SumZero Headlines

This week, we are joined by Andy Woltman and Chip Hodgkins, co-founders of Statera Capital, to discuss their private approach to commercial litigation finance. As previously covered on SumZero Headlines, litigation finance is a mature industry in Western Europe and Australia and growing rapidly in the US. With only 25% penetration in the US and over $10B raised over the last five years, litigation finance has produced outsize returns for the small cadre of funds currently involved. Statera Capital invests directly in small to mid-size commercial claims, providing working capital and access to justice for litigants who need it most. 

Ben Griffith of Miri Capital Management covers names you have probably never heard of in regions most investors shy away from. Over years of refining his strategy, Griffith has developed his own brand of friendly activist investing for emerging markets like Turkey, Bangladesh, Poland, and Vietnam to name a few. Where most investors see deficiencies, Griffith sees opportunities to correct international perception, craft a marketing narrative (often for the first time), refine the business model, and integrate ESG standards with his portfolio companies. In this week's episode, Griffith joins us to discuss his EM strategy, the reasons value becomes obfuscated outside of developed markets, and several case studies. 

This week, we are excited to share a conversation with Warren Fisher, Founder/PM of Manole Capital Management on the digital payment tools and digital asset exchanges reshaping the commerce and banking landscapes. Contactless payment, online shopping, and buy-now-pay-later are all fintech concepts that exploded during the COVID-19 pandemic with no signs of slowing down. Payment providers like Venmo and merchant acquirers like Square are consistently stealing market share from traditional banks, who will have to adapt to stay relevant. In this episode, we also touch on the growth of cryptocurrencies and exchanges like Coinbase and Kraken. 

This week, we sat down with Eric Gregg, founder/PM of Four Tree Island Advisory to get into the nuts and bolts of semiconductors and wafer fabrication equipment (WFE). Although WFE is less followed and certainly less research, Gregg encourages active investors to pay attention to these underlying semi components and their manufacturers. Increased computation, memory, and storage needs in every industry from automotive to telecommunications to military technology will mean increased demand for semiconductors. WFE is the number one capital expenditure for all major chipmakers and the WFE industry is largely US-centric. Wafers are a critical piece of the semiconductor supply chain, which according to Gregg has become as nationally important as oil. Please find Gregg's original research on Applied Materials and Lam Research on SumZero and the Four Tree Island Advisory profile on our Cap Intro platform.

This week, we sat down with Scott Preston, founder and CEO of Maven Group LLC, to dissect the GameStop saga and provide the fundamentally-driven narrative not being covered by major media outlets. According to Preston, who has held GME intermittently over the past decade, GameStop is a sound business with several growth opportunities and innovative leadership. In the last several years, management has moved to reshape the business model and consumer experience for modern day gaming. GameStop is no longer reliant on console cycles but actively expanding into eSports, direct-to-consumer marketing, social gaming, and rewards programs that promise substantial runway for recapitalization. The retail investor phenomenon and associated press have certainly helped raise GME's profile but they have not changed the fundamental value drivers that investors like Preston observe.

This week, we sat down with Gary Brode of Deep Knowledge Investing to unpack his HCA thesis amidst an ongoing pandemic and the Supreme Court confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett. How are HCA revenues up with hospital admissions and ER visits down? Brode discusses the joint catalysts of increased patient acuity and imminent changes to the Affordable Care Act.

This week, we are pleased to share a conversation on the uranium opportunity with SumZero's #2 Energy Analyst, Will Thomson. Prior to founding Massif Capital in 2016, Thomson worked as a strategic adviser for NATO in Afghanistan and earned his Masters in Government from Harvard. In today's conversation, we discuss the political, environmental, and economic considerations in the nuclear debate and what role uranium should play in global efforts towards decarbonization. Thomson also shares key insights on the short-term effects of COVID-19 on uranium supply and Kazatomprom, his firm's core holding in the space.

This week, SumZero is excited to offer our very first corporate access event featuring Ken Londoner, CEO of BioSig Technologies (NASDAQ: BSGM). Londoner is a former buyside investor and entrepreneur, who founded BioSig in 2009 after years of analyzing early-stage growth companies in the medtech space. BioSig has patented its core product, Pure EP™ which provides bioelectronic signal processing technology to hospitals and innovation centers in their treatment of arrythmia. Londoner sheds light on the $5B electrophysiology market, BioSig's strategic partnership with the Mayo Clinic, and the far-reaching software applications for Pure EP™ beyond cardiac ablation. 

This week, we sat down with Brian Finn, Founder/PM of FIN Capital who is currently SumZero’s top-ranked contributor. Finn uses his behavioral economics background to weigh the impact of common biases in the public markets. In this episode, Finn introduces us to the concepts of herding, anchoring and recency bias and presents two related case studies: MiMedx and Century Aluminum.

Last week, we discussed the strengths and weaknesses of Bitcoin with crypto funds, Permian Capital Management and WealthMark LLC.  Josh Kernan and Ian Del Balso of Permian Capital introduce several other digital assets & technologies including Basic Attention Token (BAT) and the Brave browser, which sits atop the Ethereum blockchain. With over 10M monthly active users, Brave experienced a 19% surge in usership between October and November '19. Next, Ben Esget of WealthMark walks us through the "stock to flow" valuation framework for Bitcoin, citing increasingly low interest rates and the Bitcoin halving process as growth catalysts.

This week, we discuss a Singaporean stock capturing major investor attention, Sea Ltd. and growth opportunities in the online gaming sector. Brian Oh, founder/PM of Saiga Capital, focuses exclusively on gaming equities and shares his macro insights and top picks headed into 2020.

This week, we are joined by Oliver Harris and his team at UK-based Montreux Capital to discuss their specialist healthcare portfolio and the sector-wide implications of Brexit proposals on labor, tax code, and immigration.

Peter Galgay, CIO of Amitell Capital, joins us to take up the other side of the ongoing Burford Capital debate. Galgay and his team have spent years researching litigation finance as an asset class and are invested in a close competitor, IMF Bentham. Galgay draws comparisons between IMF and Burford and outlines investors' discomfort with Burford accounting methods among other insights.

Artem Fokin of Caro-Kann Capital responds publicly to the Muddy Waters case against Burford Capital, as one of the most vocal bulls on the name. He unpacks all salient claims - from accounting irregularities to ethical concerns which have resulted in a 50% price drop since early August.

SumZero’s CEO Divya Narendra sits down with Albert Meyer of Bastiat Capital to parse Harry Markopolos’ fraud claims against GE and his insights on the stock from a forensic accounting perspective.