this time last year
and it was
much more detailed
this was literally a couple of paragraphs
So I just thought that was interesting in terms of the relative silence in that update
compared to what you would normally maybe expect.
And now, a quick word from our sponsor.
Are traditional expert calls in the investment world becoming obsolete?
According to Stream, they are.
And you can access primary research easily and efficiently through their platform.
With Stream, you'll have the right insights at your fingertips to make the best investment decisions.
They offer a vast library of over 26,000 expert transcripts, powered by AI search technology.
Plus, they provide competitive rates on expert call services, and you can even have an experienced by-side analysts conduct the calls for you.
But that's not all.
Stream also provides the ability to engage with experts one-on-one and get your calls transcribed free of charge, all for 40% less than you would pay for 20 calls in a traditional expert network model.
So if you're looking to optimize your research process and increase ROI on investment research spend,
stream has the solution for you.
Head over to their website at streamrrg.com to learn more.
Thanks for listening and we'll catch you next time.
First, that was an incredible view through just about every question I had on here.
So you've kind of put me to shame as the host,
but I think there's some places I can go there.
So let me start with, let's start with the ticks in.
So you mentioned, hey, mid-June, 2003, so this year,
there's an article in Sky News, which is obviously a,
very reputable source that says, hey, you know, Marlowe backed by Lord Ashcroft. You mentioned he's
got a habit of making money, which my joke is when you said it, there are worse habits to have,
right? I'm always trying to kick my sugar habit. I think I'd rather have the making money
habit than the sugar habit. But it says, Sky News, Lord Ashcroft, Marlowe, they're looking to sell
their biggest division for about 650 million pounds. As you said, that's more than the market
cap and that would cover just about all the, all the debt. So you would be getting the remaining
business, which is clearly valuable for free if they kind of hit 650. The interesting line here
is it says, hey, exploratory talks have gotten underway in recent weeks. They're looking for
16 times profit. And then there's a line that says insiders caution that a sale would only take
place if bidders meet management expectations, right? So to me, like, you see that line and that's
a warning, hey, we are price sensitive. We are price discipline. We know what we think we have here, right?
We're not a desperate seller. But the counter to that would be, hey, you and I are talking in mid-September,
and there's been no update on the, there's been no update on the sale process.
So look, it doesn't, if they sell or not, doesn't change if the value's there.
But obviously the catalyst isn't quite there if they're not going to sell.
So do you think a sale is kind of, it's kind of still in the cards here?
Look, it's been three months.
They said we're going to be disciplined on pricing.
It doesn't change if the value's there.
But there is an interesting question, hey, if we haven't seen a sale now, doesn't mean a sale's not out there.
And maybe management thinks this is 16 times.
But if you run a process and everyone says, hey, that's a 10 to 12 times business.
And you say 16, I'm not going to sell.
Maybe the value was really 10 to 12.
So are you at all concerned that the sale process is kind of long in the tooth here?
And not that that breaks the thesis, but it certainly changes the thesis if they're not going to sell or if nobody was willing to kind of bite on 16 X.
Yeah.
I mean, I think no, I thought that's fair in terms.
I mean, certainly, I mean, it's a bit like, you know, when a company announces a strategic review, you know, the company themselves haven't announced anything here.
but the, you know, the market intelligence indicates that they are, they have an advisor who is engaged to try and sell this business, and they are open to selling it.
So it's not a live, you know, like a live merger arb situation, but, you know, I think, and I have kind of, I have looked at situations before where, you know, a deal was announced discussions were ongoing and then the deal was pulled because financing wasn't available or wasn't available on the right terms and so on.
So, yeah, of course, that's a risk here.
But I think the incentives are there in terms of the duration of their investment in terms of having built up this business.
They have a private equity type mindset.
I think the compensation structure in terms of the CEO and the nature of his compensation is way below market.
He only really makes money if there's a liquidity event or a sale and there's change of control provisions around some of his share options and so on that would crystallize.
so I think they're certainly incentivized to sell
so then obviously the thing is but will the markets allow them to sell
at the price which is I think is the point you're making
so I think certainly it's possible at a sale
might get done you know they might get bids of 10x or 12x
and they're holding out for 15 if that is the case
this business is valued at seven and a half times
and its public peers today are trading well north of that
So, you know, on absolute terms, you know, on relative terms, sorry, and in absolute terms, it is, it is cheap.
And so there's still, you know, there's still value there and they'll continue on with their roll-up model.
And, you know, it'll become a bigger, a bigger platform company, one would think so.
So I think, yeah, I mean, to your question, I mean, is the catalyst at risk of breaking?
Yeah, possibly, yeah. But I think, you know, you've got the secondary, I suppose, support of the
undervaluation there. Let me just quickly on the, you know, TIC, one of the things is, it's one of those
quirky businesses where you see it and you look at the unit economics like this is government
regulated that you have to have this. This is, you know, it's compliance and safety driven for the
most part. Those are the type of things that are growing in the modern world, right?
clients costs are going up, regulate, like not only growing, but they're mandatory. You have to do them. And you see this in their results, right? I was reading their Q4 call, their Q4 call. And I didn't get quite all the way through it, but most of their 20203 capital markets day. And the thing that keeps stressing is, look, if you look at us on net revenue retention, we're over 100%, right? Like, people don't exit these services. In fact, one of the great reasons for a roll-up is people actually kind of increase and we can upsell them and all that sort of stuff, right? So,
That's a great business.
I don't know where I was going at that point.
Let me, I'll put that aside if I can remember it.
Oh, here's where I was going.
Is there really active, like, because they're so quirky, it's not like in the U.S.
where I can say, hey, this is a really hot space.
The last four public companies here have gotten taken out.
Here's what it looks like.
It's kind of quirkier.
Most of the takeouts are like smaller bultons.
Is there a really active space?
Like, who do you think the bidders are for this?
Is it just a private equity firm levering it up?
And we'll talk leverage in a second.
Is there a strategic bidder that would make sense?
you think about that? Yeah, there is a mix. So on the TIC, I mean, when I look at this business,
and as you know, my background is in private equity. And, you know, when I look at this business,
this seems, you know, it's an ideal candidate for a mid-market private equity takeout. And I mean,
so there's a couple of features to the business that that make me lead me to that kind of
conclusion. I suppose you mentioned there kind of the retention rate. So, you know, on a headline
basis, 85% recurring revenues across the business. You know, the, you know, the,
it's not
over leveraged. You know, they maintain
two times the target leverage is
around two times net debt eBada
and they've consistently maintained that
over a long period of time. So it's not
massively over leveraged.
On an underlying
basis, and we can get into this now, it does
generate cash flow. The perception is
that it doesn't, which is one of the main bearer
arguments and we can get into that
after. But when you look at
the profile of the business, it's resilient.
It's kind of recession
resilient, certainly in terms of, you know, it provides business critical or essential services
and that's shown in the recurring revenue nature, the contracted revenue profile in terms of,
you know, there's multi-year contracts with a lot of its customers, governments, large corporate, small
companies, you know, across the whole landscape of customer types.
You know, the real, I suppose the real interesting thing about this as well is that regulation
of compliance, as you indicated, is getting more and more owners.
And so, you know, it's not like a lot of these companies can opt out.
You know, if you run a property business or a development business or your landlord
of any description, you know, fire, you know, your fire exits, all that kind of stuff
has to be certified.
That's, you know, there's no way out of that.
And that's kind of true.
I mean, that's just one example, but that's kind of true across, you know, air ventilation,
you know, water filtration, all that kind of stuff.
All this stuff has to be tested by law.
It's legally, you know, mandated by regulation.
So, you know, those revenue lines are revenue streams are not going to dry up.
And so in that sense, it's a very bankable,
you're a credit worthy type of business for a private equity acquirer.
And also then, I suppose, you know, the runway to growth, you know,
it's a buy and builder, a serial act.
So it can, it is plenty of room to to boat on further acquisitions.
I mean, you know, and then the other thing I suppose as well is that, you know, overall,
and so across the overall business, not just the TIC segment, but you know, management estimate they
occupy about 5% of the total addressable UK market across the six particular subsectors that
they're focused on. So, you know, you know, the average, the average ticket size on their,
on their acquisitions over the last eight years
is about eight million pounds sterling.
So, I mean, some of these,
I mean, they bought some businesses for 130 million
and they bought others for, you know,
less than 10 million.
So, but the average ticket size is about $8 million.
So there's a lot of very easy,
boton opportunities for this.
And then it's just a multiple arbitrage plague
where you're buying small, small botons for, you know,
four, five, six X.
And then, you know, you look at kind of,
in the public markets, businesses like this, and Marlow itself historically has been
valued at north of 15X.
You know, that is always a tough one for me because I do, like, I do hear it, but
it's just tough because there is value, we'll probably talk about this more in the risk
section.
There is no doubt there's value created, like what they said, I'm doing this roughly from
math, but they said, hey, you know, in 2022, the average acquisition we did was seven times
EBDA pre-S synergies and then after synergies and integration.
stuff it was five and a half times even out or something right so there's no doubt you're creating
value by taking out if you do the math there you take out kind of 20% ish of the cost base and just
synergies that there's no doubt you're creating value there but i always hate it like maybe i'm
just being too much of a stickler but i always hate it when you say oh you know this company trades
12 times on the public markets and they're buying private market peers at six times and you know
the moment they do that the thing they just bought for six is worth 12 so they create like it's just
tough because part of the reason it trades
it 16 times is they think that you can go
out and create like that synergy value
I don't know it's just
it's tough I always get confused
by the student I think it's not so much
that what they just bought
you know the small boton goes from being
worth 5 to 15x it's
it's it's the overall
platform that that is
Marlow itself is what is worth more than
you know a low single digit
multiple I think that's and that's the it's the
Gail, as you said, the opportunity for synergies further growth and, you know, what they can do with a small boton relative to that small boton acquisition continuing on a standalone basis is just that that's the value.
That's what drives, that's what should warrant over time a higher multiple.
And this does come back to, they talk about, hey, we buy things and not only do we take the cost out, but, you know, their organic growth accelerates once they come on us because either we cross-sell,
their regulatory compliance products to our customer base or we go into their customer base and
start cross-selling them onto our stuff. So yeah, let me one more thing. And then I want to turn
to the bear thesis because there is a loud and kind of passionate, I would say,
bear thesis, as you saw when I tweeted this out or I've seen it in other places. But one last
thing. We mentioned management incentives, right? And I love businesses. I've dealt with so many
businesses where management teams don't own any stock. The board doesn't own any stock.
And I don't even know, like, I used to think incompetence or that they were shady and sometimes that happens.
But a lot of times what happens is, hey, I'm making $200,000 per year as a board member at this company.
I own $4,000 worth of stock.
If there's option A, which sells the company and get shareholders a nice premium, or option B, which maybe doesn't create tons of value, but I keep creating, I keep collecting that $200,000.
I can always convince myself that option A will be there in a year, right?
And option B is better for me.
So, but management incentives.
Nice thing here is Lord Ashcroft owns a nice chunk.
There's this really interesting management incentive plan in place based on TSR, which I think
is actually kind of controvert.
It would be people lap it up in the US.
But in the UK, I think it might be a little controversial.
So do you want to speak to management ownership, the incentive plan and all of that?
Yeah, well, I think, I mean, I think, again, going back to the management, so the incentive
relative to the catalyst here and selling the business.
That to me, it's rare that you see a CEO, you know, happy to have a salary that's 50% roughly below his peer's salary.
You know, he is, you know, and when you look at the value that they've created, I mean, that's even more striking.
I mean, I think I wrote this up in my newsletter and I put a chart in where I kind of showed the performance of Marlowe since Alex Staker became the CEO.
and plotted that share price performance against, you know, a lot of other series,
some well-known serial acquires, Halma, PLC, DCC, and a few other, you know, well-known names.
And Marlowe was outperformed all of them.
You know, I think a cumulative return of something like 300%, which is more than Halma, for example,
has returned over that same time period.
So, you know, he has created value.
He is an argument, you know, to say, I should be paid.
you know,
top rate or top,
you know,
market rate salary and he's not.
So there's a reason he's not.
And it's because he sees his return
not through,
you know,
very generous,
you know,
incentive plans are paying himself massive salary,
but through creating value
and then creating an event or liquidity event.
And that's why,
you know,
he has,
I mean,
he has a number of,
different share options incentives which
you know crystallize on a change of control some of them not all of them but a good chunk of
them do so um you know I think I think and then he's also part of him in the whole senior
management team if I'm remembering this correctly they've got a they get 10% of total
shareholder return over a 10% hurdle by April 2006 so that means the stock price you know
as we speak you and I are speaking to stock is at like six six pence is
Is it six pence?
Sixthens, yeah.
Sixth.
It has to hit 11.1 in order for him to get that return.
And if he does, it is a massive, massive return.
But, you know, again, that's a CEO kind of betting on himself.
If shareholders win, I'm going to win huge.
If shareholders break even or lose, I was way, way underpaid.
And, you know, maybe deservedly show so because shareholders broke even a lot.
But I just love that setup because he can only get paid if shareholders get paid.
and it creates a mini hard catalyst, right?
Like, look, if we're in a great depression in 2025,
2006, he's not going to be able to sell this for 11 pounds or whatever.
But if we're not, he's going to do everything he can to get the share price there.
And if the stock's undervalued, that's buyback shares.
If there's a creative sale to be done, it's a creative selling.
So I'm sure he's got that, you know, April, 2006,
they circled in his calendar of, hey, like, if we don't get the sale done now,
let's circle back up in 2025 and get that sale done.
So, yeah, I don't know.
Anything else you want to say on management instead?
Yeah, and I think just the price, about 11 pounds of share kind of benchmark there,
or price that you mentioned.
I mean, that's kind of in and around where, you know, kind of maybe what I'd call
or consider the fundamental value of this business to be.
I mean, I think, you know, my own numbers, you know, the breakup value of the business,
if you just look at private market comps and apply that to this business, you know,
it's, you know, north of 12 pounds a share.
And then similarly, you know, if you could take a slightly more conservative,
view and kind of you assume they sell TIC and then the remaining GRC business stays public
and re-rates to 10x from you know on run rate earnings from where it is today you know it's it's
just short of about 10 pounds of share on that basis on my my numbers so I think you know
10 to 12 pounds of share is kind of where I think the fundamental value this business is based
on you know looking at a number of ways so so I think yeah you know you know
I think that there's, there's, um, you know, I think management have that same view as well
in terms of where the value is.
And just to hop on there.
And I'll include a link to the write up in the show notes.
So people can go click, subscribe if they want, see the whole thing.
But, you know, again, the stock is at six, six pounds.
You come at it on a lot of different ways, but basically every way you come at it kind of
centers around a 10 to 12 pound fair value.
That's also, you know, 11 pounds by April, 2006 is where this management team gets paid.
So if you kind of think about that, A,
A, they're kind of showing you where they think fair value can get to, and B, April
2026 is two and a half years from now.
So there's another two and a half years of compounding to kind of get the stock and the fair
value over and above that if you don't sell today or something.
So very interested up.
Let's go to the bear case.
Again, I saw you're right up.
I had one other friend who's a very sharp friend who I asked some questions about on
the pod who's involved.
Actually, do you remember seeing it off.
I told him you were coming on.
He was like, oh, I'm actually flying to London tomorrow to talk to Marlowe.
So he was going there.
But there is a very active and vocal bear case here.
And there's actually like probably seven different parts or seven different theories
to the bear case.
But the main one would be, look at this company.
You have a roll up with huge adjusted earnings, right?
Huge adjustments on the earnings because their adjustments are for we're buying something.
We're integrating it.
Obviously, we're firing people doing changes and everything.
Those are one time costs allegedly.
But the bear case says, look at the huge adjustments, huge adjustments.
And they just always keep coming.
That's part one.
And part two is, but in part because of those huge adjustment, but also because of working capital and stuff, this roll-up has never really generated any cash flow.
And when you take huge adjusted earnings plus no cash flow in a roll-up story, that is how every roll-up that I've ever seen blow up, blows up, right?
And when roll-ups are good, you kind of get the Dana-Her, long-term compounders, just incredible returns.
Everybody worships at their feet.
When roll-ups are bad, you get the valiant, right?
which blows us back to accurately and everybody says, hey, look how aggressive the accounting was.
How could anyone have been invested that thing? So I think the bear case points to, and I believe
some of the directors here were involved in roll-ups in some way, shape, or form that had a
similar issue, right? Where working capital was always getting adjusted. It never generated cash flow
and the business blew up. So how would you, how did you address or get comfortable with those
bare leases. Yeah, so I mean, yeah, I mean, the, the, pretty much the whole bear case on this
stock is that, you know, you either, you have to believe management's adjusted numbers,
to get comfortable or to believe in the story, because otherwise, when you look at EBIT down to
free cash flow, it doesn't really generate any cash. And I suppose the way I'd look at, I mean,
you have to look at where the business is currently. So looking at, take the FY23 numbers,
where it's, you know, it's hitting kind of
$100 million, or $95 to $100 million
in run rate EBDA, and that's translated to, I think,
it's about, sorry, $83 million, not on a run rate,
but on the reported adjusted EBITDA number.
And that flows through to about $6 million
of free cash flow to equity.
So, okay, people look at that and say,
there's no, this business isn't generate any cash.
And so, you know, what's happening there,
I mean, this is actually a very working capital,
business. So there isn't, I mean, there's no quirky accounting around working capital, really.
The CAPX, pretty light, about 16 million on 84, 84 million of EBTA. You've got lease payments,
taxes, interests, and then you've got about 25 million of acquisition and restructuring costs.
So really, a lot of the leakage is coming through the costs of operating a roll-up business model.
And so, I mean, that's what people, I suppose, should remember as well. I mean, you look
look at, you'll go back and look at Halma and look at their accounts over the years.
And the EBITDA to free cash flow to equity conversion is pretty low at times as well
when you look at how, how they've built.
And that's so, I mean, Halma is a great track record. It's a great business.
Marlow is much smaller. It's much earlier. And it's only about eight years old.
You know, and so it's still in that earlier stage.
but you know how I got comfortable with is when you look at
if you're looking at this business if they stopped
the roll-up model today
say if they've hit 500 million of revenues
that's a that's a very you know
a very strong level in eight years
to hit that kind of revenue
100 million in run radio but that
if they just stopped and ran the business for cash
and you know the the the
the underlying cash flow profile
starts to look very different you know
the when you look over the
the way they incur
restructuring costs. I mean, what are they for? That's really for
integration, software integration, you know, migration of
you know, software and IT systems onto their platform and they buy a
business and, you know, they're buying lots of small, little businesses and
bolting them on. So, you know, there's, there is some cost involved
in doing that until they get everything transferred over. There's a lot of duplication
of roles and staff and obviously there's redundancy programs then to
it to kind of rationalize workforce numbers.
So, you know, when you look at the numbers,
they, you know, those restructuring costs typically last, you know,
12 to 18 months, maybe, you know,
by, that they're fully, they fall away after after two years at most, really.
So, you know, you think about if they ran this business for cash,
you know, that 84 million in EBITDA, actually, you know,
that 84 million EBITDA, that, you know, initially looks like $6,000,
million of free cash. So, you know, you add back those restructuring costs to look at it on a
stabilized basis, assume no growth, and you've got 30 million of free cash flow. Now, that's a
kind of a 6% free cash flow equity yield. But then now, then you look at on a run rate basis today
where it's at kind of 100 million when you factor in the bolons that they completed over the
course of last year. So you've got 100 million EBITDA. CapEx is still the same. It's not, you know,
it's not like they invest a massive amount
in maintenance capex.
Similarly working capitalized.
So you've just got interest in lease payments,
which are not huge.
Lease payments are 11 million a year.
So on my numbers,
the 100 million converts to,
on a stabilized basis,
to about 43 million
of free cash flow to equity.
And that's more like an 8%
free cash flow equity yield.
And then you look at the business
is growing organically at 8% to 10%
and it's hitting
on a run rate basis it's hitting
19, 20% EBITDA margins
and so
on a 43 million of free cash flow
on a 100 million
EBDA that's that's
that's you know 43% conversion
so then I look to compare that to someone like
Halma last year their free cash conversion
and you factor in that they capitalise development costs
they have pension costs that they have to pay
they've similarly lease payments
and so on.
To Halma's conversion was about 41%
I think of 42%.
So they're not way off
other more established
platform companies.
So when you look at it on that basis, I think
it's not as bearish or as
negative as people think
or as it's perceived to be.
If I can just, yes, Andrew, so I don't have a position here
though, I might in the near future.
But if I can just just say one thing you can go look
is, look, depths of COVID, they pretty much stop acquisitions for a while.
They shut the machine down because COVID, you know, and if you go look at their EBDA
then, yes, there are still adbacks, but the cash flow is much stronger and the ad backs are much
lower because, you know, that's what you would expect.
We stopped the acquisition machine so we don't have these integration expenses.
If they're truly one time, it should come down.
And guess what?
They come down.
So I would just, yes, Andrew there.
And you were alluding to it.
But the back half of the fiscal year, 2003, which they just reported, their fiscal year ends
in March.
It's already done.
But the back half, they generated huge amounts of cash flow.
And again, that's because they did some big acquisitions in calendar year late 2021, early
2022, had the integration expenses.
But then by the back half of the calendar year, 2022, early 2023, those had kind of rolled
off.
They didn't do similar sizes.
So you start to see the cash flow really starts pouring.
So, again, I don't think it's my personal opinion.
I don't think it's 100% settled.
but when you combine the 2020 numbers
with the back half of fiscal year 2023,
I think you've got a good sign,
you've got really good signs that,
hey, they're not lying to you.
Like, this will be a great cash flow generative business.
You know, the other thing,
and I'll just let you comment on this.
Just to finish off on that point in the cash,
I think a lot of people will look at this
that see, you know, mention of adjusted number
is they look at the cash flow, you know,
on a headline basis and say,
okay, I can't see where,
how this is translating earnings to cash flow.
and it goes into the, you know, the two hard pile and they're just, you know, they're, they're, they don't want to do too much digging.
A funny thing my friend said is, he said, look, this is a UK listed company.
And if you look, their leverage, like, sits right around two.
And every time it ticks up a little bit above two for any reason, shareholders freak out.
And there's these big adjusted numbers and UK investors just like, won't give them any credit.
And my friend was laughing because he's like, look, if this, this was a U.S. listed business, their shareholders would be ready to set the company on fire because they'd be like,
you have a steady cash flow generative bolt on roll up business like this needs to be
4x levered tomorrow what are you doing start paying a dividend or start buying back shares or get
way more aggressive rolling up because you are not levered enough and you know he thinks the adbacks
would be looked on much more favorably in the u.s which honestly i think he's probably right on both
counts but it it's just funny yeah like kind of geography is destiny uk investors more conservative
don't like the ad backs don't like the leverage and because of that marlowe's kind of running around
targets, which again, might be an argument, hey, maybe this should be private.
I personally think this should probably be three and a half times levered and they should
definitely keep doing the acquisitions and maybe it'd be a better target in a, maybe be a better
target as a private equity owned company.
Yeah, I mean, when you look at the emergence of private credit now as well, you know,
I think this, again, I mentioned earlier, I think this is, this falls into that, I think,
sweet spot for a middle market private, you know, private equity with a private credit lender
providing the debt. And, you know, I think it works. I think it works, you know, it will work
well in that type. Again, especially given the resilience of a recurring nature of the revenues
and cash flows. Let me lob up kind of a softball to you. You know, I would just encourage anybody
who's interested in the thing to go look at the 2003 investor debt. I think it's kind of like
if you were interested in compounders, roll up stories, it's a little bit like value investor
porn where they've got the, you know, they've got the great slide. One of those,
famous capital allocation slide, like, here's our free cash flow. Is leverage too high? Yes,
cash flow goes to paying down leverage. Is leverage to low? Is lever to I know? Cash flow goes to
organic gross above our ROIC or M&A. If we can't find any of those, any excess goes to share
buybacks or dividends. Like, and then it's got all other stuff on how good acquisitions are. Like,
it really is like if you publish it here, there would be like 25 Twitter accounts dedicated to
just talking about how great it is. So it's kind of softball, but I do want to ask like,
application, all right, the return, the merger story is great, it provided you believe it,
which I think you do, I kind of do.
We haven't seen the share repurchases yet.
We haven't really seen the dividends yet.
Like, how are you thinking about free cash flow in the story going forward?
Because leverage is it at that magical 2x number.
Especially with growth, they don't need to pay down debt anymore.
No, they don't.
I mean, leverage the debt is very manageable.
And so it's that they could.
And yeah, I think you're right.
If this was a U.S. business, it probably would level up more and there would be more scope
for it to do that.
Management, I think, are kind of reasonably conservative in that sense.
So in terms of capital returns, again, earlier in its life than maybe other better known larger roll-ups, it's still in that growth phase.
I think they're on a mission to build it to a scale and then monetize it through an exit, presumably.
And I think that that 500 million in run rate revenues, 100 million in run-rate ebidda, which they're at now, which was their target for next year, you know, that seems to be now.
my sense is they're at that level now
where there's an event of some kind
and if they sell TIC rather than the whole business
they're going to be sitting on a pile of cash
and that provides them with the scope to do a big buyback
or special distribution or something like that
because they're not going to sit on a huge cash pile like that
and I mean it's either that
or they buy another similar size business in GRC
but I mean I think
when you look at the GRC space they're more likely to be acquired
than be an acquirer just because of the relative size
it's the beautiful thing about having a major shareholder who as you said has a
habit of making money and a CEO who gets paid if the stock price goes up right
they get a lot of cash flow in the worst thing in the world for them to do would be to
just sit on the balance sheet right it needs to go back to shareholders because if it sits
on the balance sheet guess what that harms your TSR it's a drag on your returns you're not
can get paid it off on that big TSR thing.
So go buy something at GRC.
And again,
you get paid on the stock price.
So any deal you do,
at least management's going to strongly believe
that it's very,
very accretive to value
or get it all back to shareholder.
A question just on business quality.
We've talked about business quality retention here,
especially on the TIC side,
which is the fire,
safety,
and security and water and air hygiene side.
My understanding is the roll-up,
it works not just because you're buying
another smaller player
and putting it on the platform.
Like that is why it works.
But these are very, like, route density, local, moody businesses, right?
Where, hey, if you're doing the fire and compliance for one warehouse here, okay, cool, that's great.
But if there are 20 warehouses there and you can get all 20, you can really leverage the fixed cost.
And, you know, one inspector or one service technician can kind of do all 20 on one stop, which really leverages the fixed cost.
Am I thinking about that right?
Or is that just completely off?
Yeah, so, no, you're right.
So, I mean, that's essentially kind of like, yeah, cross-selling.
service, and that's something they kind of highlight or flag as part of the organic growth
opportunity. So, you know, there's two kind of aspects to the kind of the growth prospects
of this business. One is just the market growth. Because of regulation and compliance standards,
that's just growing and it's just mandated. So that's kind of a 4 to 5% growth rate. And then
additionally, there's probably a similar level of growth again from the root density approach
or the cross-selling whereby we're doing your fire and your, you know, your security compliance
work. We should probably do your error, you know, as well across your entire estate, not just,
you know, a particular premises. And so, yeah, that, I mean, that is a big, that, that is a big
kind of component of kind of how they grow organically. I mean, a similar, I mean, rent-a-kill
and other businesses, service businesses like that, have a similar approach in terms of that root
density approach. So it's the same principle here in terms of, you know, you get the
account and then you go out across the estate in terms of, you know, across all the warehouses
or all the factories or office blocks or whatever it is. I know, I just wanted to make sure
we hit on that just to, you know, it's easy to say, oh, this business is worth 15 times, good
returns, but a lot of times all the time, the business is worth 15 times, not just because, you know,
on an Excel sheet, it's got financial characteristics, but there's like an underlying
business reason why those financial characteristics look so good.
And local route density, anyone who's familiar with waste hauling, anyone who's familiar
with a lot, like, it's one of the best modes because once you get that local route density
here, it's not going to be 100% incremental margins like it would for some of those businesses,
but it's very high margin.
And if you've got 20 warehouses and the 21st gets built or just a random guy is looking
to take one on, you're going to have a much better pricing.
It's a really nice mode that's very difficult to end.
I mentioned the investor deck again.
I'd encourage anyone who's interested to go look at it.
I'm like looking at slide 17.
It is just such value investor.
I call it for him because, you know, slide 17, consistent in resilient history of organic growth.
It starts at 5% and by FY23, it's up to 10%.
You know, anytime you've got something grown organically in the high single digits, you love that.
Consistent EBITDA margin enhancement, all this sort of stuff.
Like, it's just what you want to see as investor.
Let me ask you another question.
I've talked bullishly.
talked about the bear case, which is the roll up and accounting, cash flow, add back,
credit flags.
If we just kind of put aside the, hey, I don't trust the numbers.
I think this blows up spectacularly.
I never used the F word on here, but it's fraud like is what some people might say.
If we put that piece aside, what worries you the most about this business, right?
Because you've got great revenue retention.
You've got secular trends.
What worries you the most?
Is it most of the revenue is London-based?
So you're just kind of worried if London is just a general mess forever?
or, sorry, I said London, English base?
Or is there other worries that you have with this business?
No, I mean, I think, I don't think that's an issue.
I mean, I think I think 50,000 customers across the whole business.
So it's pretty well diversified across the whole UK market.
So, I mean, I think that's a positive.
I think, I mean, the main risks, in terms of my particular thesis on this,
I mean, the main risk is the catalyst, as in the breakup or the sale event doesn't occur.
But I think, as I said earlier, fundamentally, it's a good business.
It's resilient.
It is, you know, positive investment.
attributes and it's cheap.
So, I mean, I think there's some support and downside protection in that.
I think the big risk really is around, I suppose, capital allocation, a bad acquisition
is one, a poorly executed, M&A, but I mean, they've been at this eight years, and, you know,
it's hard to see how they would make a really bad acquisition or botchish, especially
they're not trying to buy, and their model isn't, it's a roll-up, so they're not trying to buy
companies larger than themselves
and you know
it's not like you know
buyer buying on Santa or that kind of stuff
where it's just totally a totally different
you know combination
it's so I think
capital allocation is one
is an obvious risk but then
when you look at the track record
and their approach and they're a very
very clear defined framework in terms of what types
of businesses they buy how they fit
how they manage them how they integrate them so I actually
think the probability of that
you know, blowing up the business is
pretty low. So then the other one then obviously
is, you know, in terms of the capital
stack and how it financed itself. So leverage, I don't really see
is an issue because they've shown that they're pretty
concerned on that. So that just leaves the equity side. And so
how they funded acquisitions to date is, I mean,
if they're small botons for 10 or 20 million, that comes out of
cash flow in existing internal resources. But
for bigger acquisitions, they, you know, time to time,
they do equity placings.
And that's, I think, about 80% of the capital deployed on acquisitions over the last five years
have been through new equity placings.
So dilution risk then is obviously the, is obviously the, you know,
what kind of you would think would be a risk there.
That's one.
But then you look at how, again, it goes back to the track record.
They raised money in the past.
I mean, the largest placing they did was a couple of years ago for an occupational health business,
about 130 million share placing
which funded pretty much nearly
all the whole consideration and that's
I mean that was kind of what
they kind of refer to as a platform acquisition
rather than a Boton acquisition is just larger
but I mean that
that acquisition is working out really well
that's in a really
good growth area or good growth sector
it comes back to hey you've got a management team
who major shareholder history of making money
and owns a lot of the stock his exit is clearly
going to be a sale he clearly wants to sell
at some point and realize money, I mean, my opinion, but I think that's what distractor.
Got a CEO who's very share price incentivized.
Look, if they're going to issue stock, I don't think they issue stock today at the current
price, but you just kind of hope, like, you know, if it's one of the companies I talked
about earlier where each board member is getting $200,000 per year and they own $4,000
worth of stock, they'd probably issue stock just to grow the business because they don't
really care, right?
But if you've got a CEO and major shareholders who are very incentivized to get the share price
higher, if they're issuing stock, look, people can be wrong, people can make sense, but
people can make mistakes,
but you have to think they're doing it
because they see a path to a higher stock
or they see a lot of value in the deal.
Let's question here.
Go ahead, go ahead.
Sorry, I was just going to just touch it on that point.
I mean, they're not going to offer a stock
at this price level.
I mean, the last time they offered issued stock
was at 9, 10 pounds of share or something like that.
So, I mean, that's the level where they have issued
stock in the past, and that's to complete
strategic, you know, commercially sensible acquisition.
So, you know, I suspect what we'll see now
is that if the share price is languishing where it's at
and the market doesn't care about
a potential sale or liquidity event,
you're going to see,
and they've hit that kind of 500 million revenue,
100 million EBDA kind of threshold,
you're probably going to see them run it more
for cash flow purposes
and just, you know,
because if that's what the market wants to see,
well then maybe that's what's going to drive a re-rating in time,
absent a kind of a sale event.
or, you know, some other kind of, you know, transformative acquisition or something.
So I think, yeah, I think at the current share price, you're not going to see any dilution.
It just wouldn't make sense.
And now, a quick word from our sponsor.
Are traditional expert calls in the investment world becoming obsolete?
According to Stream, they are.
And you can access primary research easily and efficiently through their platform.
With Stream, you'll have the right insights at your fingertips to make the best investment
decisions. They offer a vast library of over 26,000 expert transcripts powered by AI search technology.
Plus, they provide competitive rates on expert call services, and you can even have an experienced
by-side analysts conduct the calls for you. But that's not all. Stream also provides the ability
to engage with experts one-on-one and get your calls transcribed free of charge, all for 40% less
than you would pay for 20 calls in a traditional expert network model. So if you're looking to
optimize your research process and increase ROI on investment research spend,
Stream has the solution for you.
Head over to their website at streamrrg.com to learn more.
Thanks for listening, and we'll catch you next time.
Last question I'm going to ask you, and then we're running long, and I'll let you go.
So, again, people will know I had you on to the first time.
I had you on again.
I'm an active subscriber.
I really enjoy your subscription service.
I also, because of that, I've read all your ideas.
And I know, like, you are a big believer in inflation kind of being sticky or higher than normal.
And a lot of your ideas have centered around.
I don't want to pitch them all.
centered around that idea. You know, we've got, you and I share a MLP royalty play that gets,
you know, a natural gas prices. As they go higher, I won't share it. But we've looked at that pond.
You've shared a lot of ideas that kind of benefit or take the idea of stickier, higher inflation.
Now, this is a good business with great recurring revenue characteristics. If you believe the numbers,
cash flow comes in, you know, these types of businesses tend to do well in any environment.
But a lot of your investments have centered on that kind of core thesis. So I just want to ask, like,
This is a little bit different.
It does speak to your history as like a value investor.
It's very private equity-ish, but it's different than a lot of your other things.
Like what attracted you?
Obviously, there's a catalyst here, but how does this kind of fit into your overall framework?
That's a little bit of a different question I did.
But when your service recommends like eight plays that have higher inflation, higher commodities, that type of stuff invested.
And then this one play that is great business, private equity characteristics, catalyst driven.
Just kind of struck me as interesting.
How did it fit into your worldview?
Yeah, well, I suppose I don't, I didn't deliberately go out of my way to kind of just focus on energy or commodity.
I mean, the way I view the world now, and I'm not a macro analyst, but I think you have to think about kind of the backdrop.
And my view of the world is that, yeah, I think, you know, it's not going to be 10% inflation,
but it's not going to be one and a half percent inflation like it was in the last cycle.
I mean, I think realistically, it's probably more three or four percent, probably inflation.
So that's still a multiple of the old, of the old world inflation.
level. So I think, you know, in this cycle, I think what I would call real assets.
And within that, I'd include not just kind of energy or commodities or, you know, I even think
certain real estate, selected real estate companies and types of assets will do well.
But I think real companies are a type of real asset.
That's companies that like the likes of Marlowe that service real businesses in the real
economy and provide essential mandated services that, you know, pricing would probably track
inflation.
And I think, you know, like the last cycle, it was all things tech facilitated by low interest
rates and the promise of growth over everything else.
I think this cycle is more about what really less so about apps and more so about, you know,
real assets and essential materials and assets for, for, you know, the economy and society.
So I think that's how this fits in.
You know, I hear you on all that.
I have a lot of energy exposure on.
And for me, it's not that I have any type of macro views on oil going to 50 or oil going
to 200 or something.
A lot of it is, I just look at it and I say like, okay, oil, let's pick a, right?
It was at 95 as you and I speak right now, right?
I can find a lot of commodity companies where I look at the stock price.
I'm like, hey, the stock price kind of implies that oil is at 70 currently, right?
And obviously there's a curve and everything, but I think the stock price implies oil prices and energy prices 30% below the curve, right?
And I feel like I'm giving a margin of safety where if energy prices stay here, they're going to make so much money, almost nothing else matters.
And if energy prices go down, then they turned out to be fairly valued.
So the curve was wrong, but the stock price was right, but I'm not going to lose money.
And it feels like investors are either they've just been burnt by energy so much, they don't want to invest in it, or they're applying massive, massive corporate governance, management incentive, capital allocation discounts.
And, you know, I hear all that, but it's just, it's really big.
It's really big, you know, like oil, as you and I speak, over the past couple months, it's gone from kind of Brent, high 70s to mid 90s.
And if you look at any energy prices, it is implying absolutely none of that.
or, you know, look at Tidewater, which I did, one of my favorite podcasts was I had Tidewater
CEO on and that stock's done incredibly, but if you look at where day rates are and where energy
prices are, it's like, hey, the stock, it's done really well, but it's, it is somewhat
levered and like the day rates have gone up more than stock. Like, it just feels like you're
getting a really big margin of safety there. And as you said, like so much investment, it's
really easy to go underwrite the next Facebook killer. Not a lot of people have been throwing
into, hey, Tidewater, offshore vessels, let's go build some new ones. Like no one has. So
if prices kind of say here
you could imagine
a lot of services or energy
could kind of go a little bit parabolic
so I don't know, it just feels interesting risk
reward to me. Yeah, no, and I think on that
as well, I mean, it also happens that a lot of these
what I again would call real asset companies
are cheap and, you know, the multiples are low
and you know, 12 months ago people were saying
oh, the multiples are low because they're over-earning
and they're, you know, bodies are going to roll over
and everything's going to collapse. And that was
the thinking for a couple of months
despite kind of what we knew about the energy and commodity landscape, particularly post-Ukraine
and what's going on there in terms of how that's disrupted, you know, the supply of everything,
really. And so I think when you think about things like on-shoring and, you know, disrupted supply,
resource nationalism, you know, demand is still growing, urbanization is increasing, you know,
and, you know, we supposedly were supposed to be at the age of peak oil,
and yet oil demand has gone up this year exceeded 2019 peak.
So, you know, I think it's reasonable to assume that, you know,
that kind of oil and other commodities and materials,
demand is not really going to collapse for the many times.
So I don't think oil, and I don't know, who knows, really.
I mean, oil could go negative again, who knows,
but I think over, you know, a medium-term, reasonable time frame,
it's unlikely that demand is going to create our prices for these materials or commodities are going to collapse.
I mean, you know, something like in the fertilizer space is really interesting as well at the moment in terms of what's happening there.
I mean, that kind of related to kind of energy.
And I just think the world has changed.
And I think that has implications that, you know, people assume, and this year has actually been a good example of this.
people kind of assume that, oh, well, it's just going to go back now to the previous cycle before
COVID and tech is where it is.
And, you know, you look at what the winning trade this year, as you plot the XLE and our, I think
the winning trade this year was Yolo long Tesla options maybe, but I don't know.
No, I definitely hear all that.
You know, the one thing, I do get in debates because I hear a lot of people saying energy
policy is crazy and I get it.
Like, I'd love to have more nuclear.
I think we should have started nuclear 30 years ago, you know, I'd love to see some more
drilling. I understand environmental concerns, but, you know, oil's at 90. I think people would
a lot of people in the world would really benefit from cheaper oil today, all that stuff. But,
you know, I just, the one thing with inflation and the higher, come on, it's like, when you're
making it's human and that, that has generally been a bad bet. Like, I remember in 2014 when oil
was 100. I had friends, very smart friends who managed tons of money who were like,
we've underwritten the entire world oil supply. Oil can never go below 70 again. And we've
underwritten all of our investments to be in the money as long as oil's over 60. These are the
best investment we'll make. 18 months later, oils in the 40s, you know? Like it's just, I never
want to bet against human genuinely. Anyway, let me give you last thought. You can comment there.
You comment, Marlow. Anything you want to talk about before, I kind of need to wrap this up and
get some other stuff done as well. Yeah, no, I think, you know, I just, thanks for having me on the
podcast. I really enjoy the discussion as I have the previous ones. And yeah, I think Marlowe is a
really interesting situation. I think there's going to be more news ahead on it. And I think
yeah, and I think it's just one of a number of really interesting names in the UK market at the
moment. UK equities are really neglected. I think UK is one of the most interesting markets right now
because it's just so shout out in the multiples and something like again, I think if Marlowe,
if it was all US revenue trading the US, it would trade.
50% higher, right? It would trade for a 50% higher
multiple, which would actually be higher stock price.
Like, I think the UK is so interesting right now.
It's so shell out. People are so desperate over there.
But that will be a conversation for another time.
I am distraught that it took so long to have you on for the second time.
But UK is super interesting. You're doing great work.
We'll have to have you on for the third time in the very new year future.
I'll include a link to the Marlow write up in the show notes.
And looking forward to the third time.
That's great. Yeah, look forward to that.
And we'll speak again soon. Thanks, Andrew.
Thanks, man.
A quick disclaimer.
Nothing on this podcast should be considered an 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. Thanks.