This is Zack Fuss. Today we are breaking down The Coca-Cola Company. On May 8th, 1886, Dr. John Pemberton brought this perfected syrup to Jacobs Pharmacy in downtown Atlanta, where the first glass of Coca-Cola was poured for five cents a glass. Today, more than 1. 9 billion servings per day of Coke are served worldwide. To break down Coca-Cola, I'm joined by Freddie Lait, Founder and Managing Partner at Latitude Investment Management. We cover the business of Coca-Cola and how its bottling netwo...
Nov 15, 2023•45 min•Ep. 136
Today we are breaking down FedEx. FedEx has a more direct impact on the U.S. economy than 99.9% of U.S. businesses - an actual statistic from Dun & Bradstreet. It was a business started in 1973 by the famous Fred Smith, as his planes delivered 186 packages to 25 cities. Today, FedEx moves about 15 million packages a day, all over the world. To break down the business, I'm joined by Staley Cates, Vice Chairman of Southeastern Asset Management. We cover the business of FedEx, how this network ...
Nov 08, 2023•56 min•Ep. 135
This is Zack Fuss. Today I am joined by Yanev Suissa, Managing Partner at SineWave Ventures, to break down the private company Databricks. Born out of a UC Berkeley research lab in 2013, Databricks has grown rapidly, and after 50% growth this summer, it was rumored to have last raised at a $43 billion valuation. In the most simple terms, Databricks provides tools for ingesting, transforming, and analyzing large sets of data from multiple sources in multiple formats in order to inform business an...
Nov 01, 2023•50 min•Ep. 134
This is Matt Reustle and today we are breaking down the giant of online dating. Even if you found love the old-fashioned way, you're likely familiar with the Match brands like Tinder and Hinge, amongst many others. To break down Match, I'm joined by George Hadjia, founder of Bristlemoon Capital. George goes through a background on this industry, what made Match who it is today, and all of the key debates that are driving this stock and all the commentary around it. Please enjoy this breakdown of...
Oct 25, 2023•1 hr 9 min•Ep. 133
This is Matt Reustle and today we are breaking down Olin Corporation. Olin is a key player in industrial chemicals but many of those chemicals are used in products that we encounter on a day-to-day basis. To break down Olin, I'm joined by Yinan Zhao from Pzena Investment Management. Together we cover the chlor-alkali market, what it means to be the lowest-cost producer of a given commodity, and how Olin has shifted its business model and its operational model to help sustain earnings through cyc...
Oct 18, 2023•58 min•Ep. 132
This is Matt Reustle and today we are breaking down WEX, a big fish in a less known pond. WEX is a leader in the fleet card market - they offer trucking businesses special credit cards which help secure advantaged rates on fuel among many other things. This is a business with a long history as WEX is headquartered in Maine, and really came to life in the 1980s. To break down WEX, I'm joined by Mark Tomasovic from Energize Capital, a multiple-time guest on Business Breakdowns. We get into the his...
Oct 13, 2023•42 min•Ep. 131
This is Matt Reustle and today we are breaking down the data services giant, Equifax. Experian, TransUnion, and Equifax have built this fascinating oligopoly worth studying, but the business has extended well beyond the credit checks on mortgages. Their employee verification tool, The Work Number, may be their most valuable asset today. To break down Equifax, I'm joined by Mo Spolan, analyst at Weitz Investments. We dive into both sides of the business, the unique industry structures that they s...
Oct 04, 2023•1 hr 3 min•Ep. 130
This is Zack Fuss, an investor at Irenic Capital, and today we’re breaking down Boeing. Founded in Seattle in 1916 by William Boeing, the company has produced thousands of commercial and military aircraft over the past century. It is an important national and global asset and one-half of arguably the most famous duopoly in business, alongside Airbus. To break down Boeing, I’m joined by Jon Ostrower, founder and editor-in-chief of The Air Current. You can split Boeing’s business into three segmen...
Sep 27, 2023•47 min•Ep. 129
This is Dom Cooke and today we’re breaking down an Irish business that has become the global leader in insulation products for buildings. Founded in 1965, the business is called Kingspan and today it has a market cap of nearly 13 billion euros. The bulk of their business comes from insulating big, commercial new builds – Tesla Factories, Apple’s Headquarters, the Emirates Stadium in London – all places where you’ll find Kingspan’s products. To break down this business, I’m joined by Nick Griffin...
Sep 13, 2023•48 min•Ep. 128
This is Dom Cooke and today’s breakdown is a little different. Last week we looked at the most popular sport in the world in Football. Today, we break down the business behind a sport in its relative infancy - Padel. This racket sport started in the late 60s in Mexico and became big in many Spanish speaking countries. It then got a significant COVID bump and momentum has remained strong since. To break down this burgeoning sport, I’m joined by Alan Flatt, CEO and President of EEP Capital. We loo...
Sep 06, 2023•55 min•Ep. 127
This is Dom Cooke and today we’re breaking down the business behind the most popular sport in the world, Football or Soccer. It’s a vast market. 3 billion people around the world watch the sport and more than €30 billion euros are spent within the football ecosystem in Europe alone each year. But aside from a huge addressable market and reasonable revenue, is it actually a good business? Why do investors keep buying Football clubs? Is there any economic rationale behind that? Is there a link bet...
Aug 30, 2023•1 hr•Ep. 126
Today we are going into the land of convenience stores to break down Casey's General Stores. Casey's currently operates in 16 states in the Midwest and Southern US. As of this recording, they have close to a $10 billion market cap and are the number three player in their market. To break down Casey's, Matt Reustle is joined by Markus Hansen, portfolio manager and senior analyst at Vontobel Asset Management. We cover the industry of convenience stores, including the competition that exists in thi...
Aug 23, 2023•48 min•Ep. 125
This is Matt Reustle and today we are breaking down Take-Two Interactive Software. If you listened to our Business Breakdown on Electronic Arts, Take Two is another giant in the video game publishing space. They are best known for their Grand Theft Auto and 2K franchise. To break down Take-Two I'm joined by Eric Kress, principal at Gossamer Consulting Group. Eric spent multiple decades inside the video game market, both as an investor and as an operator, and we tap into his perspective from both...
Aug 16, 2023•55 min•Ep. 124
This is Zack Fuss, an investor at Irenic Capital, and today we’re breaking down Nubank. The Brazilian-based neobank has gone from nothing to extraordinary scale in a short period of time. 10 years after its founding, the company counts 46% of Brazil’s adult population as customers, is the largest Fintech in Latin America, and has a market capitalization of $37 billion. The fact that it’s achieved this in an environment that heavily favored the large incumbent banks makes its story all the more i...
Aug 09, 2023•1 hr 6 min•Ep. 123
This is Zack Fuss, an investor at Irenic Capital. Today, we're breaking down Argenx, an immunology company founded in 2008 by its three founding partners. Today, it's a $30 billion company set to produce over a billion dollars in sales. They're known for their skill in developing antibodies for complex disease targets and owe a large part of their medical breakthroughs to llamas, which have similar antibodies in their immune system to those found in humans. To break down Argenx, I'm joined by Ju...
Aug 02, 2023•44 min•Ep. 122
This is Matt Reustle and today we are breaking down the vehicle auction giant, Copart. You may be unfamiliar with Copart but, at the time of this recording, the company has a $40 billion market cap. They operate in over 200 locations across the globe and they sell north of 3 million cars per year on behalf of their unique customer base. Copart is a unique story in a very concentrated industry where they likely have 50% market share. It's a story defined by evolution. Its founder, Willis Johnson,...
Jul 26, 2023•50 min•Ep. 121
This is Zack Fuss, an investor at Irenic Capital, and today we’re breaking down Lululemon Athletica. The Canadian company, founded by Chip Wilson in 1998, has grown from a pop-up store in a yoga class to a $45 billion apparel business. Along the way, it pioneered the trend of athleisure and forever changed what women and men wear to work out in. To break down the business, I am joined by John Zolidis, president and founder of Quo Vadis Capital. We explore the origins of Lululemon’s direct to con...
Jul 19, 2023•46 min•Ep. 120
This is Zack Fuss, an investor at Irenic Capital, and today we’re breaking down the vertical market software business, Toast. Toast is a software platform built specifically for restaurants. Their operating system gives restauranteurs all the tools they need to serve customers, from taking orders to allocating shifts. It was founded in 2011 and went public a decade later. Today, it’s used by nearly 80,000 restaurants across the US. To breakdown Toast, I’m joined by Will Schreiber, the co-founder...
Jul 12, 2023•51 min•Ep. 119
This is Zack Fuss, an investor at Irenic Capital, and today we’re breaking down the biggest manufacturer of chip making equipment in the world, Applied Materials. Last week, we looked at the other leading equipment maker in the semi-industry, ASML, and while that business currently has a higher market cap, Applied Materials generated more revenue and profit last year. It earned $26 billion, spent $3 billion on R&D and currently has 17,300 patents. To explore the business behind those numbers...
Jul 05, 2023•46 min•Ep. 118
This is Matt Reustle and today we are back covering the semiconductor value chain. ASML was once a forgotten subsidiary of Philips. Today, it's one of the most important technology companies in the world. To break down ASML, I'm joined by Tom Walsh, a portfolio manager at Baillie Gifford. Tom helps explain what's happening inside an extreme ultraviolet lithography machine, and how ASML came to pioneer this technology from the Netherlands. It was a non-traditional path to say the least. This brea...
Jun 28, 2023•52 min•Ep. 117
This is Jesse Pujji and today we are breaking down Roku. With all the hype about social media and smartphones, it’s easy to forget that the average American still spends over 5 hours a day watching TV. And while the streaming wars get most headline attention, the battle for the user interface of smart TVs also has billions of dollars at stake. Here, Roku has emerged as an unlikely frontrunner, ahead of Samsung, Google, Amazon and other giants. To breakdown Roku, I am joined by Joe Frankenfield, ...
Jun 21, 2023•42 min•Ep. 116
This is Matt Reustle and today we are breaking down the mobile gaming industry. It was several months ago that I was reading an industry report for our Business Breakdown on Electronic Arts. I was shocked to see that mobile gaming was now 50% of the overall gaming market. What really stood out to me was just how different the business model is. You have smaller game developers operating with a completely different monetization model. It's the same industry but with drastically different strategi...
Jun 14, 2023•52 min•Ep. 115
This is Matt Reustle and today we are breaking down First Citizens Bank. I'm joined by investors with plenty of experience investing in banks - Bill Nygren and Alex Fitch of Oakmark. First Citizens is a bank with 125 years of history but they don't operate like the bulge bracket Wall Street Banks. They don't even host quarterly conference calls. They have a playbook and they execute it, and their recent acquisition of Silicon Valley Bank fell into that playbook. In this conversation, Bill and Al...
Jun 07, 2023•1 hr 3 min•Ep. 114
This is Dom Cooke and today we’re breaking down PayPal. PayPal has been at the forefront of digital payments since the early days of the internet. Founded by Peter Thiel, Elon Musk and others, who have since become household names, PayPal is a payments marketplace that facilitates transactions between merchants and consumers. It found product market fit as the trusted way to send money over the internet, was quickly acquired by eBay, and had its second founding moment in 2015 when it was spun of...
May 31, 2023•1 hr 7 min•Ep. 113
This is Matt Reustle and today we are breaking down Restoration Hardware. The average person would call RH a furniture company but RH is a company where the CEO feels as important as the business, and CEO Gary Friedman has aspirations well beyond selling furniture. To break down RH, I'm joined by Drew Cohen of Speedwell Research. You may remember Drew from our breakdown of Floor & Decor. We cover how Gary Friedman took Restoration Hardware from the brink of bankruptcy and has built it into a...
May 24, 2023•1 hr 2 min•Ep. 112
This is Zack Fuss, an investor at Irenic Capital, and today we’re breaking down Fair Isaac Corporation, commonly known as FICO. FICO is best known for its consumer credit scores product, which has become a common language across the world of consumer loans and banking. Less well known, but a major piece of the business, is FICO’s software offering that helps financial businesses with fraud detection, CRM, and loan origination. Between these two offerings – scores and software – FICO earned $1.3 ...
May 17, 2023•48 min•Ep. 111
This is Dom Cooke and today we’re breaking down Bayern Munich. Bayern is Germany’s most successful football club and one of the world’s biggest. Most importantly, it makes a great case for being the best-run club in football. It has an enterprise value close to €3 billion, no debt, has been profitable for 3 decades, and is majority owned by fans. Plus, it has a trophy cabinet to rival any club worldwide. Bayern has won a record 32 national Bundesliga titles, including the last ten in a row, and ...
May 10, 2023•1 hr 8 min•Ep. 110
This is Zack Fuss, an investor at Irenic Capital, and today we’re breaking down MTN Group. MTN is the largest mobile network operator in Africa and one of the 10 largest in the world. It has over 270 million subscribers, operates in 20 different markets, and is also one of the largest FinTech’s in the continent. To break down MTN, I’m joined by Benjamin Isaac, founder and Chief Investment Officer at Brizo Capital. We unpack their mobile money business in some detail, contrast the development of ...
May 03, 2023•1 hr•Ep. 109
This is Zack Fuss, an investor at Irenic Capital, and today we’re breaking down Roper Technologies. Roper is a fascinating case study in how an old industrial business can pivot into a new world focused on software and technology. Roper was founded in 1890 as a manufacturer of industrial equipment and home appliances but, today, it is one of the most profitable software businesses in the world. Much of the pivot and subsequent value creation can be credited to Brian Jellison, who took over in 20...
Apr 26, 2023•47 min•Ep. 108
This is Matt Reustle and today we are breaking down Dolby Labs. Our favorite Breakdowns are those businesses, which are widely known but barely understood. Dolby fits the bill. You see the logo everywhere but what does Dolby technology do and how does the business work? To answer those questions and break down Dolby, I was joined by Paul Vincent and William Nott from investment manager, Ninety One. We cover the backstory of Ray Dolby, what Dolby's actually building and selling, and how the busin...
Apr 19, 2023•1 hr 4 min•Ep. 107
