⁠Dimitry Nakhla | Babylon Capital®
RT @DimitryNakhla: A sober valuation analysis on $TMO 🧘🏽‍♂️

•NTM P/E Ratio: 23.68x
•5-Year Mean: 24.92x

•NTM FCF Yield: 4.09%
•5-Year Mean: 3.59%

As you can see, $TMO appears to be trading near fair value

Going forward, investors can receive ~5% MORE in earnings per share & ~14% MORE in FCF per share 🧠***

Before we get into valuation, let’s take a look at why $TMO is a great business

BALANCE SHEET🆗
•Cash & Short-Term Inv: $6.65B
•Long-Term Debt: $31.20B

$TMO has a good balance sheet (acquisitions a big growth driver), a A- S&P Credit Rating & 6x FFO Interest Coverage

RETURN ON CAPITAL✅*
•2019: 8.3%
•2020: 13.4%
•2021: 12.8%
•2022: 10.3%
•2023: 8.7%
•LTM: 8.6%

*lower ROIC due to acquisition strategy

RETURN ON EQUITY✅
•2019: 12.9%
•2020: 19.9%
•2021: 20.5%
•2022: 16.4%
•2023: 13.1%
•LTM: 12.9%

$TMO has strong return metrics, highlighting the financial efficiency of the business

REVENUES✅
•2013: $13.09B
•2023: $42.86B
•CAGR: 12.59%

FREE CASH FLOW✅
•2013: $1.73B
•2023: $6.93B
•CAGR: 14.88%

NORMALIZED EPS✅
•2013: $5.42
•2023: $21.55
•CAGR: 14.80%

SHARE BUYBACKS❌
•2013 Shares Outstanding: 365.80M
•LTM Shares Outstanding: 384.25M

MARGINS✅
•LTM Gross Margins: 40.7%
•LTM Operating Margins: 17.4%
•LTM Net Income Margins: 14.5%

***NOW TO VALUATION 🧠

As stated above, investors can expect to receive ~5% MORE in EPS & ~14% MORE in FCF per share

Using Benjamin Graham’s 2G rule of thumb, $TMO has to grow earnings at an 11.84% CAGR over the next several years to justify its valuation

Today, analysts anticipate 2025 - 2026 EPS growth over the next few years to be less than the (11.84%) required growth rate:

2024E: $21.70 (0.7% YoY) *FY Dec

2025E: $23.58 (8.7% YoY)
2026E: $26.37 (11.8% YoY)

$TMO has an excellent track record of meeting analyst estimates ~2 years out, so let’s assume $TMO ends 2026 with $26.37 in EPS & see its CAGR potential assuming different multiples

27x P/E: $711.99💵 … ~14.0% CAGR

26x P/E: $685.62💵 … ~12.0% CAGR

25x P/E: $659.25💵 … ~10.0% CAGR

24x P/E: $632.88💵 … ~7.9% CAGR

As you can see, $TMO appears to have attractive return potential IF we assume >26x earnings (a multiple above its 5-year mean & multiple that may be slightly demanding given its growth rate

However, $TMO is an excellent business with a wide moat & will benefit from future ongoing sector demand

Yet, those buying $TMO today at $541💵 are buying it for a fair price, with little margin of safety

I’d be more interested in $TMO closer to $500💵 (8% below today’s price) where I can reasonably expect ~11% to ~12% CAGR while assuming a 23x - 24x end multiple, ensuring a comfortable margin of safety

#stocks #investing
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𝐃𝐈𝐒𝐂𝐋𝐎𝐒𝐔𝐑𝐄‼️: 𝐓𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐢𝐬 𝐍𝐎𝐓 𝐈𝐧𝐯𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐀𝐝𝐯𝐢𝐜𝐞. 𝐁𝐚𝐛𝐲𝐥𝐨𝐧 𝐂𝐚𝐩𝐢𝐭𝐚𝐥® 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐢𝐭𝐬 𝐫𝐞𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞𝐬 𝐦𝐚𝐲 𝐡𝐚𝐯𝐞 𝐩𝐨𝐬𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐞𝐜𝐮𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐞𝐬 𝐝𝐢𝐬𝐜𝐮𝐬𝐬𝐞𝐝 𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐭𝐰𝐞𝐞𝐭.

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐢𝐧𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐦𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐝 𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐭𝐰𝐞𝐞𝐭 𝐢𝐬 𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐝 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐢𝐧𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐦𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐥 𝐩𝐮𝐫𝐩𝐨𝐬𝐞𝐬 𝐨𝐧𝐥𝐲 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐬𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐝 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐛𝐞 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐮𝐞𝐝 𝐚𝐬 𝐢𝐧𝐯𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐚𝐝𝐯𝐢𝐜𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐦𝐞𝐞𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐩𝐞𝐜𝐢𝐟𝐢𝐜 𝐧𝐞𝐞𝐝𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐚𝐧𝐲 𝐢𝐧𝐝𝐢𝐯𝐢𝐝𝐮𝐚𝐥 𝐨𝐫 𝐬𝐢𝐭𝐮𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧. 𝐏𝐚𝐬𝐭 𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐦𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐢𝐬 𝐧𝐨 𝐠𝐮𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐟𝐮𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐞 𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐮𝐥𝐭𝐬.

𝐈𝐧𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐦𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐝 𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐭𝐰𝐞𝐞𝐭 𝐡𝐚𝐬 𝐛𝐞𝐞𝐧 𝐨𝐛𝐭𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐝 𝐟𝐫𝐨𝐦 𝐬𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐜𝐞𝐬 𝐛𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐨 𝐛𝐞 𝐫𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐚𝐛𝐥𝐞, 𝐛𝐮𝐭 𝐢𝐬 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐠𝐮𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐞𝐝 𝐚𝐬 𝐭𝐨 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐥𝐞𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐞𝐬𝐬 𝐨𝐫 𝐚𝐜𝐜𝐮𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐲.
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⁠Capital Employed
RT @longcastadviser: i'm not sure being a buddhist makes anyone a better investor, but i know a lot of PM's who are practicing buddhists. it reinforces the view that investing is about emotional self management, sitting with discomfort and giving up on certainty and want.
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⁠Stock Analysis Compilation
Longriver Partners Fund on Hikari $6247

Thesis: Hikari Tsushin, the 'Berkshire of Japan, offers a rare deep value opportunity, trading at just 3x trailing earnings with a portfolio of stable, asset-light businesses

(Extract from their Q3 letter, link to the analysis in SAC#64) https://t.co/8owrUBCuLb
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⁠Stock Analysis Compilation
Ennismore on Baltic Classifieds Group $BCG LN

Thesis: Baltic Classifieds stands out with market dominance, exceptional margins, and sustained double-digit growth, making it a high-quality play on the rapidly expanding Baltic economies

(Extract from their Q3 letter) https://t.co/UH6IHeIbXk
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⁠Investing visuals
I'll be sharing a Celcius $CELH one-pager analysis soon!

Would you also be interested in a side-by-side comparison with their main competitor Monster $MNST? https://t.co/VLd08Bpytf
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⁠Startup Archive
Rick Rubin on the power of creating something truly for yourself

Elon Musk has said that Rick Rubin’s philosophy of creating something truly for yourself is how Tesla creates products.

Rick elaborates on this philosophy in the clip below:

“My only goal is to make something that I like, and I know that I can keep working on it until I like it. So in some ways there’s no pressure.”

Rick doesn’t consider the audience at all:

“The audience comes last… I’m not making it for them. I’m making it for me. And it turns out that when you make something truly for yourself, you’re doing the best thing you possibly can for the audience.”

He argues that this is why there are so many bad movies today:

“So many big movies are just not good. It’s because they’re are not being made by a person who cares about it. They’re being made by people who are trying to make something they think someone else will like. And that’s not how art works.”

Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt argues a similar point:

"If you think about the greatest products, they've almost always been designed for the benefit of the people who are actually building them.”

Uber started out as a private timeshare limousine service for Garrett Camp and his friends. Microsoft started when Bill Gates and Paul Allen wrote a Basic interpreter for the Altair so they didn’t have to write machine language to program it. Drew Houston built Dropbox to make his files live online after forgetting his USB stick. Larry Page and Sergey Brin built Google for Stanford—and particularly for themselves—with the first server in Larry’s dorm room.

Video source: @LewisHowes (2023)
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⁠Capital Employed
Essential weekend reading...

https://t.co/kJUnPu1NW2 https://t.co/Q8ErhCyD4s
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⁠Investing visuals
Palantir $PLTR vs Crowdstrike $CRWD: two top notch software companies shaping the future 💎👌

Who will outperform over the next 10 years? https://t.co/xNQ7BnXP6Z
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Munro on On Holdings $ONON US

Thesis: On Holdings is poised for sustained growth, leveraging luxury brand perception, direct-to-consumer sales, and innovative partnerships, while redefining athleisure with cutting-edge technology

(Extract from their Q3 letter) https://t.co/Q9X8JeGPnF
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⁠App Economy Insights
📊 This Week in Visuals: $TCEHY $BABA $CSCO $AMAT $SHOP $SPOT $NU $SE $JD $NTES $FLUT $DDOG $LYV $GRAB $ONON $LNVGY $CYBR $CART $STNE $DLO $SEMR $OLO

Check out the latest earnings👇
https://t.co/71Ps5KqS6D https://t.co/UURFW0eF2B
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⁠Startup Archive
Sam Altman's 9 things that the best founders do to build a great company

#1 Get to know your users really well

“The best founders do customer support themselves. They go visit their users—in the case of Airbnb they go live with them. You want to get to know your users really really well.”

#2 Have a short cycle time & understand compound growth

“The cycle here is basically: talk to customer to understand pain point → build product to address that → get that in front of user → see what they do → repeat cycle. This cycle is how you iterate and improve. The law of compound growth being what it is: if you can get 2% better every iteration cycle, your iteration cycle is every four hours rather than every four weeks, and you compound that over the course of a few years, you’ll be in a very very different place. Make it one of your top goals to build one of the fastest iterating companies the world has ever seen.”

#3 Make a long-term commitment

“Most companies have a 2-3 year time horizon. But companies are almost always a 10 year project if they work. If you think about it that way from the very beginning, you will make very different and much better decisions. I think this is the only arbitrage opportunity left in the market. Almost no one makes a fairly long-term commitment to a new project. But if you do that, you will think in a different way, you will hire different people, and it will work very well.”

#4 Stay lean until everything is working really well

“In the early days, when you’re experimenting and zig zagging, you’re like a fast little speed boat and want to be able to turn the whole company on a dime. You can’t do that if you’re a big company—cash burn aside, which is another problem. The flexibility of the company basically decreases with the square of the number of employees, so you want to stay really small until you’re sure things are working. Once things are working, then you can get really big.”

#5 Resist the urge to hire; especially resist the urge to hire mediocre people

“Vinod Khosla has a saying that I love: ‘the team you build is the company you build.’ This is really true and I never appreciated how true this was for a long time. If you build a team of great people and you have a product that people love, you’ll have a 90%+ chance of success. Those are both really hard to do, and they’re independent variables. But don’t ignore the team component. The best CEOs I know spend huge amounts of time recruiting and retaining good talent.”

#6 Relentless execution

“You have to keep going, and do things perfectly, and get all of the details right. You have to care too much about every experience that a customer has with their company.”

#7 Startups are about not giving up

“One of the very best companies in the last YC batch applied 7 times before they got in. This is just a version of what happens in startups all of the time: you get beat down, again, and again, and again. And that last time when you get pushed down and don’t think you have enough energy to get back up—that’s the time it actually works. This is what you sign up for if you’re going to start a startup.”

#8 Fiduciary duty to take care of yourself

“This is a 10 year marathon and you have a fiduciary duty to your shareholders to take care of yourself. Some people treat startups like an all-nighter: they don’t take care of their health, they don’t sleep, they don’t maintain their personal relationships. It is true that startups are a bad choice for work-life balance. But you have a duty to yourself, your team, and your investors to take care of yourself.”

#9 Clear mission

“You don’t have to figure this out on Day 1, but all of the most successful startups I’ve been fortunate enough to be a part of pretty quickly—in the first one to two y[...]