John McClain, CFA stops by The Business Brew for a discussion about credit. John serves as a portfolio manager for the Brandywine Global’s High Yield and Corporate Credit Strategies. In this episode John makes the case for why high yield credit is a good bet after a bad year, discusses how corporate finance departments are more professional now (vs pre GFC), talks about companies adding value by buying back debt, and much more.

Before joining Brandywine Global, John was a Senior Vice President - Credit at Standard Life Investments from 2010 to 2014. From 2007 to 2010, he was with Nationwide Mutual Insurance as a Management Associate in the Financial Leadership Rotation Program and then an Investment Analyst in Distressed Debt. John is a CFA charterholder and earned a Master of Business Administration from Carnegie Mellon University and has a Bachelor of Science in Business Economics from University of Kentucky (magna cum laude). BrandywineGlobal’s High Yield Fund has earned a 5 star rating from Morningstar. Morningstar gives the fund above average ratings for Process and People. In the words of Morningstar, “the strategy’s distinctive, value-oriented approach exploits price inefficiencies that often materialize across smaller high-yield issuers. It earns an Above Average Process rating…Comanagers Bill Zox and John McClain execute a disciplined value approach: They buy issues when their market prices are lower than the team's estimate of intrinsic business value and sell them when their initial thesis has played out or when there are better opportunities in the market.”

Bob stops by The Business Brew to discuss his early career, what he has learned over his career, investing in cyclical businesses/industries, and his biggest investment "loser."

This conversation is filled with good lessons and we hope you enjoy. Robert Robotti is the President and Chief Investment Officer of Robotti & Company. Prior to forming Robotti & Company, Incorporated in 1983, Bob was a vice president and shareholder of Gabelli & Company, Inc. He worked in public accounting before coming to Wall Street and is currently an inactive CPA. Bob holds a BS from Bucknell University and an MBA in Accounting from Pace University. Some of Bob's areas of coverage include Special Situations, Energy Industry and Home Building. Bob is the principal of the managing member or general partner of several investment vehicles. Bob currently serves on the Board of Directors of a NYSE-listed real estate company, AMREP Corporation, located in Germantown, PA; as Chairman of the Board of Directors of Pulse Seismic Inc., a seismic data licensing business located in Calgary, Alberta; as an Independent Director of PrairieSky Royalty, a Toronto Stock Exchange listed company located in Calgary, Alberta, having one of the largest portfolios of sub-surface mineral rights in western Canada; as a recently elected Director of NYSE-listed Tidewater, Inc. which owns and operates one of the largest fleets of OSVs (Offshore Support Vessels) in the industry; and was previously on the Board of Directors of BMC Building Materials Holding Corporation, prior to the completion of its merger with Stock Building Supply Holdings, Inc. on December 1, 2015; and Bob had served on the Board of Panhandle Oil & Gas Company, a NYSE-listed diversified mineral company located in Oklahoma City through May 1, 2020. In addition, he serves on the Boards of many non-profit organizations where he generously donates his time and expertise. Previously, Bob was a member of the Securities and Exchange Commission's Advisory Committee on Smaller Public Companies, established to examine the impact of Sarbanes-Oxley Act and other aspects of the federal securities law.

Cullen Roche is the Founder of Discipline Funds. Discipline Funds is a low fee financial advisory and asset management firm. Prior to establishing his own business, Mr. Roche founded his own investment partnership in 2005 after working at Merrill Lynch Global Wealth Management where he helped oversee $500MM+ in assets under management. During the the 7 years running the partnership he was able to guide the small business to high risk adjusted returns with no negative full year returns during one of the most turbulent periods in stock market history.

Mr. Roche's primary areas of expertise include global macro portfolio construction, quantitative risk management, behavioral finance and monetary theory.

He is regularly cited in the Wall Street Journal, on CNBC and in the Financial Times. Mr. Roche is a Georgetown University alumnus, growing up in the DC area and now living in San Diego, California with his fiancée Erica and their problem child, Cal, an Australian Shepherd.

You can find Cullen's bio here: https://www.pragcap.com/meet-cullen-roche/

Craig Moffett has covered the telecommunications industry – first as a management consultant and later as a Wall Street analyst – for more than thirty years. He has been elected to Institutional Investor Magazine’s All-American Research Team in the U.S. Telecom and/or Cable & Satellite sectors on seventeen separate occasions, including nine separate appearances as the #1 analyst in America in either U.S. Telecom and/or Cable & Satellite.

Prior to founding MoffettNathanson, Mr. Moffett spent more than ten years at Sanford Bernstein & Co., LLC as a senior research analyst. He was previously the President and founder of the e-commerce business at Sotheby’s Holdings, the venerable auction house, where, in 1999, he led Sothebys.com to what was then the highest first year sales of any consumer website ever launched. Mr. Moffett spent more than eleven years at The Boston Consulting Group, where he was a Partner and Vice President specializing in telecommunications. He was the leader of BCG’s global Telecommunications practice from 1996 to 1999. While at BCG, he led client initiatives in the U.S. local, long distance, and wireless sectors, in both consumer and commercial services, and advised companies outside the U.S. in Europe, Latin America, and Asia.

Mr. Moffett graduated from Harvard Business School with Honors in 1989. He received a BA from Brown University, where he was magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa, in 1984.

Mark started his professional work life as a consultant with Accenture, where he helped clients for 14 years. He founded his advisory business in 2005, and in 2022 joined Journey Strategic wealth through a merger of his firm with Journey. Prior to graduating from university, he was an auto mechanic, was in the auto parts industry, and spent time as a retail store manager. Mark’s focus has always been either providing advice or fixing things. What drives Mark is helping others reach their goals. Mark believes both financial freedom and fun can occur concurrently. You will find that he has an active (sometimes too active!) sense of humor. He’s quite proud that his teammates Angela and Melissa have been with him for 14 and 12 years and will do everything possible to make sure Danielle stays “forever”, as well. He’s a little nutty about college basketball, golf, and several other sports. In addition, he loves taking beach and golf trips with his family and is an avid reader. Mark holds an Accounting degree from Virginia Commonwealth University as well as the CFP® and RICP® designations.

Matt Cochrane (@Matt_Cochrane7 on Twitter) stops by The Business Brew to discuss his investment philosophy, how it’s evolved over the past few years, Big Tech, and more. Matt is a police officer with a passion for investing.

He began his investment education by studying The Motley Fool discussion boards. Bill and Matt catch up regularly and Bill always enjoys chatting with Matt. This week they decided to record one of those conversations.

This episode features Alex Morris of TSOH Investment Research.

You can find his Substack at https://substack.com/profile/10489671-the-science-of-hitting.

In this episode, Alex and Bill have a casual conversation; mostly about media and cable.

Through the conversation you will hear how Alex thinks about partnering with companies and management teams for the long term.

You will also hear how Alex thinks about competitive positions and strategic decision making.

Alex is a wonderful person that is sharing his investment journey publicly.

Marc Cohodes' (@AlderLaneEggs on Twitter) LinkedIn profile describes him as the "Head Bull Fighter at Alder Lane Farm."

He is a well known short seller, but in this episode he discusses how he thinks about his long positions more than he discusses short selling.

Marc is highly entertaining, informed by deep due diligence, and is not afraid to say what is on his mind.

Chadd Garcia hosted the The Business Brew for this conversation.

Chadd runs the Ave Maria Focused Fund, which is a non-diversified mutual fund (ticker: AVEAX).

His portfolio holding are eclectic.

Some themes you will see in there are quality and compounders.

However, several of the companies are undergoing business transformations or have advantaged business models. Chadd has an interesting background.

He grew up on a family farm in Arizona.

He worked in management at a multi-national agribusiness, where he helped turnaround of a business.

He caught the investing bug and headed to Harvard Business School to get into finance.

He spent time in investment banking and private equity before moving over to public markets.

I think these experiences give him an interesting perspective and thought process that he brings to investing.

He’s a natural teacher and I am excited for this episode. Chadd is lead portfolio of the Ave Maria Focused Fund and co-portfolio manager of the Ave Maria Growth Fund.

He is also responsible for equity research functions for the firm. Previously, Chadd analyzed public equities as a Managing Director at SQ Advisors.

Prior thereto Chadd worked in private equity as a Managing Director at Gulf Coast Capital Partners and as Vice President at Comvest Partners.

Before his work in private equity, Chadd was an Associate in the mergers and acquisitions group at CIBC World Markets. Chadd has a Bachelor of Science degree in Agricultural Resource and Economics from The University of Arizona and a Master of Business Administration degree from Harvard University.

He is a board member and CFO of The Rising Farmworker Dream Fund and is a Knight in the Sovereign Military Order of Malta. He is a CFA® charterholder. Contact Chadd at CMG@schwartzinvest.com Ave Maria Funds Page:

https://www.avemariafunds.com/fund-family/aveax.html Fund Commentary Found Here:

https://www.avemariafunds.com/financial-insight/fund-commentaries.html Album art photo taken by Mike Ando. Please see www.mikeando.com. Thank you to @mathewpassy (on Twitter) for the show production. Please leave us a rating in your favorite podcast player! Detailed Show Notes: 2:40 - What Chadd learned from studying HEICO 12:10 - An accounting lesson worth listening to 19:45 - Chadd's thesis on eDreams 29:40 - What Chadd looks for to premortum businesses 33:00 - A discussion about Green Plains and business transformation 39:10 - A discussion about GFL (a waste management company) 42:40 - How Chadd thinks about position sizing 44:50 - The moral component of what Chadd does 53:55 - How Chadd analyzed the short report behind GFL

Stinson Dean (@lumbertrading on Twitter), owner of Deacon Lumber, stops by The Business Brew to discuss the current lumber market, what happened to lumber in 2020, and how the market got to where it is.

This is a long conversation, but deserves the length.

Stinson goes deep into what it means to trade physical lumber, how he manages risk, why he is hedged, and much, much more.

The goal of this conversation was to have a calmer conversation about lumber than what may have occurred just a year ago.

Lumber is an extremely volatile market and Stinson is a fantastic person to discuss the market with.

Please rate the show in your favorite app!

This episode is brought to you by Koyfin, one of the fastest-growing platforms for financial data and analytics to research stocks and understand market trends. Check out Koyfin.com to see what a Bloomberg-lite, with tons of high-quality fundamental data and a powerful graph engine looks like.

Album art photo taken by Mike Ando.

Please see https://www.mikeando.com/

Jason Wild is the founder and President of JWAM, an SEC-registered investment adviser with over $1.7 billion under management. Jason found investing during his last year of pharmacy school.

Taking Peter Lynch seriously, he invested every other paycheck in pharmaceutical ideas he thought were undervalued.

His theses were correct far more often than they weren't and he made himself almost a half million dollars in the market.

After proving his competence, he started a fund with a mere $80,000.

Today, that fund manages over $1.7Bn.

Jason's initial strategy focused on specialty pharmaceuticals.

His knowledge base enabled him to assess asset bases and M&A quickly (and correctly).

After pitching a company on an M&A opportunity, and getting nothing in return, Jason decided to take matters into his own hands.

He decided to purchase Arbor Pharmaceuticals for $2.5mm dollars and built the company via M&A. After 3 years, KKR bought a portion of Arbor; valuing the enterprise at $1.1Bn.

Today, Jason is Chairman and Interim CEO of TerrAscend Corporation, a cannabis company with multi state operations in the US.

His official Bio is as follows:

"Jason Wild is the founder and President of JWAM, an SEC-registered investment adviser with over $1.7 billion under management. After starting his first fund in 1998 with only $80,000 AUM, Jason achieved early success by leveraging his background as a pharmacist to find undervalued specialty pharmaceutical companies and by managing the firm’s investments for long-term growth. After building a strong track record as a stock picker, Jason expanded his investment universe and applied his experience and extensive healthcare network to private market opportunities. He has since established himself as a highly respected investor and sought-after partner for both public and private companies."

Adam Robinson is the Co-Founder of The Princeton Review, a NY Times Best Selling author, and a US Chess Federation life master.

He currently works as a global macro advisor to the heads of some of the world's largest hedge funds through Robinson Global Strategies.

Bill has wanted to interview Adam since he heard Tim Ferris interview Adam at The 92nd St. Y.

You can find one of his episodes with Tim Ferris at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSyMmleisQM.

See also Adam's interview with Shane Parrish at https://fs.blog/knowledge-project/adam-robinson-pt1/.

Finally, Adam recently did a 4-hour interview with Kevin and Fred.

See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sU_AM9VDgFs.

In this episode, Bill follows up on some of the thoughts Adam gave Bill via various interviews.

They start out talking about the concept of "things that are blatantly obvious and those that make no sense."

This was one of the first concepts that Adam said where Bill said "wow, that's an interesting way to frame investing thoughts."

Following that conversation, Bill follows up on many of the issues that he's wondered about as he's found as he's listened to Adam. This is a wide-ranging conversation that covers a lot of investing and some life.

Elliot Turner is a co-founder and Managing Partner, CIO at RGA Investment Advisors, LLC.

RGA Investment Advisors runs a long-term, low turnover, growth at a reasonable price investment strategy seeking out global opportunities.

Elliot focuses on discovering and analyzing long-term, high-quality investment opportunities, and strategic portfolio management.

In this episode Elliot joins The Business Brew to discuss his days as a Phish podcast host, being a business analyst, his thoughts on the COVID 19 policy response, why he gained conviction through March 2020, Twitter, and creativity as an investor. Elliot is incredibly generous giving knowledge to the investment community and sharing his work.

He's one of the investors Bill really admires.

Tobias Carlisle is a well known author. He's written extensively about value investing.

In our view, Deep Value is one of the best investment books ever written.

He is also the founder and managing director of Acquirers Funds, LLC. See acquirersfunds.com

We hope this interview answers some of the tougher questions people have for him regarding “value’s” underperformance. And, more importantly, we hope to introduce a really unique individual to the investing community.

We are grateful for his appearance on the pod.”