Yet Another Value Podcast

MSA Safety ($MSA) is the "OG pick and shovel" of worker safety: a century-old, pure-play maker of gas detection and firefighter equipment that the Pershing Square Challenge 2026 finalist team argues is a quality compounder the market is underrating. The bull case has three legs. Portable gas detection is shifting to a recurring, higher-margin subscription model, the "canary" that now sings to the whole worksite instead of just the worker wearing it. A legally mandated SCBA replacement cycle is coming that consensus barely credits. And a 2023 divestiture of product liabilities freed up the roughly 17% of EBIT that used to leave the building every year at a zero return. Base case: a double to about $350 by 2030 from roughly $160 today.
EJ Karobath, Craig Larkin and Bob McGrane walk through why MSA's owned-sensor hardware is hard to copy (Blackline got taken private, and its devices break if you drop them), how winning a tier-one fire department like LA or Memphis pulls the surrounding towns along on interoperability, and why 50-plus years of dividend growth and a record $500 million buyback point to real capital-allocation discipline. I push back on the obvious tension: this is a roughly 20x compounder that does not scream alpha, the CFO is guiding mid-single-digit growth, and most of the thesis only pays off in 2028 to 2030. Is the market that inefficient, or is this just a very good business priced about right?
Team MSA's pitch deck is linked here: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/gv1oj18pawqrmeq7lai4j/MSA-Pershing-Square-Challenge-vYAVP.pdf?rlkey=8l5vkpkr7r26oi0k7wx5fcf0h&st=g4ow2fxo&dl=0
This episode is sponsored by Trata: trata.com. Trata is recorded, anonymized conversations between two buysiders who actually follow the same company, about an hour each, with a full transcript. When you are getting up to speed on a name, there is nothing like hearing two people who research it talk it through. Check them out at trata.com.
Chapters:
00:00 A quality compounder hiding at a market multiple
01:24 Sponsor: Trata
02:47 Meet Team MSA: EJ, Craig and Bob
05:50 Why they picked MSA: an underfollowed, simple business
07:50 What MSA is: the "OG pick and shovel" of worker safety
10:24 The three segments, and why detection leads
11:51 Fixed vs portable gas detection
13:15 The subscription shift: the canary that sings to the whole worksite
16:40 The moat: durability, owned sensors and a long replacement runway
17:21 Market share, and why Blackline got taken private
21:32 Fire safety: the G1 and the mandated SCBA replacement cycle
23:38 Valuation: a double to ~$350 by 2030, and the reverse DCF
25:43 My pushback: a 20x compounder that doesn't scream alpha
27:00 Why management sandbags the connected and SCBA upside
28:46 A stock for the patient: the J-curve and the long horizon
31:47 Primary research: site visits, IR access and r/firefighting
36:18 Becoming a tech company: 40% of engineers now in software
38:10 The tier-one halo: win LA or Memphis, win the region
42:08 Capital allocation: the liability divestiture, dividends and a $500M buyback
44:13 Wrap: where to find the team and the deck
Team MSA (Columbia Business School): pitch deck linked above
Links:
Yet Another Value Blog - https://www.yetanothervalueblog.com
See our legal disclaimer here: https://www.yetanothervalueblog.com/p/legal-and-disclaimer
Production and editing by The Podcast Consultant - https://thepodcastconsultant.com/

Fox's stock is down about 25% since it agreed to buy Roku for $22 billion, and the market has decided the deal is a blunder. Simeon McMillan of Accrued Interest thinks the market is wrong. His case: Roku controls roughly 44% of how Americans reach streaming on the big screen, about 3x the next platform, so Fox just bought the "front door" to streaming and around 100 million connected TVs in North America. Look under the surface and the deal is closer to 16-17x free cash flow once you account for Roku's barely-tapped ad levers and synergies.
We get into the homepage that became the new "Netflix homepage," why Fox keeps making the smartest M&A bets in media, the Tubi sleeper Simeon is most bullish on, why he loves Roku but is bearish on Spotify, and why Google and Meta look like "true value stocks" to him. I push back hard on whether Fox plus Roku is really better than Roku staying neutral Switzerland for every bidder.
See Simeon's post on Fox / Roku here: https://www.accruedint.com/p/the-strait-of-roku-how-fox-seized
This episode is sponsored by my upcoming AI webinar with AlphaSense.
The AI landscape has never been more crowded or more confusing. Everyone's telling you to adopt AI, but almost nobody's telling you which tools actually give you an edge. I'm sitting down with Dave Wang of Wall Street Prompt and Ben Collins of AlphaSense to break down the modern AI stack for investors, from horizontal platforms like OpenAI and Claude to agentic workflows and finance-specific intelligence tools, and where each one actually fits in a real research process.
Register here: https://www.alpha-sense.com/resources/webinars/choosing-your-ai-stack-a-framework-for-institutional-investors/?utm_source=pt_YAVP&utm_medium=sponsored&utm_campaign=SWB_DG_06-25-26_IMP-GENAI_CORPFS_YAVP-AI-Solutions
Chapters:
00:00 What's coming: Fox-Roku, plus Spotify, Google and Meta
01:08 Sponsor: my AI webinar with AlphaSense
02:24 Guest intro: Simeon McMillan, Accrued Interest
03:05 The Fox-Roku deal and why Simeon thinks it makes sense
05:30 Roku as the "Strait of Hormuz" of streaming (44% of viewing)
06:25 Why Fox has the smartest M&A team in media
07:55 Buying the "front door": ~100M connected TVs
10:03 The Roku homepage as the new "Netflix homepage"
13:44 The ad-sales levers hiding under the multiple
16:31 Valuation: 22x EBITDA, ~16-17x free cash flow with synergies
18:01 My pushback: Fox down 25%, winner's curse, thin synergies
19:35 The real risk of staying pure-play (Viacom, Paramount)
24:51 Rebundling and why everyone's partnered up by 2028
26:08 Is Fox+Roku actually better, or could anyone have bought this?
28:01 Cord-cutting, YouTube TV, and the Disney bloody nose
32:07 The Fox bet Simeon likes most: Tubi
38:30 Why now? The 50% streaming inflection and a shrinking buyer pool
42:21 Does AI slop break or boost the distribution thesis?
48:06 The gotcha: bullish Roku, bearish Spotify (the Pokemon theory of media)
52:22 Google and Meta as "true value stocks"
56:55 The complexity discount, Meta's enterprise tools, and founder control
59:13 Wrap and where to find Accrued Interest
Simeon McMillan / Accrued Interest: https://accruedinterest.substack.com
Links:
Yet Another Value Blog - https://www.yetanothervalueblog.com
See our legal disclaimer here: https://www.yetanothervalueblog.com/p/legal-and-disclaimer
Production and editing by The Podcast Consultant - https://thepodcastconsultant.com/

SpaceX is buying Cursor for ~$60B, and one of the early backers was SBF. So was a convicted fraudster also the greatest VC of all time? That's where June's random ramblings start. From there: why I've flipped from AI doom toward AI as a force multiplier, whether deep subject-matter expertise gets MORE valuable as the world fills with AI slop, why legacy brands (KPMG, CBS, People) might actually gain power in an AI world, why "my edge is a long time horizon" is usually a tell for underperformance, and the cracks showing up in Polymarket and prediction markets.
This episode is sponsored by my upcoming AI webinar with AlphaSense. The AI landscape has never been more crowded or more confusing. Everyone's telling you to adopt AI, but almost nobody's asking the harder question: which tools actually give you an edge?
I'm sitting down with Dave Wang of Wall Street Prompt and Ben Collins of AlphaSense to break down the modern AI stack for investors, from horizontal platforms like OpenAI and Claude to agentic workflows and finance-specific intelligence tools, and where each one actually fits in a real research process. If you're trying to build an AI-enabled workflow that sharpens your judgment rather than replacing it, you won't want to miss this.
Join us on June 25th - register now: https://www.alpha-sense.com/resources/webinars/choosing-your-ai-stack-a-framework-for-institutional-investors/?utm_source=pt_YAVP&utm_medium=sponsored&utm_campaign=SWB_DG_06-25-26_IMP-GENAI_CORPFS_YAVP-AI-Solutions
Chapters:
00:00 What's on the menu this month
02:05 Sponsor: my AI webinar with AlphaSense
03:22 Was SBF the greatest VC of all time? (Cursor, SpaceX, Anthropic)
09:48 Do any frauds or blowups hide assets this valuable? (GGP, Enron, EOG)
11:42 Why I flipped from AI doom toward AI as a force multiplier
13:41 Why AI rewards the creative, and the top 0.1% problem
16:18 AI slop and the rising return on deep expertise (Knicks, ABVX)
20:12 KPMG's hallucinated AI report and secondhand hallucinations
21:57 Does brand get MORE valuable in an AI world? (CBS, People, TMZ, ChatGPT licensing)
25:14 Why "my edge is a long time horizon" is usually a lie
28:50 Forced selling, diamond hands, and the seven-years-of-underperformance letter
32:02 My three-year rule
32:53 Polymarket, MicroStrategy, and the limits of the rulebook
35:00 Prediction markets are reflexive: why nobody's waging "Polymarket wars" yet
37:36 Wrap
Links:
Yet Another Value Blog - https://www.yetanothervalueblog.com
See our legal disclaimer here: https://www.yetanothervalueblog.com/p/legal-and-disclaimer
Production and editing by The Podcast Consultant - https://thepodcastconsultant.com/

The market has decided YouGov ($YOU.L) is an AI loser and cut it ~50% in a year. Jonathan Cohen of Zipperline Capital thinks it's an AI winner trading at 6-7x EBITDA, with a 20-year proprietary dataset AI makes more valuable, not less. We spend the first half on the UK as an "emerging market" (corporate governance discounts, why buybacks are finally happening, and why you can never compare UK and US multiples), then go deep on YouGov: the panel, the moat, synthetic data, and why the company is cancelling its dividend to buy back stock.
This episode is sponsored by my upcoming AI webinar with AlphaSense.
The AI landscape has never been more crowded — or more confusing. Everyone's telling you to adopt AI, but almost nobody's asking the harder question: which tools actually give you an edge?
I'm sitting down with Dave Wang of Wall Street Prompt and Ben Collins of AlphaSense to break down the modern AI stack for investors — from horizontal platforms like OpenAI and Claude to agentic workflows and finance-specific intelligence tools — and where each one actually fits in a real research process. If you're trying to build an AI-enabled workflow that sharpens your judgment rather than replacing it, you won't want to miss this.
Join us on June 25th - register now: https://www.alpha-sense.com/resources/webinars/choosing-your-ai-stack-a-framework-for-institutional-investors/?utm_source=pt_YAVP&utm_medium=sponsored&utm_campaign=SWB_DG_06-25-26_IMP-GENAI_CORPFS_YAVP-AI-Solutions
Chapters:
00:00 Why YouGov could be the AI winner the market is misreading
02:56 Why Jonathan Cohen runs a UK and Europe small/mid-cap book
08:01 Why you can never compare UK and US multiples
13:08 What UK analyst coverage actually tells you
17:37 The shift toward UK buybacks and capital allocation
22:00 The "buybacks kill liquidity" myth
25:11 What YouGov really is: a proprietary data business
31:19 Inside the panel: why people answer, and why retention is the moat
36:52 Why the market thinks YouGov is an AI loser
38:19 The bull case: why AI makes YouGov more valuable
40:55 Synthetic data, and why it breaks
46:28 Trust as a moat in a world of AI slop
52:27 Pushback: Chegg, Wix, and the real AI losers
56:51 Content businesses vs distribution businesses
01:00:14 Music, media, and what compounds through disruption
01:05:38 Closing
Links:
Yet Another Value Blog - https://www.yetanothervalueblog.com
See our legal disclaimer here: https://www.yetanothervalueblog.com/p/legal-and-disclaimer
Production and editing by The Podcast Consultant - https://thepodcastconsultant.com/

Alex Roepers of Atlantic Investment Management lays out two deeply cheap special situations: Dauch (DCH) and Nomad Foods (NOMD). In both, management is sending "dark arts" signals (an aggressive CEO payout struck well above the current price, heavy insider buying) that point to an inflection the market hasn't paid for yet. We dig into the $300M merger synergies at Dauch, the auto-cycle and leverage risk, the governance red flags, the private-label threat to Nomad's frozen-food brands, and whether the European discount on both is real or just doldrums.
This episode is sponsored by AlphaSense. Join Andrew, Dave Wang of Wall Street Prompts, and Ben Collins of AlphaSense for a webinar breaking down the modern AI stack for investors: where horizontal platforms, agentic workflows, and finance-specific tools each actually fit in a real research process. Recording June 16, live June 25. Register here: https://www.alpha-sense.com/resources/webinars/choosing-your-ai-stack-a-framework-for-institutional-investors/?utm_source=pt_YAVP&utm_medium=sponsored&utm_campaign=SWB_DG_06-25-26_IMP-GENAI_CORPFS_YAVP-AI-Solutions
Disclosure: long DCH and NOMD
Chapters:
0:00 Two cheap special situations and the "dark arts" setup
1:10 Sponsor: AlphaSense and the AI-stack-for-investors webinar
2:29 Alex Roepers, Atlantic Investment Management
3:04 Dauch ($DCH): the GKN, Melrose and Dowlais backstory
7:05 Why Atlantic made $DCH a core position at ~$6
9:03 The governance knock: a company named after a sub-1% CEO
13:42 Dark arts: the PSU grant that only pays above $12
15:11 Underwriting the $300M merger synergies
18:13 Leverage, capital allocation and the path to buybacks
24:42 The auto cycle and why 5x free cash flow caps the downside
29:12 Nomad Foods ($NOMD): the frozen-food bull case
33:14 Nomad by the numbers: 5.5x earnings, 7% yield
35:39 The bear case: private label, Aldi and a new CEO
39:21 Would Martin Franklin ever sell?
41:22 Dividend or buyback at these levels?
43:00 Is Franklin distracted by APi Group?
45:27 The kitchen-sink reset and a fall investor day
47:37 "Addback city": cleaning up the earnings number
50:02 The European discount: real or imagined?
Links:
Yet Another Value Blog - https://www.yetanothervalueblog.com
See our legal disclaimer here: https://www.yetanothervalueblog.com/p/legal-and-disclaimer
Production and editing by The Podcast Consultant - https://thepodcastconsultant.com/