Value_Chain

Ruane Cunniff’s Acacia Fund, started in the 1980s, has quietly built one of the longest-running and most consistent track records in investing. Greg Alexander and Acacia have stayed intensely private. Little is written, few interviews exist, and capital has compounded far from the spotlight. Even Warren Buffett once pointed to Alexander as one of the most talented investors he’s encountered. It’s a powerful reminder: some of the best investors don’t seek attention, they avoid it! Let’s dive in.

Last year, Donald Trump Jr. invested in a rare earths startup at a $200 million valuation. Then three months later, the US government announced a huge loan backstop for the company and now it's worth around $2 billion. bloomberg.com/news/features/…

This is an ASTONISHING level of corruption. DHS handed a $143 MILLION no-bid contract to a company that was 8 days old, with no headquarters, no website, no prior federal work, and an address linked to a residence of a political operative. That company then subcontracted with a firm whose CEO is married to Noem's former Assistant Secretary — the same official who ran the DHS office that awarded the contract. And what did taxpayers get for $143 million of their money? Ads featuring Kristi Noem on horseback in front of Mount Rushmore. It was long past time for Noem to go. To whoever comes next: we will watch every contract and dollar, and we intend to hold you accountable for all of it.

@JerryCap I agree with your point. But I guess you could say with 2-3% PCE growth + 2-3% inflation, they can still grow revenue 4-6% (EPS 6-8%) in perpetuity while being protected by entrenched network effects. 23x PCF didn’t seem egregious for that.

The Visa Mastercard penetration thesis is now over. I owned $MA and $V for 13 ish years. Sold $MA summer 2025. $V seems fine for PCE growth but I don't care much for VAS. Cheaper ways to express VAS growth IMO.

Profound words of wisdom from Alan Watts. "One day you'll realize you've already lived through some of the best days of your life and you didn't even know it at the time." "You were too busy chasing what's next, busy worrying about what's missing. Thinking happiness was something you'd arrive at one day." "But while you were waiting you were laughing with people who won't always be around. You were making memories in places you'll one day drive past and feel something you can't explain. You were standing in moments that didn't feel like the good old days until they were gone." "So stop waiting for life to start. You're already living it."

DHS agents in MN swerved in front of an unarmed woman who was recording them, once again WALK IN FRONT OF A CAR with guns drawn. The only thing they've learned from Renee Good is how to get away with killing people. A local cop intervened to stop the illegal arrest!

I sound like a broken record, but every day I am shocked in some new way by the moral depravity of this administration. Look, AI is here, and we all have an interest in not sharing stuff that's fake or getting fooled by it. Who can we trust? Decent people care about building some reputation for trustworthiness. Here we have an official government account sharing a fake AI photo of a woman getting arrested as if it's real. Hasn't been convicted of anything, they're out in public openly putting out a fake photo of a suspect before her trial. Their response when caught doing this is "The memes will continue." They just don't care! They have no interest in maintaining a reputation for honesty among those they might try to win over, or their allies. This is the most disturbing part. They just don't operate in a universe where ethics, truth, or trustworthiness are actual values or even things that have instrumental value. They're morally rotten in ways that I wouldn't think are possible. Again, it gets old constantly going off about the depravity of the right at this moment. But they find new ways to surprise us. They have to be defeated.

@SimplerInvestor Appreciate you sharing your thoughts - you’ve found some cool off the beaten the path businesses!

@OldWell17 The tax rate situation there is a bit special. I would rather look at the OP income. The lift in the margins has been between 250bps and 400bps from 23' to 25'

New Write Up on: 🇯🇵 $353A Elevator Communications Co, Ltd EV/MC - 3,000B ¥ EBIT FY 26 (May 26) 300M ¥-350M ¥ EBIT/FCF Conversion- 101% (3 Year Average) EV/EBIT-10x EV/FCF-10x ROIC-31% -Founder Led -Insiders own 75% -Revenue has grown every year since 2006 Link in bio

@SimplerInvestor Got it, thanks. It’ll be interesting to see if they can maintain these margins. It looks like they only earned 1% net margin for the 4 years up to FY5/24, with a loss on pretax profit in 2022.

@OldWell17 They mention it in their IPO prospectus.

@mediaking @ValueConfusion Wow, what a pretentious comment.

@ValueConfusion Sounds like you need to figure out how to make your time more valuable then.

Private jets are time machines. Yesterday morning, I walked my daughter to school at 7:45 AM. I was in Fargo by 10:00 AM for a venture capital conference. Flew from Fargo to Milwaukee last night. Attending another conference today. Will fly back after and be home in time for a late supper with the wife and kids.

I am Nate Anderson, the founder of Hindenburg Research referenced repeatedly in this bizarre and fantastical interview. During my career, I helped expose numerous financial scams, including over a dozen Ponzi schemes and numerous instances of public companies lying to and stealing from investors: hindenburgresearch.com/about-us/ I am immensely proud of that career including our work on Nikola Motors referenced in the interview. Trevor Milton is a convicted fraudster held criminally responsible for the incineration of hundreds of millions of dollars in retail investors’ hard-earned money. As should be unsurprising, Milton in this interview seems to just fabricate key events and information out of thin air – unfortunately with zero critical questioning or pushback from Tucker. For starters, contrary to Trevor Milton’s implications that his prosecution was some sort of Biden administration conspiracy, conveniently neither Milton nor Tucker share that the investigation into Milton was started and disclosed in September 2020 – under the first TRUMP administration and well before the 2020 election. There were numerous inaccuracies throughout the interview. The claim that Hindenburg paid employees for inside information is patently absurd. The key whistleblower discussed in the interview was only briefly a contractor for Milton. He was so horrified by what he viewed as Milton’s repeated false claims that he did a tremendous amount of research on his own, unraveling numerous additional suspected lies that Milton peddled to the investing public. Further, Hindenburg didn’t “coordinate” anything with media or the DoJ. Such entities ran their own investigations for their own purposes unconnected to us. There was ample evidence that Milton misstated numerous aspects of his business, as the company itself later acknowledged. It would take hours to write about all the other absurdities, half-truths, innuendos and false statements in this interview but in the interest of correcting some of the record, here’s a handful: - Milton waxes on about his pardon, but no one mentioned that Milton’s lawyer was Brad Bondi—the brother of AG Pam Bondi. Nor did anyone mention that Milton donated $900 thousand to Trump in October 2024, less than a month before the recent election—strategically timed well after his criminal conviction and immediately prior to the presidential election. Trump acknowledged he had never heard of Milton before being asked to pardon him but relied on others for the recommendation. - Milton failed to mention that immediately prior to his resignation from his company, beyond the extensive allegations of fraud, he was also publicly accused of multiple instances of sexual assault, including by his own cousin, who went on-the-record with her allegations. - I can only wonder what kind of investigation Tucker undertook of the fraud allegations against Milton before having him on. Milton literally video-taped a truck rolling down a hill implying that it was driving under its own power. He also went up on stage and said a truck that didn’t work “fully functions and works.” - Waxing poetic about hydrogen in the interview echoes Nikola’s lies to retail investors that it successfully produced hydrogen at a cost ~81% lower than anyone on earth, a feat that would have upended the entire energy industry had it been remotely true. Nikola’s head of hydrogen production, presumably in charge of this world-changing scientific breakthrough, turned out to be Milton’s own brother, who had no scientific background and previously did odd construction jobs in Hawaii. - These weren’t one-off misstatements—there were dozens of examples like these. As the DoJ said – and proved in court – Milton “made false claims regarding nearly all aspects of Nikola’s business.” The company itself admitted to many of these false statements, agreed to a $125 million fine, and won an arbitration against Milton holding him personally liable for his conduct. - Milton claimed that Hindenburg made $30m-$100m on our Nikola investment—this isn’t even close (we made a fraction of that). Trevor seems to just be making these numbers up out of thin air. Hilariously, Tucker opened by suggesting that short selling was illegal until 2007, a claim that is completely false. After confirming that he knows nothing about the subject, he went on to suggest that short selling should be criminalized outright. Short selling has existed for hundreds of years, and for good reason. Short sellers play a critical role in the functioning of healthy markets, similar to the role of investigative journalists, (which I presume Tucker considers himself akin to). Most companies are a force for good and economic growth. However, some companies lie and engage in fraud. Short sellers have exposed nearly every major corporate fraud in the past several decades because just as there is an economic incentive for identifying the good companies, there is also an economic model for identifying the scams. This is how free markets and free speech works—helping weed out the bad companies and those stealing from investors so good companies have more room to thrive. Claiming to be a free speech advocate while casually advocating for the imprisonment of anyone who dares to speak critically about public companies is a contradiction of the highest order. In short, Tucker, I highly suggest you actually vet the people you welcome onto your platform. If you find yourself staring, mouth agape at your interviewee, repeatedly saying “Wow! This is unbelievable!” it may in fact be because it’s unbelievable. You reach a lot of people and this one was an avoidable miss. Good day.

@hurdle_rate True, capital allocation seems crucial here. I think of Keystone who eschews M&A vs the graveyard of listed law firm peers who struggled as serial acquirers. So far FRP seems to have been a prudent acquirer but time will tell if these non-restructuring acquisitions make sense.

@hurdle_rate Interesting companies, in theory counter-cyclical. Curious how you judge the quality of these restructuring advisory businesses relative to your broader universe. Surprised to see FRP growing so fast historically yet only at 11x P/E.

@lawlornfl Thank you - keep up the great work!

@OldWell17 I will look into this.

The Eagles released their behind the scenes draft video. Some thoughts on the video and the draft in general. igglesblitz.com/2025/05/inside…

@AaronRofficial_ lol I am 1000% not predicting the collapse of America.

Just incredible

LOLOL Chamath claims to "control" one of the largest rare earth mineral supplies outside of China. I comment with proof that CCP owns more of the company than he does (proof below). Chamath HIDES my comment.