Whitney Tilson’s T2 conference call, summary:
Here’s an outline of the call, which lasted 80 minutes (with the minute/seconds if you want to skip directly to a certain part):
Opening Remarks
- 0:00: 2012 YTD performance through today: 24.0-26.1% across our three hedge funds vs. 10.8% for the S&P 500 with dividends reinvested; MTD our funds are up 1.1% vs. -1.6% for the S&P.
- 1:06: Our 10 largest long positions in descending order of size: Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (NYSE:BRK.A) (BRK.B) , Iridium Communications Inc. (NASDAQ:IRDM), Howard Hughes, American International Group, Inc. (NYSE:AIG), Goldman, Citigroup, JC Penney, Netflix, SanDisk, and Resource America. Other positions of note: we still own Dell and Microsoft; our newest position is Justice Holdings (Burger King); and we own Wells Fargo and JP Morgan Chase primarily via TARP warrants.
- 2:37: Our 10 largest short positions in descending order of size: InterOil Corporation, five homebuilders (the largest of which is Standard Pacific), three social networking companies (the largest of which is LinkedIn), salesforce.com, inc. (NYSE:CRM), Green Mountain Coffee Roasters Inc. (NASDAQ:GMCR), five for-profit education companies (the largest of which is ITT Education), The St. Joe Company (NYSE:JOE) , Lululemon Athletica, Nokia Corporation (NYSE:NOK) , and Michael Kors.
- 3:25: Lessons from 2011 and our good start to 2012; our economic outlook is “cautiously optimistic”; we have been trimming some longs and adding to some shorts.
Q&A
- 8:00: What is your thinking on American International Group, Inc. (NYSE:AIG)? (please excuse the technical snafu from 9:00-10:14)
- 13:41: Regarding Berkshire Hathaway, why don’t you subtract liabilities when valuing its float?
- 17:12: Why does Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (NYSE:BRK.A) (BRK.B)’s return on equity appear to be so low?
- 18:38: When do you buy long-dated call options instead of stock, and what is your thinking behind your position in Goldman’s long-dated call options?
- 24:32: Comments on Grupo Prisa
- 29:33: Comments on Iridium Communications Inc. (NASDAQ:IRDM)
- 34:32: Comments on Green Mountain Coffee Roasters Inc (NASDAQ:GMCR)
- 41:15: Comments on Bank of America and why we prefer Citigroup
- 45:33: Comments on SanDisk
- 52:05: Comments on Facebook and LinkedIn
- 57:28: Comments on Lululemon Athletica inc. (NASDAQ:LULU)
- 1:00:21: Comparison of Lululemon Athletica inc. (NASDAQ:LULU) and Under Armour
- 1:06:10: Thoughts on types of shorts and how we manage high-flyers; we prefer frauds and/or promotions like InterOil Corporation or broken businesses/industries like homebuilders, for-profit education,The St. Joe Company (NYSE:JOE), Nokia Corporation (NYSE:NOK) and First Solar.
- 1:08:56: Has Berkshire’s float peaked and how does it affect how we think about the company’s long-term valuation?
- 1:10:53: Comments on salesforce.com, inc. (NYSE:CRM)
Full link to call https://rcpt.yousendit.com/1470079789 and 923e3aa177ea4ecce5a03741c657e820