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.
why aren't all 9 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
Hale: Activist funds fail when they act as campaigners instead of investors
“Part of the reason that activist investing has had its cycles and not every activist investor has survived those cycles because a lot of practitioners of the industry have been excellent campaigners, great users of the media, but not necessarily great investor…”
Hale: Strong franchises tolerate capital misallocation for a decade; commodity businesses bankrupt
“If you're a steel company or an airliner and you're in some commodity industry and you misallocate capital for 10 years, you go bankrupt. Someone takes you over. If you're Microsoft, if you're Adobe, if you have a very strong franchise and you don't necessaril…”
Hale: Activist ideas are almost never novel to internal company employees
“Usually when we're investing in a company, there are a lot of people inside the company who see the exact same opportunity that we see. It's almost never the case that we have some idea that nobody in the company has ever thought of.”
Hale: Rebuilding cost structures from zero base beats relying on 10-Ks
“That analysis of let's just ignore what you see in the 10 K. Let's just build up zero base. What does this business cost structure look like? That is by far, I think the most important exercise that we do early in our due diligence process.”
Hale: Japan ranks second globally for high-margin billion-dollar public companies
“The number one market Is the U S with about a thousand companies with over a billion market cap and above 40% gross margins. The number two market is Japan with 250. After that, you get to numbers around 50 to a hundred in countries in Europe.”
Hale: Activists in Japan must ask 'yes when' to avoid decade-long delays
“One thing that we've learned to focus on is when you hear yes, you always have to ask yes when, because yes can mean yes, but in 10 years after I've retired, and you want to make sure that that's not the source of the misunderstanding.”
Hale: ValueAct has participated in 27 CEO succession processes
“There have been 27 cases where we've been involved in CEO succession.”