Fresh round of company write-ups from Substack worth reading, all published within the last week. Not my work - sourced from Giles Capital's weekly compilation: https://gilescapital.substack.com
Americas
Wolf of Oakville on ADF Group (🇨🇦 DRX TSX - CAD$294m) Structural steel fabricator, 9.9x earnings, $646m contracted backlog after a record quarter. It quietly reshuffled to 72% Canadian clients as US tariffs hit. Founders own 51%.
Karst Research on Titan America (🇺🇸 TTAM US - US$2.9bn) East Coast cement producer at 8x EV/EBIT, generating mid-teens returns on capital. The Keystone Cement acquisition just added 990,000 tons of capacity and 50 years of mineral reserves.
Rijnberk Invest Insights on Synopsys (🇺🇸 SNPS US - US$91bn) Electronic design automation, the software that makes chip design possible. Whoever wins the chip war, Synopsys gets paid. Trades at 31x earnings with net debt of $7.5bn.
Rebound Capital on Lululemon Athletica (🇨🇦 LULU US - US$13.8bn) Premium athletic apparel brand off its 2023 highs. Rebound Capital's case is that the China slowdown and North America plateau are temporary. Worth watching if margins recover toward historical levels.
TQI Capital on Ollie's Bargain Outlet (🇺🇸 OLLI US - US$5.2bn) US off-price retailer with 550+ stores at 18x earnings. Two soft quarters blamed on poor weather. The article asks whether this is a buying opportunity or a business in decline.
The Pursuit of Compounding on MarineMax (🇺🇸 HZO US - US$758m) America's largest specialty boat dealership, carrying net debt well above its market cap after a rate-driven sales collapse. Three percent insider ownership. The Pursuit of Compounding sees a contrarian entry.
0xAnalysis on Optimum Communications ($OPTU) (🇨🇦 OPTU NYSE - US$505m) SHORT Canadian telecoms company. The author argues the balance sheet is more fragile than it appears and debt covenants require a level of operating performance the historical data has not consistently delivered.
PP Invest on Serabi Gold (🇧🇷 SRB LN - US$342m) TOP PICK Brazilian gold miner growing output 20% year-on-year, trading at 6x earnings. No debt and $64m cash. Record gold prices are widening margins faster than consensus expects.
Europe, Middle East & Africa
Rock & Turner on Wise Group (🇬🇧 WISE LN - £16.8bn) Cross-border payments platform processing $243bn in annual volume, growing 27%. Management is now applying for a US national bank charter to move beyond payment rails into deposits.
Crack the Market on Umicore (🇧🇪 UMI BB - €6.5bn) Belgian materials group supplying both battery chemicals and catalytic converters. Cash generation has recovered ahead of schedule. Trades at 15x earnings with €1.5bn net debt.
Asia-Pacific
8 Percent Per Annum on Trend Micro (🇯🇵 4704 JP - ¥787bn) Japanese cybersecurity firm with $1.5bn in net cash, trading at 21x earnings. An activist investor is pushing for capital returns. Four analysts cover it, mostly locally.
Deep Value Capital by Kyler on Cochlear (🇦🇺 COH AU - AUD$6.6bn) Australian maker of cochlear implants and global market leader in a high-barrier niche. Trades at 20x earnings. The recurring upgrade revenue from each implant underpins the long-term valuation.
Continuous Compounding on Oricon (🇯🇵 4800 JP - ¥13.5bn) TOP PICK Japan's music charts data company, trading at 4.4x EV/EBIT with net cash equal to 35% of market cap. A management buyout at 1,332 yen per share looms over the thesis.