The Ledger
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Wyden: Tech investors demand operational perfection, unlike traditional value investing
“In technology, investors need everything to be perfect. And as a value guy, I've always said, it's so cheap. If it's 85% right, you'll get 85% of the multiple or the value. And I think in technology, that's not the case. People want everything perfect.”
Wyden: Restaurant software demand is counter-cyclical in economic downturns
“I'd make arguments that people would actually want to buy more software in the downturn because they want to lower their costs. That's a secular growth industry in a business that's arguably counter-cyclical.”
Wyden: I wrote PAR's John Sammon had a 'PhD in value destruction'
“I think it was hard for John Salmon to go and sit face to face with someone who wrote a public letter saying, you have a PhD in value destruction, but actions speak louder than words.”
Wyden: ADW published activist letters on almost all holdings in 2018–2019
“In 18 and 19, people say, oh, you had an activist letter out on every single one of our companies, and we basically did.”
Wyden: Timing exits is hard, so invest where time is your friend
“What we have found is that knowing when to buy things is super obvious, knowing when to sell isn't. And so if you're not going to get the sell methodology perfect, then you got to be in a situation where time is your friend.”
Wyden: ADW Capital will never make an investment purely for activism again
“I will never make an investment again solely under the auspices of activism. I don't ever see that happening.”
Wyden: PAR was one of few turnaround investments worth the activist effort
“Par was one of the few companies in that era where you can categorically say the juice is worth the squeeze.”
Wyden: High terminal value in growing businesses forgives operational execution errors
“The takeaway from all this, the major lesson in PAR and all this is that terminal value matters. Ultimately, when you have a business with a high terminal value that's growing, it creates a lot of room for execution errors.”
Wyden: ADW focuses on rehabilitating fixable 'scratch and dent' assets
“When you think about what we do, our business model is scratch and debt inventory. We want to find the Porsche that's sitting in the garage, and we want to go and replace the tires and give it a car wash, and then we're going to drive it really, really hard. T…”
Wyden: ADW Capital launched with under $500K, finishing year one at $8M–$9M
“The fund was a little under 500,000 dollars. I lived at home, kept costs low and distractions low. And I finished year one at about eight or nine million dollars.”