The Ledger

Every statement that passed quotation and attribution checks. Mix any filter with any other: certainty 1/5, debate potential 5/5, or both at once.

8statements match

8resolved → 0open claims → 6supported → 1contradicted →

why aren't all 8 resolved? a statement only gets an assessment when the public record can support or contradict it. opinions and what-ifs never can, and 0 checkable ones are still open, waiting for their date. predictions held up or didn't; assertions are supported or contradicted. on every card: ▮▮▮▮▮ certainty · ▮▮▮▮▮ debate potential. speakers are clickable

Assertion Supported

CEO pedigree and elite education do not predict stock returns

“Turns out that going to business school empirically does not mean that your stock price does better. Turns out working at an investment bank or top tier consulting firm has no impact on the stock price of the company that you run. Turns out that your track rec…”

Dan Rasmussen Feb 17, 2020 ▶ 35:03 Dan Rasmussen – Private Equity Risk and Public Equity Opportunity at Verdad Advisers (First Meeting, EP.15)

Assertion Supported

Private equity historically made most of its profits below 7x EBITDA

“First, it said that private equity had made the majority of its money in deals done at less than seven times EBITDA.”

Dan Rasmussen Feb 17, 2020 ▶ 12:15 Dan Rasmussen – Private Equity Risk and Public Equity Opportunity at Verdad Advisers (First Meeting, EP.15)

Assertion Partly supported

Energy PE funds avoided marking down 2013-2015 vintages despite sector collapse

“Energy private equity is fascinating, because 2013, 14, and 15 vintages of energy private equity funds, when oil prices drop 70%, they've started to rebound a little bit, a huge drop in oil prices, S&P small cap energy down 70 or 80%, peak to trough, 90 plus p…”

Dan Rasmussen Feb 17, 2020 ▶ 22:27 Dan Rasmussen – Private Equity Risk and Public Equity Opportunity at Verdad Advisers (First Meeting, EP.15)

Assertion Supported

Middle-tier high-yield bonds deliver the highest expected credit returns

“And the long-term empirical research actually finds that that stuff, the sort of Goldilocks of the bond market, does better. That it actually has the highest expected returns.”

Dan Rasmussen Feb 17, 2020 ▶ 44:46 Dan Rasmussen – Private Equity Risk and Public Equity Opportunity at Verdad Advisers (First Meeting, EP.15)

Assertion Supported

Value investing advocates have been wrong for nine years in the US

“And all of these quantitatively educated CFA people that know the names Fama in French are saying, no, no, growth doesn't work by value. And you know what? They've been wrong now for nine years in the United States.”

Dan Rasmussen Feb 17, 2020 ▶ 49:20 Dan Rasmussen – Private Equity Risk and Public Equity Opportunity at Verdad Advisers (First Meeting, EP.15)

Assertion Contradicted

The majority of private equity acquisitions are sponsor-to-sponsor deals

“These days, if you're buying a company, the majority of private equity acquisitions are from other private equity firms.”

Dan Rasmussen Feb 17, 2020 ▶ 16:51 Dan Rasmussen – Private Equity Risk and Public Equity Opportunity at Verdad Advisers (First Meeting, EP.15)

Assertion Supported

Small-cap value underperforms or drops in 50% of years

“If you add up the years when the market is down, and then the years that small value underperforms the rest of the market, that's 50% of years.”

Dan Rasmussen Feb 17, 2020 ▶ 47:39 Dan Rasmussen – Private Equity Risk and Public Equity Opportunity at Verdad Advisers (First Meeting, EP.15)

Assertion Supported

The cheapest decile of price-to-book stocks averages sub-$400M market cap

“And I think for value, if you just rank by price to book, the average market cap of the cheapest decile is going to be less than four hundred million dollars.”

Dan Rasmussen Feb 17, 2020 ▶ 38:46 Dan Rasmussen – Private Equity Risk and Public Equity Opportunity at Verdad Advisers (First Meeting, EP.15)

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