#83 | Discover 4 Quality Stocks w/ Joep Dikken from Tresor Capital

In this episode of The Dutch Investors, we sit down with Joep Dikken from Tresor Capital to pitch and break down 4 high-quality stocks we both like. 

We dive deep into the world of high-stakes logistics and specialized service models (Transplant As A Service), examining how one company has successfully vertically integrated an entire industry’s supply chain. We discuss a Dutch holding company, a market leader in educational software, and a trillion-dollar asset manager.

We think you'll enjoy this one.

• TransMedics Flight Tracker

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:04

The interesting part about the company is that they own the machines, they put the organs onto the machine, and then they bring it to the other hospital, and then they dispatch it from the machine. That is basically the process you would imagine when you say transplant as a service. So they own the whole chain from outside of the body to inside of the body. The private jets, the surgeons, the pilots, the machines, everything.

SPEAKER_01 0:33

And we're talking about 72% gross margins, a company that is uh profitable. I believe 30% of their market cap sits in cash, they have no debt, and they own about 90% of the mobile language learning market.

SPEAKER_00 1:23

Thank you. Thank you for having me.

SPEAKER_01 1:26

Before we jump in, what sort of companies do you personally look for when you research companies as an analyst? And do the two companies you're going to pitch in a second pass your personal investment criteria?

SPEAKER_00 1:42

I mean, I have two different sets of companies that I always find really interesting. One is a set of companies that is very interesting for Treasure Capital, the firm that I'm working at right now. We have a very specific scope towards family investment holdings and uh, as you said, serial acquirers. So within that scope, I am always looking for the best and the most interesting companies. And then for my personal investing career, so to say, I really like a lot of different companies that have some sort of technology edge combined with just a very good management team. Um, more niche companies rather than the big and most popular companies in the world or on Twitter.

SPEAKER_01 2:32

Do you stick to uh a specific market cap size or are you very broad-based? Is there a limit to how large a company can be for you?

SPEAKER_00 2:42

No, there's not really a limit on the market cap for my personal portfolio. Um, if a company is interesting enough, then there's always a good fit for it. I do try to limit my own portfolio to a maximum of 15 names because I think over-diversification is uh is a genuine uh thing that not a lot of people take into account when uh when investing.

SPEAKER_01 3:06

Your first company is very intriguing. I have no clue what the company does, so I'm very excited to hear about transmetics. So uh I'd love to hear your pitch on the company.

SPEAKER_00 3:18

Yeah, so uh my very first company is uh called Transmedics. And Transmedics is a company that operates in the organ transplant market. And before everyone labels it as too too complex to put it on the too hard to understand pile, as uh I believe Buffett says it when it comes to technology stocks. I'm here to reassure you, you don't need to understand every single thing about their healthcare and about their machines that they uh that they make. I'm here to explain it to you in a relatively simple couple of steps. So the machine at the the company basically makes a device that that allows organs to be transplanted and transported from one body to another body. And these devices that they that they that they produce, they label it themselves as one of the best devices in the market. Obviously, I don't have and I don't need the exact knowledge about this device if that's actually the case. Because the whole investment thesis of this company is that they have a very good device, but they have an amazing supply chain network around it. If a hospital needs um to organize a transplant, then they can just call transmedics and then they take care of everything from body to body. So to say you can label it as a transplant as a service. I'm calling that the the the the the guys on X call it that it's it's a new term specifically made for this company transplant as a service, T-A-A-S. And let me explain how that works. So the company has this device and they have specialists that know how to put the organ onto the device and um and detach it from the device again when it's when it's needed. It calls the company, the specialists come in with the device, the hospital can choose to basically rent the device and rent the service or buy the device and then rent the service on top, which is probably a bit cheaper. But then they put the organ onto the device, then they transport it, and then they detach it again. But the interesting part is in this transportation process. The company takes care of everything. And when I say that, it's literally everything. They take the device, they bring it to the airport, that's where there's a transmedics jet. They own 22 jets. That's where there are transmedics pilots ready for the device to take off to get to the next hospital as fast as possible. Because obviously, when you're transplanting an organ, you're on a time limit. And these devices prolong the time limit, but it still has to be done as fast as possible. So they own the jets, they own the pilots, they own the specialists that work with the machine, and then they also they also have their own surgeons. And with within all that process, the device makes sure that the organ is tracked 24-7, that that the team is informed about the status and the quality of the organ, which prevents bad organs being implemented into bodies and lead to failure after a transplantation. And with their market expansion into Italy, it opens up a new market, um, but also might increase their margins for that specific margin for that specific market, because Italy is obviously a lot smaller than the US, so you won't need jets, but um you can do it with cars, with buses. And that's also what they do. Instead of jets, they're they are replacing it uh with Mercedes-V-class fleets. So I can imagine that for the European market, the cost um of one transplant might be a bit lower solely due to the shorter distance that they have to travel.

SPEAKER_01 7:25

Makes sense, yeah. So this should become more profitable.

SPEAKER_00 7:29

It could if they utilize it well and the European markets gains traction and they gain market share there as well, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:37

So they land on like an airport close to a to a hospital, and then they have their own fleet of cars or something as well?

SPEAKER_00 7:46

Yeah, it's it's it's everything. They own the buses to the airport, they own the private jets from airport to airport, they have the salaries on the payslip, uh, the the pilots on the payslip, I mean, and then the surgeons on the payslip, uh, everything.

SPEAKER_01 8:00

Just out of curiosity, let's say they fly to a hospital in Amsterdam, uh, or to the airport, go to a hospital in Amsterdam. I assume that one of like the surgeons has to work for them as well, right? So they would need to have their own section within the hospital, or do they just pay the hospitals to use the rooms or I'm not entirely sure about that.

SPEAKER_00 8:28

They have surgeons on the pay slip. So I can imagine that where hoss where there are hospitals that is not a qualified surgeon to do transplantations, they can bring one. But I can also imagine that a lot of hospitals, especially the bigger ones, have surgeons on their own pay slip and they won't need a surgeon service.

SPEAKER_01 8:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:50

So they have a specialist that puts it onto the machine, then they bring the machine to an airport, then they put it onto a private jet. The private jet is owned by the company. The private jet has its own pilots, the pilots are paid by the company. Then the specialist goes onto the private jet, they fly towards the hospital where the organ is needed, and then they dispatch it from the machine, and then they also have 50 plus surgeons in their salary, in their uh in their um pay slip. So they own the whole chain from outside of the body to inside of the body. The private jets, the surgeons, the pilots, the machines, everything.

SPEAKER_01 9:34

That's crazy. So they're highly vertically integrated, and they build the machines themselves as well.

SPEAKER_00 9:42

Yeah.

unknown 9:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:43

Yeah. So that is their main differentiator, indeed. They have the knowledge and they have a superior machine, and then on top of that, they um they provide the full service. So if you compare that to what is the what the alternative is, um, a hospital has a has a different machine or a cool box, and then they have to do everything themselves. So the transport and make sure that the heart is in good condition when it arrives and and during transport as well. Um, all the way until it arrives at the surgeon where it needs to be uh transplanted to. So right now they can all outsource that to uh to transmedics.

SPEAKER_01 10:23

Am I correct in saying that this company sort of relies on um like donors as well?

SPEAKER_00 10:31

Yeah, yeah, it does. But the main the business case is also that there's a lot of organs right now that would be up for donation, but they're that are not utilized. There's a significant underutilization of current donors, and that means people that are not a donor themselves? People that no, that's that's not really what I'm aiming at. It's people that would be donors, but that just can't get um that they can't get there in time, for example, or they uh there's just not enough capacity to move their organ towards um towards a different body. There's there's two different types of deaths, so to say. And there's this there there's the death the death called donation after brain death, and this is where the organs are still functioning, but the brain is not. And from here, this is the the easier one because you can all the way up to to the operation for a donor, you have all the time in the world. You can plan everything because as long as the organs are beating or pumping the blood, everything's fine. And then as soon as you cut that off, you can just transport it directly into the other body, so to say. Then that that is quite straightforward because you can set the time timing of the um the extraction of the organ and the implementation yourself on beforehand. Obviously, when you put it out of the body, there's a short window to put it back in. But that's that makes sense. And then you have another death called the donation after circulatory death. And this is where someone is on life support and you stop that. And that's where a lot of regulation comes in. Because when you stop the life support, you have to wait until the organs stop by itself. Then you have to wait another five minutes just to be sure that the organs have stopped and they won't restart pumping. That happens sometimes. And then when that five minutes is over, then you have to recover it as fast as possible. Because within that five minutes, there's a high risk of something called warm ischemia. I won't go into full details, but it detail it damages the organ. And then within so the whole process of stopping life, life support, all the way until getting it onto a new machine that has to happen in 30 minutes. And within that 30 minutes, you're already sacrificing like five to ten minutes by just waiting. So we have like a 10 minutes time frame to do it very well, or otherwise the heart is just damaged. And this is where the machine comes in. So they have this, they they build their own machines, and the machines are way more advanced than than than the current the current environment, and it prevents a lot of these damages once it's installed onto the machine. It's uh yeah, that's basically it. Yeah, it's just way better.

SPEAKER_01 13:37

Fascinating. It sounds quite complicated, but what I like about it is that I think this is a company you should invest in if you have um a very good management team. Since if you haven't really studied like medical sciences or anything, like knowing the ins and outs of a company like this sounds quite complicated, but if you know what they're doing and and you know what KPIs to track and you trust the management team in making the right decisions, it seems like a bet on uh on like management and it's a good cause. That's what I really like about this company. I think it it's just it's it's net beneficial to society, right?

SPEAKER_00 14:18

Yeah, indeed. And it only gets gets better to towards the future, you would say, because people are getting older, people might need more more donors. And this this company is single-handedly increasing that in the United States. Like they can they have a slide somewhere in their deck where they say, Okay, this is the exact time point where we have started our program, and we can see from that time point the organs have increased massively. So you they can literally track their own impact on the whole US donor market, which is very interesting. And coming back to one of your points, I don't think this is a company that is only for the people that are very interested in in healthcare and have a lot of knowledge about organ transplants or something like that. The thing is, the machine itself is too complicated for me as well. Um, the most interesting part about the company is they own this whole supply chain, and it's you can track this supply chain before the earnings comes out. And that sounds really weird, but it's actually quite straightforward. There's a guy on X that that does this, he builds a tracker for this company, and he does it by just tracking the flights that they uh that they operate on their jets because the jets obviously have a number and you can just track them every single day. And then based on the amount of revenue that they generate per flight that they do, he makes an estimate on their daily revenue. And looking back at those numbers, he has been quite accurate.

SPEAKER_01 15:59

How about if a competitor develops like a cheaper or a better version technology-wise? What is their mode exactly?

SPEAKER_00 16:10

Well, the mode is obviously like the whole process, that that a hospital can just outsource the whole process from body to body. But that's also one of the weaknesses. As you rightfully noticed, it's probably it's probably quite expensive. Yes, it is. Per transplants, I think their revenue is 117,000. So it's very expensive, the servers that they offer, but margins are really good, and they're gaining market share. And the the moat is I think the technology is obviously patent and they're innovating and they have upcoming machines that are even better for the quality of the organs, but also margin efficient, so they're cheaper. And I think that they claim they have the best machine, and as I said, I obviously don't have the knowledge if it is, but I can imagine that there's very high switching cost for a hospital.

SPEAKER_01 17:09

Yeah, I can only imagine that this is uh a much requested service for sure. Well, youp, my next pick is almost as exciting as this one. But um I gotta admit, the company intrigues me more than I thought it would. And I didn't know it was like so vertically integrated. What did you call it? Transplant as a service?

SPEAKER_00 17:33

Transplant as a service.

SPEAKER_01 17:34

I've never heard of that before, so that's pretty cool as well.

SPEAKER_00 17:36

That's uh what the what the X guys uh admit.

SPEAKER_01 17:39

Yeah, it's cool. Yeah. So next, my pick for today. It's a company that's likely sitting on your phone right now. Uh, I don't know. It's not? Nope. Okay. No, I don't have it. Well, me neither, but I did have it and I used uh I used it a lot before. And as an educator, I use it a lot with my students as well. It's Duolingo, and it is probably one of the most debated stocks right now. They're famous for the aggressive notifications. If you ignore all the current sentiment and risks, that business is not doing bad at all. It's a high margin, it's low capex, it's a high cash-generating business. It's uh it's it looks similar to Spotify. They run a freemium model where about 80% of their revenue comes from subscriptions. And we're talking about 72% gross margins, a company that is uh profitable. I believe they are like 30% of their market cap sits in cash. They have no debt, and they own about 90% of the mobile language learning market. So obviously there's something going on, right? The red flag, or rather the massive uncertainty and disruption risk is obviously AI. Think about Gemini or ChatGPT, where you can just ask ChatGPT to be your language tutor and talk to it. But also the easiness to build a similar platform yourself, at least that's the risk what they're saying. And not to mention the future possibility of instant translation through, I don't know, earpods maybe. To be honest, I love learning, but if I could just have instant translation, I probably wouldn't have the need to learn any language, and I'll just focus on learning a different skill, for example. Exactly. Yeah, I would I would agree with that. Yeah. So one could argue that Duolingo is more than an educational app, it's more of like an habit company. And for example, two of our analysts own the company. Their mode is sort of a data flywheel, and with millions of users, they run A and B tests all day long and more than anyone else to figure out exactly how you keep coming back. So they're sort of fighting for your attention. They use gamification, like the streak, for example, to win that battle. And I am on the fence with Duolingo, especially when it comes to AI. I think it can be both a headwind as a tailwind. Management is actually leaning into it. They were one of the first to integrate GPT-4 to their max tier to offer real-time conversation practice. But my skeptical take is that uh AI is just amazing at translating, but it's terrible at motivating. So you still need sort of discipline to learn. And Duolingo is probably one of the few companies that has turned that like that discipline into a game.

SPEAKER_00 20:44

Yeah. I I have a question though, but yeah, obviously, it's it it keeps you disciplined on a daily basis, but does it keep you motivated for a longer period of time on a daily basis? So I'm not saying five minutes a day, but like 30 minutes or an hour a day. Because in my personal experience, that is what it takes to learn a new language.

SPEAKER_01 21:08

I think I agree with you. Um, found a source a couple weeks back that said that um 80 or 90% of uh Duolingo users only use the app like below two minutes a day. First of all, I don't know how you monetize people that are on an app for two minutes, except if they pay, but I don't believe they paid. I wouldn't be paying for an app if I used it two minutes a day. And like the top 5% of Duolingo users account for almost all the revenue. So you could say that there's a lot of like upsell potential, but at the same time. I think like okay, so my my colleagues will not like me saying this, but I think Duolingo is more similar to a candy crush than like. An Instagram. People get stuck on Instagram for hours, me included, sometimes. And I'm I'm like, oh no, I'm in the loop again. I never get stuck on Diolingo. I've tried it. Uh, I love learning. I would say I'm a geek for learning. And even they can't really motivate me that long. So I don't know. It's uh but it's so profitable, and the current valuation is so extremely low that I think we we looked at the valuation last time, and it was like if they just grow revenue for like five to ten percent, you you'll get a 12 to 15% return. It's it's crazy, but you know, the the risk of this disruption is massive.

SPEAKER_00 22:44

Yeah. I would agree that that the AI translation and hardware instant translation with classes or something like that, we're we're still far from that in a sense of not that the technology doesn't exist, but global adoption of that technology. Because if there will be a glass, if there will be classes or airpods that will do instant translation, it won't be cheap. And I think there will be a lot of people that won't be able to afford it, that still want to learn the language. And I think they have an incredible platform with the amount of users that they have built. But speaking from personal experience, the only thing that will actually learn you a language, let's talk about a language. Obviously, they have they have more than that, but that's what they're most known for, is speaking the language, being forced to speak the language, speaking the language for 30 minutes a day minimum, an hour a day minimum. I personally tried it with Spanish because I had to. I moved to uh Chile for six months. I tried Duolingo and I noticed that I really tried to push myself and learn the language on the app, but it was so slow-paced as well. I was like, I'm ready to learn something new now, I'm ready to learn some grammar, I'm ready to learn some actual sentences. But you pay for the app? I I did not, no. Um, but eventually I found like a substitute, which was just a podcast, and um I was actually hearing the people speak the language, a full-on conversation, repeating the conversation, and I noticed that helped me so much more than just filling in a couple of sentences, a couple of words every single day. And that's where I think a lot of people are on the same page when it comes to Duolingo.

SPEAKER_01 24:33

Yeah, so why did I pick Duolingo? I think if if you believe that the AI disruption is overblown, there is so much to like about this company from a fundamental basis. It's founder-led, I love the mission. They have a ton of optionality, they can literally expand into any any subject they want. So, I mean, language might be disrupted, right? But they can lean into chess, they can lean into math, they can lean into programming, they can lean into whatever they want, geography, you name it. They have no debt, revenue is growing, high margins. I mean, they're market leaders, so there's a lot to like. And if you think the AI disruption is overblown, like I said, it's probably a good company to look into. If I'm being completely honest, I don't think I'll be investing in Duolingo anytime soon. I think the range of possible outcomes is too large for me personally, even though the current valuation is so much more attractive than it's ever been before. So I always come back to this quote from Buffett when facing these kinds of decisions. And um, I believe he said, I don't look to jump over seven foot bars, I look around for one foot bars that I can step over, and this feels like a seven-foot bar. Why just risk it for uh if you can just, I don't know, pick a company like Transmedics that feels like they can't really get disrupted by AI or uh like a retailer where the possible outcomes are uh less diverse. So uh those are my thoughts.

SPEAKER_00 26:10

Yeah, I think I would agree. I think, first of all, if you have used a product before of a of a company and you don't believe in that product yourself, I find it very hard to invest in that company on personal beliefs. And I have to agree that the AI the AI discussion is probably a bit overblown. We see it in other software names, but I still would be hesitant just because I wouldn't never invest because I don't believe in the product, but from a valuation point, I see why some people would say right now, like it's overblown and there's uh good IRs for the future.

SPEAKER_01 26:50

Yeah, yeah. Alright, your next company. Take us through it.

SPEAKER_00 26:56

Yeah, so my next pitch is uh something really different to uh to my first first pitch, my first company.

SPEAKER_01 27:03

Would you say would you say it's boring?

SPEAKER_00 27:05

I wouldn't say, I mean, maybe the the the explaining it might be a little bit boring, but the the company itself is is definitely not boring. It's a company that also is in our interest at the firm at Trezor Capital, where I'm an analyst. And the company is called Brookfield, Brookfield Corporation, to be exact. And I think more people would have heard of this company. It's a relatively large company, it's an alternative asset manager originally from Canada, but is also listed on the New York Stock Exchange with the ticker BN. And not to be confused with Brookfield Asset Management, it's another publicly listed company and it's part of the ecosystem. Brookefield Corporation is the holding company above Brookfield Asset Management. Okay. What makes this company so interesting is that it is into the same bracket, it's moving into the same bracket as Berkshire Hathaway and also Markel, which are investment-led insurers. They have insurance, which creates a float, and with that float, they invest in higher returning opportunities, public equities, they uh own private companies, and then they have they create a nice return, and then they can with that they can cover their insurance bit and then earn more on top of that. And Brookefield is slowly moving into this as well, because you have Brookfield Asset Management, which is their asset manager, more like a BlackRock, a Blackstone, or an EQT, which are the private equity players in the world, big private equity players. They manage, they manage institutional investor capital and retail investor capital. And then on the other side, they have Brookfield Wealth Solutions. This is uh not a publicly listed companies, and they own 100% of it. From Brookfield Asset Management, they own 73%. And this Brookfield Wealth Solutions is where they create, it's it's a new division since 2020, and this is where they create annuities. So this is the insurance part. They get annuities from from like uh 401ks, the uh the uh pension plans in the United States, and then they can with that money they can invest it under their Brookfield Asset Management division. They can create returns and then get like a flywheel internally where more AUM in the wealth solutions creates more float for the Brookfield Asset Management, and then more float, obviously, when you invest it well, means more returns, more dividends for Brookfield Corporation. You got that?

SPEAKER_01 29:53

It is quite complex, or well, a bit like it goes to different places. Is there a reason why there's so many like different divisions within and like different stakes within those companies?

SPEAKER_00 30:05

Is there like a reason for it or I mean a reason, it's it's it's a conglomerate, it's just very big. Yeah, and I don't know, there's no I don't think there's a specific reason for it or an explanation, it's just how it is, and it's complex to understand, but that's also what makes it interesting because if a company is very complex, it gets a label as a complexity premium. Um and I think that is that is the case for this specific company because it's it's a very complex ecosystem to go from Brookfood Corporation to Brookfood Asset Management to Wealth Solutions to also operating businesses that they own, that a lot of analysts and especially retail investors just don't know what is going on and therefore makes it really hard to analyze. And if you do this well, I would say you have an edge on on most retail investors, and that creates this this this premium. And um the the main thing about Brookfield is if you're not convinced yet, let me tell you a little bit about their their uh performances. Um Brookfield's a very old company already, and 30 years, over 30 years, they've managed to get an annualized total return of 19%. So they're up there with with Berkshire Hathaway when it comes to when it comes to returns. And then um if you think like 19%, every everyone would like that, right? Over 30 years. That is that is that's incredible. But not only that, is 19%, it's only getting better. If you look at 20 years, it it's uh 20 years ago, it was uh 16% kagger. The last 10 years, it's 17% kagger. In the last five years, it's 22% kagger. So over the last 20 years, it has improved so much. And uh that's what that would that's what really should convince you to to look into this stock, I would say.

SPEAKER_01 32:13

Is uh Brookfield a company that uses a lot of leverage?

SPEAKER_00 32:17

No, I don't think so, because there's not a lot of debt on their I don't think there's a lot of debt on their balance sheet, but obviously there's a lot of capital that they don't own themselves.

SPEAKER_01 32:30

That makes sense. And am I correct in saying that if you buy what was it, Brookfield Corporation, you're sort of getting a discount on like the management business?

SPEAKER_00 32:41

Brookfield Asset Management.

SPEAKER_01 32:43

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 32:45

Yeah, because Brookfield Asset Management also has a little bit of this complexity premium. Let's just put it like that for now. They also trade at a uh at a discount normally. So it's the same thing with with the next company that you're gonna discuss, where you have one company owning the other one, and if the company that they own trades at the discount, then you're getting like a double discount, so to say, when you own Brookfoot Corporation. And I think this is also just a case of incredible management and still a lot of potential because management is just the the the main CEO of Brookfoot Corporation is Bruce Flatt. Incredible allocator and incredible speaker as well. I would definitely advise you to read shareholder letters and to watch interviews of Bruce Flatt because he's uh he's very optimistic always about about Brookfield, but it's very interesting. But um, like I have a high hat of management because they have an investor day every year, and then every five years they set out targets. And if you look at the targets that they set out in 2020 in the midst of COVID, so to so in in one of the yeah, one of the big crashes from our time, they set out very, very high targets for themselves. If you look, those targets were for 2025, and if you look at those targets, they've met every single target that they've set. So if you have a look at their latest investor day, which was 2025, they set out new targets with 2030. And if management managed to accomplish all their targets previous time, then obviously you should listen to their targets for the next five years as well, because they're they're very credible. Um, if you meet your targets in one of the biggest pandemics uh ever. So I would say they're they would they are very credible for their targets for 2030 as well.

SPEAKER_01 34:42

What would need to happen for this to be like a really bad investment?

SPEAKER_00 34:46

I think that is already happening right now a little bit. Um it's it's labeled as a private equity or an alternative asset manager. And these guys are investing in a lot of private companies and they invest in the best possible sector at this moment, always for the past five years. So the past five years, that sector was a lot of software. And if you have a look at at the companies like KKR, Blackstone, BlackRock, and also Brookfield, you would see that they're currently at a dip of 40% from their highs, if not more. And that has a lot to do with investors thinking they have a lot of exposure to software, and that these investments into these private software firms become insolvable and less valuable, and that they eventually have big write-offs. For Brookfield specific, that is not really the case. It's getting punished because it's labeled as one of those companies, but management has continuously communicated they only have maximum 1% exposure to software companies compared to other asset managers where that's between like 7 to 15. For Brookfield, that specific thing is, in my opinion, a little bit overblown. And the other part that they're very exposed to is um is the interest rates. Um, lower interest rates means cheaper financing, cheaper financing for private equity. So higher interest rates and uncertainty when it comes to interest rates is uh is not great for these companies. Interesting uh business. Uh do you own it yourself? I own it myself, yes. It's uh one of my larger positions, and that's yeah, like I said, that's that's also because I believe a lot in in management. It's a very well-diversified company that which I really like, what what you said you you didn't really like, is uh with the insurance, with the asset management, and within the asset management, there's a lot of diversity in renewables, in AI, in real estate. So uh yeah.

SPEAKER_01 36:54

Yeah. So I I like the business model. Maybe you misunderstood me. I just don't feel like my edge is within understanding the ins and outs of insurance and float. And but if I had like a really good feeling with management, I would probably still be okay with holding such a company. Like I have no clue how Berkshire operated for a long time. You don't really know what they're buying and what they're looking into, but if you just trusted Buffett, you'd be fine. Yeah, just trust flat. Well, my next uh company, I have not a lot of faith in the CEO, but I'll get to that. So to be completely transparent, I have a meaningful position in Process. Obviously, I might be more biased than others, so just keep that in mind when I'm giving this thesis. But Process is a Dutch holding company, and the funny thing is, I think Process itself is a very average, maybe even below average quality company.

SPEAKER_00 37:54

Interesting.

SPEAKER_01 37:55

Yeah, so they're doing many things I dislike. I don't like the new CEO. Well, he still has to prove himself somewhat, but he's giving me empire building vibes, investing heavily in many different, I don't know, AI startups that are. We'll see if that's actually if that ever turns profitable or not. Like management has a history of not really building lots of value by uh investing in anything besides the investment in uh Tencent. My investment in Process is completely based on two factors, which makes it quite simple to follow. First, the ongoing buybacks to close the discount on um NAV, and the massive stake in Chinese tech company Tencent, arguably the strongest company in China, power-wise. Process is basically like a wrapper and it allows me to buy Tencent at a very significant discount. Now, obviously, this varies day to day, right? But it's been as high as 70% and as low as 15%. So obviously, it matters when you get in. But uh Tencent, for those that don't know, it owns the super app WeChat with uh over 1.4 billion users. It's the world's largest gaming company. It owns the payment rails in China, it owns advertising segments, a TikTok alternative, has investments in companies like Riot Games from League of Legends and Epic Games, Fortnite. It's the owner, Clash of Clans, it's the owner of games like Honor of King, Call of Duty Mobile, PUBG. So they're also investing heavily in Tensen Cloud, which is uh growing fast. Currently, I believe number three behind Alibaba and uh Huawei Cloud. They also have like a Netflix alternative called Ten Zen Video, Spotify alternative, yeah, TenZen Music, Facebook and Instagram alternatives. So, I mean, we call this an ecosystem mode. It's the it's the rarest kind of mode. It's basically network effects, switching costs, intangible assets, massive scale, all just working together, just like Alphabet and um Meta and Amazon. So um, yeah, by buying Process, you basically get 10 cents at a discount. But as soon as the discount is gone, or they stop buying back shares, I would probably sell Process because I don't like the company itself.

SPEAKER_00 40:26

No, I think I also personally own it, just to uh just to give a disclaimer there. But I have a different view on on what they're doing on the side, to be honest. Okay. Because I think that what they're doing and the companies that they own is actually trying to replicate a little bit of what Tencent is doing, but then in different markets. Because if you look at their if you look at their portfolio, they own a lot of different platforms and a lot of different tech-based companies and also food delivery, but that's also on a platform where they can cross-sell and link things to each another platform where they can increase their own sales and create this flywheel. And they're a lot, they're present in in emerging markets like India and uh Latin America and also quite big in Europe. Um, but I think with all the all those platforms that are being used by millions of users a day, they can actually try to replicate like this type of ecosystem when they cross-sell it well.

SPEAKER_01 41:35

I understand what you're saying, and I I sort of can agree with you. So I'm not saying that the other parts of Process have no value, but there is definitely potential. Process has to try something, right? If they don't invest in anything else, they are basically eventually worthless, where they sold all 10 cent shares and have nothing left. So they're sort of killing their own business. So I completely understand that they need to make investments elsewhere to create value. Besides Tencent, it's currently mostly a collection of loss-making low-margin ventures. They have potential. For example, I think PayU in India has a lot of potential. If they can make the food delivery, they are market leaders there in lots of areas. Although the market is very difficult and low margin, so they'll need to scale it a lot. But they're currently investing heavily in like lots of AI startups. There's always the potential of a unicorn there.

SPEAKER_00 42:39

Yeah, that's a hit or miss.

SPEAKER_01 42:40

Yeah. So I understand it, but for me as an investor that just wants a good return, all they need to do is slowly sell 10 cent shares and buy it back their own. That's how they create value for me.

SPEAKER_00 42:58

It's true, and that's it's it's also the main reason why you buy it. That's yeah, like I do see the value, the potential value of the other parts that they own, but obviously it's only 20% of their net asset value. The other 80% is still 10 cent. So if you're saying I'm buying process because of that 20%, that doesn't make any sense. The first business case and the first investment thesis is always 10 cent here. And I agree with you there. It's it's very interesting, but it being 10 cent is also the main risk of the company, I would say.

SPEAKER_01 43:30

True. Absolutely. Yeah, there's always a discount, the China discount, and um Yeah, the China discount, yeah. I am a big believer in looking at history and whether that's for a company or for markets or at whatever is happening in a country. I think history often repeats itself. Well, people often repeat themselves. And if you look at process history, they just have a history of buying poor quality companies, or they're paying too much, lots of write up. A couple companies that are not doing good at all. So yeah. If I look at the historical if I take history as like a guideline, I would. You know what I'm saying?

SPEAKER_00 44:15

Yeah. Yeah, no, I get it. So that's also why the investment thesis is all about Tencent. And Tencent is really interesting. But like we said, the China discount, there's a lot of regulation happening in China for companies like Tencent. And I think last week as well, we got news from regulation from the US that Tencent they're gonna talk about the stakes that they have in these big gaming corporations from the US that might be at risk at some point because there might be a threat to digital security in the United States. And that's that's the main thing that I dislike about it being in China. It's just the political environment for companies is just so uncertain and unstable at some point. For sure.

SPEAKER_01 45:02

Yeah, and um the previous CEO for Process was uh very um very clear Bloise Bloisey, I believe that's how you pronounce it, is uh more of a um innovative AI empire building type of guy. At least that's what the vibe he gives me. But as long as the incentives he's incentivized to buy back stock for now, so uh that just gives me uh the confidence to hold on. But I'll be tracking that for sure. And if Tencent buys back its own stock as well, you're sort of getting like a double, a double, um, a double like return where they buy back stock, the stake of process increases, and they, you know, that's uh that's also a good way to create value. We I think we delivered four good and interesting pitches to the listeners, and it's up to them to determine which ones they like more and uh want to do more research on. If you had to pick just one, valuation aside, which one do you think is highest quality?

SPEAKER_00 46:00

I would have to go with Brookfield. For my really yeah. I have so much trust in management, there's such diversification and simple maths around their targets for 2030 uh offer very attractive returns.

SPEAKER_01 46:20

Okay. I think I would have to go with if it was 10 cent, I would say 10 cent. Yeah. But I think I'll have to go for transmetics. That business seems very hard to disrupt, and it seems very high quality because there are so much on the line that their quality has to be exceptional for this to work properly.

SPEAKER_00 46:41

Yep, there's a very high barrier of entry due to regulations, and especially if you do the whole service, there's a lot of capital involved with all the jets as well. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 46:51

So where uh can people find more on uh maybe uh Brookfield or uh Transmedics or maybe share some of your socials as well?

SPEAKER_00 47:01

Well, Brookfields is what we cover at the firm. Trezor Capital, so that is T-R-E-S-O-R and uh Capital, like normally at TrezorCapitalnews.nl. That's where we upload a weekly newsletter so people can sometimes read about Brookfield over there. For transmetics, we don't cover that at the firm. That is not within our scope. That's something I personally invest in. So I would advise everyone to just go to X, type in the ticker, and then there are a lot of very passionate guys talking about it. And like I said, there's one guy operating a tracker on the amount of flights, so definitely follow that.

SPEAKER_01 47:40

And I'm feeling an opportunity here, Yup. We might have to do a uh transmedics deep dive.

SPEAKER_00 47:46

Yeah, sure thing. That will allow me to be a little bit more clear on the business and a little bit more detail on the machine.

SPEAKER_01 47:54

Thank you so much. I'll put all the links in the show notes. Treasure Capital, definitely subscribe to the newsletter. Thank you so much for coming on the show, Yup, and I'm sure you will do it again.