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The program runs from a railroad land grant put in trust in 1888 to a $4.3 billion purchase of silver in 2026, and from Salt Lake City, Toronto and the gold mines of Nevada to Mexico, Brazil, Panama and the Permian Basin of West Texas. Its people are the builders of the industry’s largest companies: Pierre Lassonde and Seymour Schulich, who founded Franco-Nevada in 1982, and David Harquail, who ran it from 2007 to 2020; Ian Telfer and Randy Smallwood, who created the stream and built Wheaton Precious Metals; and Murray Stahl and Tyler Glover, the investor and the chief executive behind Texas Pacific Land. It follows how each of them paid cash once for a fixed share of mines and wells that other companies paid to find, build and run, and what that share earned.

Part One stands on its own. It tells how the business took its present shape, from the trustees of 1888 and the first gold royalty of 1986 to the first stream of 2004 and the water business of the Permian. The economics of the contracts, and the companies as investments, are the subject of Part Two and of the written primer. The records it gives are total returns with dividends reinvested, each stated with its window and its benchmark.

The program runs in nineteen sections:

1. Anything Less Than Two Million. In 1986 a geologist working for Franco-Nevada finds a box ad for a royalty on Nevada’s Carlin Trend, and in Salt Lake City Pierre Lassonde learns that the seller owes his bank $2 million with 90 days to pay, so he doubles the $1 million he and Seymour Schulich had agreed the royalty was worth, spending all the money in the company’s treasury.

2. Shares of One Hundred Dollars Each. In 1887 the bondholders of the bankrupt Texas and Pacific Railway take its Texas land in exchange for their claim, and the declaration of trust of February 1, 1888 lets the trustees pay out rents, land sales and “royalties for coal and minerals”, or spend it retiring certificates of $100 each and canceling them.

3. That Delaware Position. Oil comes in on the trust’s land in 1920, as the company tells it, and at the state university’s Santa Rita No. 1 in 1923; Certificate No. 390, worth $1,800 in 1888, is worth $1,280,000 by 1952; and in 1954 the trustees spin off the mineral estate but keep a royalty of one-sixteenth under the Delaware Basin.

4. The Biggest Dummies. Pierre Lassonde, trained in electrical engineering in Montreal, and Seymour Schulich, who ran the oil and gas investments at Beutel Goodman, start Franco-Nevada on the side in 1982 on a handshake, see its Nevada gold prospects “all turned to dust”, and ask whether mining has royalties the way oil and gas do.

5. The Discovery of Three Lifetimes. Barrick buys the Goldstrike mine under the new royalty for $62 million, its deep drilling finds what Franco-Nevada calls “a 50 million ounce orebody”, and the day before the founders were to sign Franco-Nevada away, Brian Meikle’s verdict on the deposit persuades the founders to build the company instead.

6. Banker of Last Resort. David Harquail joins Lassonde in 1987, the partners acquire royalties in gold camps from Nevada and Ontario to Kalgoorlie, advance $2 million for a 2 percent royalty on Detour that pays its first check 15 years later, and in 1997, after the Bre-X fraud, Schulich describes Franco-Nevada and its sister company Euro-Nevada, with about $500 million of cash between them, as a banker of last resort to the industry.

7. A Meeting Set for September Eleventh. A meeting with Newmont set for September 11, 2001 does not take place because of the attacks, on November 14 Newmont agrees to acquire Franco-Nevada for its own shares in a year when gold averaged $271 an ounce, and at the closing in February 2002 Franco-Nevada is valued at close to US$3 billion.

8. Schmuck Insurance. Inside Newmont the royalty book grows because Newmont keeps a royalty on everything it sells, a habit Harquail calls “our schmuck insurance”; in December 2007 it returns to the market as a new Franco-Nevada at C$15.20 a share and buys the portfolio for about $1.2 billion, and in 2008 its shares rise 17 percent while the gold miners’ fund falls 26 percent.

9. I Had No Salary. Ian Telfer, a chartered accountant who had sold his house after his dot-com company went broke, becomes chairman and chief executive of Wheaton River on September 28, 2001, with gold at $283 an ounce, and asks Randy Smallwood, an auctioneer’s son turned geological engineer, to stay and “keep me away from the bad mines” before Wheaton River buys Luismin in Mexico in 2002.

10. A New Company That Owns Nothing. After a failed swap of copper for gold with the operator of Alumbrera, Telfer proposes “a new company that owns nothing”, and on October 15, 2004 Silver Wheaton signs the first stream, paying about US$36.7 million and 108 million shares for Luismin’s silver at the lesser of $3.90 an ounce and the market price.

11. Over and Over Again. Under Peter Barnes, Silver Wheaton repeats its model “over and over again”, Goldcorp sells its whole stake for C$1,566 million on February 14, 2008, and from April 2006 to April 2011 the shares return 33 percent a year in US dollars, while Nolan Watson and David Awram leave to found Sandstorm.

12. The Only Ones Who Can Write a Check. Harquail keeps Franco-Nevada’s cash through the boom so that it can be “the only ones that can write a check on the next downturn”, and from August 2011 to December 2015 its shares gain 12 percent while the miners’ fund loses 77 percent; over his tenure as chief executive, to May 2020, they return about 15 times in Canadian dollars, 24.6 percent a year.

13. For Generations to Come. Randy Smallwood, chief executive from April 2011, pays no more than the long-term price for a metal, buys the gold of Vale’s Salobo copper mine in Brazil in three purchases from 2013 to 2016, and by the end of 2025 Wheaton has received $3,519.8 million in cash against $3,573.4 million paid, on a mine planned to about 2052.

14. Thirty-Eight Days. In 2023 Panama’s Supreme Court strikes down the law renewing Cobre Panama’s contract 38 days after it passed, and Franco-Nevada writes its stream down to nil, a charge of $1,169.2 million, a loss the company absorbs with hundreds of other assets, no debt and $1.4 billion of cash.

15. Some People Sold Shares Back Then. Murray Stahl’s Horizon Kinetics becomes the largest outside holder of the Texas Pacific Land Trust, the trustees retire about half the trust’s shares between 1994 and January 2020, and its oil and gas royalties grow from $8.7 million in 2009 to $154.7 million in 2019 on wells it never paid to drill.

16. Really Water Wells. Tyler Glover, who grew up in Midland and became the trust’s chief executive in November 2016, forms Texas Pacific Water Resources in June 2017, and in 2025 water sales and produced-water royalties make up 36.8 percent of TPL’s revenue of $798.2 million.

17. Everyone, That Is, Except Murray. A proxy fight in 2019 leads to the trust’s conversion into a corporation, a Delaware court ties its new shares to a stock split, Stahl dies on April 7, 2026, and under Glover TPL returns 13.45 times with dividends reinvested to October 16, 2026, against 4.28 times for the S&P 500.

18. The Largest Mining Company in the World. On February 16, 2026 Wheaton Precious Metals agrees to pay BHP $4.3 billion for its share of Antamina’s silver without issuing shares, and Randy Smallwood hands over to Haytham Hodaly after 15 years as chief executive that returned 3.59 times, ahead of gold and the gold miners’ fund and behind the S&P 500.

19. A Checkbook on the Doorstep. Lassonde learns that when the seller of 1986 got back to his office the operator was waiting with his checkbook for the royalty, Goldstrike produces 42.8 million ounces from 1987 to the end of 2016, and from December 3, 2007 to October 16, 2026 Franco-Nevada’s shares grow 19.6 times in US dollars with dividends reinvested.

The program runs 1 hour 30 minutes (1:30:28). The written primer and its companion deck are on the Latticework Substack at the Industry Primer on natural resources royalty and streaming. Part Two, the deep dive for professional investors, is a separate episode, available to members of Latticework: Industry Primers Podcast: Natural Resources Royalty & Streaming, Part Two: The Deep Dive.

This audio program is published by MOI Global for educational purposes only. It is not investment advice, an offer, or a solicitation, and no security mentioned herein is recommended for purchase or sale. The publisher and contributors may hold positions in securities discussed. Figures are believed accurate as of the dates stated but are not warranted; listeners should verify all data against primary sources before relying on it. Nothing herein constitutes legal, tax, or accounting advice.

Transcript

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The program runs from the guano islands of Peru in the 1850s to the Strait of Hormuz in September 2026, and from Chile’s nitrate desert, Norway’s waterfalls and the Rhine to the Saskatchewan prairie, the Urals and a farmyard in Texas. Its people are chemists, among them Justus von Liebig, Fritz Haber and Carl Bosch; the Chinese laborers who dug guano on the Chincha Islands; a Chilean captain who boarded an ironclad; the governors and premiers who set and defended the price of potash; and the farmers who asked in 2026 who sets the price of fertilizer. It follows how states and export agencies, from Saskatchewan’s floor price and quotas of 1970 to the Belarusian Potash Company, set the price of nutrients that the air and the rock hold in abundance.

Part One stands on its own. It tells how the industry took its present shape, from the natural deposits that states owned and fought over to the synthetic ammonia of 1913 and the potash mines of the prairie. The economics of the business, and the companies as investments, are the subject of Part Two and of the written primer. Where the program reaches the investigations and the farmers’ suits of 2026, it reports them as investigations and allegations, which the companies deny.

The program runs in fourteen sections:

1. The Air Takes Fire. On September 7, 1898 Sir William Crookes tells the British Association at Bristol that the world’s wheat depends on guano and Chilean saltpeter that may run out within decades, and prices nitrate made from the air on Niagara’s power at not more than £5 a ton, against £7 and 10 shillings for Chile’s.

2. Before the Plough. In 1840 Justus von Liebig prints a recipe for dissolving ground bones in sulfuric acid, John Bennet Lawes patents the process in 1842 and opens the world’s first commercial fertilizer factory at Deptford Creek in 1843, and that autumn wheat is sown on Broadbalk, where a control strip has received no fertilizer since.

3. Five Tons a Day. In 1853 George Washington Peck watches Chinese indentured laborers on the Chincha Islands dig and wheel 5 tons of guano each a day, and by Alexander Duffield’s count Peru sells 20 million tons at £12 to £13 a ton before it defaults on its foreign debt in 1876.

4. Without Firing a Gun. On February 14, 1879 Chilean troops occupy Antofagasta in a quarrel over a Bolivian tax of 10 cents a quintal on nitrate, the War of the Pacific gives Chile the nitrate province of Tarapacá in 1883, and John Thomas North, who bought Peru’s nitrate certificates at a reported 80 to 90 percent below face value, becomes the Nitrate King.

5. A Dinner on Friday the Thirteenth. Seated beside Kristian Birkeland at a dinner in Christiania on February 13, 1903, Sam Eyde finds the electric arc he wants, and Norsk Hydro is founded on December 2, 1905 with 7.5 million kroner of share capital, only 8 percent of it held by Norwegians.

6. Eighty Hours, Then They Burst. In 1909 Fritz Haber and Robert Le Rossignol make liquid ammonia on a bench apparatus at about 175 atmospheres, Carl Bosch’s first steel tubes burst after 80 hours, and BASF’s plant at Oppau, built for about 30,000 tons of ammonia a year, starts on September 9, 1913.

7. The Saltpeter Promise. Cut off from Chile by the British blockade, Germany takes Bosch’s pledge of September 1914 to make nitric acid from Oppau’s ammonia, and Leuna ships its first ammonia on April 27, 1917, while the United States spends about $80 million on two Alabama nitrate plants without a working copy of Haber’s synthesis.

8. Stones into Bread. Fritz Haber, who orchestrated the chlorine attack at Ypres on April 22, 1915, receives the Nobel Prize for the synthesis of ammonia on June 1, 1920, and on April 30, 1933 resigns rather than dismiss the Jewish members of his institute’s staff.

9. A Grim Enemy. On September 21, 1921 a silo holding about 4,500 tonnes of ammonium sulfate nitrate explodes at Oppau, killing 559 people on the official count, and in 1927 Norsk Hydro gives up its electric arc for a license to the German process, while from 1929 to 1932 the export price of Chile’s nitrate falls 84 percent.

10. The Governor Calls the Premier. After Canadian potash drives the American price from $22.26 a ton in February 1966 to $11.70 in February 1969, New Mexico’s governor calls Saskatchewan’s premier, and in 1970, under a floor price and quotas of 40 percent of capacity, the province’s producers sell 3 percent less potash and their revenue rises from $69 million to $116 million.

11. Under Our Wheat Fields. On November 19, 1975 Premier Allan Blakeney tells Saskatchewan’s legislature that the province will borrow to buy its potash mines, and in 2010 a takeover offer of about $40 billion for PotashCorp is refused, leaving a holder who kept the shares with Nutrien stock worth about 67 cents for each dollar offered, before dividends, in late September 2026.

12. Deadlock. On July 30, 2013 Uralkali leaves the Belarusian Potash Company, the export agency it shared with Belaruskali, and in the year that follows the World Bank’s potash price averages $344.8 a tonne, against $429.4 the year before; on August 26 Belarus detains Uralkali’s chief executive at Minsk airport.

13. Ninety-Six Percent. In August 2022 European gas averages $70.04 per million British thermal units against $8.79 in the United States, about $2,000 more in the cost of a tonne of ammonia made in Europe, and CF Industries runs its North American plants at about 96 percent of capacity that year while it closes its Ince plant in England.

14. One Ship. After Iran declares the Strait of Hormuz closed on March 2, 2026, urea averages $856.9 a tonne in April, 81.5 percent above February, and on September 20, 2026 the International Monetary Fund’s count shows one ship passing the strait, against an average of about 85 a day in 2025.

The program runs 1 hour 31 minutes (1:31:54). The written primer and its companion deck are on the Latticework Substack at the Industry Primer on fertilizers. Part Two, the deep dive for professional investors, is a separate episode, available to members of Latticework: Industry Primers Podcast: Fertilizers, Part Two: The Deep Dive.

This audio program is published by MOI Global for educational purposes only. It is not investment advice, an offer, or a solicitation, and no security mentioned herein is recommended for purchase or sale. The publisher and contributors may hold positions in securities discussed. Figures are believed accurate as of the dates stated but are not warranted; listeners should verify all data against primary sources before relying on it. Nothing herein constitutes legal, tax, or accounting advice.

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The program runs from the balloon loans of the 1920s to the Federal Reserve's increase of September 16, 2026, and from Long Island's potato fields to Bucks County, Fort Worth, Phoenix, Port St. Lucie, and Omaha. Its people are builders, among them William Levitt, Donald Horton, Robert Toll, Tony Pidgley, and Dwight Schar; a Black family who moved onto Deepgreen Lane in 1957 and the governor who sent the State Police; judges who ruled on racial covenants, fair housing and a builder's pledged subsidiaries; and buyers who kept their contracts with a bankrupt builder in 1992. It follows the land and the mortgage, which set what a family could pay for a house and, for a generation, which families could buy one at all.

Part One stands on its own. It tells how the industry took its present shape, from the federal mortgage of 1934 to the builders that now hold their lots by deposit. The economics of the business, and the companies as investments, are the subject of Part Two and of the written primer.

The program runs in fourteen sections:

1. As Long as the Suppliers Keep Supplying. On Monday, April 6, 1992 NVR, the Virginia parent of Ryan Homes, files for Chapter 11 after its 8 banks decline to keep funding it, and of 410 buyers holding deposits on Ryan houses in the Baltimore region, only 3 ask for their money back.

2. The Balloon Payment. In the 1920s a lender put up about half the price of a house on a loan that fell due in one payment within 3 to 5 years, and on June 27, 1934 Franklin Roosevelt signs the National Housing Act, whose insured loan covers up to 80 percent of the appraised value and is repaid every month until nothing is owed.

3. The Dice Were Loaded. With the GI Bill backing veterans' loans and, by Time's count, 5 million houses needed at the war's end, the Levitts pay $3,600 an acre for Long Island farmland, twelve times its prewar price, for a town Harper's counted in 1948 at 6,000 houses.

4. A House Every Fifteen Minutes. By 1950 the Levitts have broken the building of a house into 26 operations, every house in Levittown sells at one price, $7,990, and a veteran can own one for no down payment and $56 a month.

5. Deepgreen Lane. On August 13, 1957 William and Daisy Myers become the first Black residents of Levittown, Pennsylvania, and after the crowds, the stones and three burned crosses Governor George Leader sends the State Police; on February 9, 1960 the New Jersey Supreme Court rules unanimously against Levitt that houses sold on FHA-insured or VA-guaranteed loans count as publicly assisted.

6. Eighteen Point Six Three. In the week of October 9, 1981 Freddie Mac's thirty-year rate reaches 18.63 percent, the highest in its history, when each $1,000 of a loan costs $15.59 a month against $6.88 in April 1971, and builders begin paying lenders to lower their buyers' rates.

7. Long and Wrong on Land. Donald Horton opens for business in Phoenix in late 1987, in the middle of the Texas housing collapse, takes D.R. Horton public in June 1992, two months after NVR files, and from that listing to his death on May 16, 2024 the shares return 134.5 times the money invested, 16.6 percent a year against 10.45 percent for the S&P 500 with dividends.

8. The Speculative Buyers. New-home sales reach a rate of 1,389,000 a year in July 2005, the highest since the series began in 1963, and on August 22, 2006 Toll Brothers reports net contracts down 45 percent and writes that "the speculative buyers of 2004 and 2005 are now sellers."

9. If We Can't Do This. On July 31, 2007 TOUSA settles with a joint venture's lenders for more than $421 million, borrowed on liens against the subsidiaries that held its healthy business, and files for Chapter 11 on January 29, 2008 with about $2.24 billion of debt; of 27 builders and land developers listed on American exchanges in 2005, six fail in or through Chapter 11.

10. Every Site, Every Plot, Every Sale. Tony Pidgley, who left school at 15 and founded Berkeley in 1976, judges land by its share of the price, "If the land is 10% of the sum total, you've got a chance," and on February 26, 2009 Berkeley sells £49.6 million of new shares at £8.40 to spend on land near the bottom of the market.

11. We Optioned the Lots. Dwight Schar's NVR emerges from bankruptcy on September 30, 1993 and buys its lots by deposit from then on, and from its first close of $10.25 to $4,685.09 on May 4, 2022, the day he left the board, its shares return 457 times, 23.9 percent a year against 10.2 percent for the S&P 500 with dividends.

12. Forty Cents on the Dollar. On November 30, 2007 Lennar sells about 11,000 homesites carried on its books at about $1.3 billion to a venture managed by Morgan Stanley for $525 million, and by the end of fiscal 2025 it holds 98.0 percent of its homesites by option, against 19.1 percent in 2010.

13. Like an Accordion. On December 15, 2022 Stuart Miller tells Lennar's analysts that margin will be "the so-called shock absorber" while the company keeps its pace, and Lennar's gross margin falls from 25.3 percent in the quarter to November 2022 to 17.0 percent three years later, with incentives at 14 percent of the price.

14. The Doors Stay Locked. Berkshire Hathaway buys Clayton Homes on August 7, 2003 for about $1.7 billion, after a class of Tennessee finance students gives Warren Buffett its founder's autobiography, and on July 24, 2026 it completes its purchase of Taylor Morrison for $72.50 a share, about $6.8 billion, about 1.09 times book value.

The program runs 1 hour 29 minutes (1:29:04). The written primer and its companion slide deck are on the Latticework Substack under the title Industry Primer: Homebuilding. Part Two, the deep dive for professional investors, is a separate episode, available to members of Latticework: Industry Primers Podcast: Homebuilding, Part Two: The Deep Dive.

This audio program is published by MOI Global for educational purposes only. It is not investment advice, an offer, or a solicitation, and no security mentioned herein is recommended for purchase or sale. The publisher and contributors may hold positions in securities discussed. Figures are believed accurate as of the dates stated but are not warranted; listeners should verify all data against primary sources before relying on it. Nothing herein constitutes legal, tax, or accounting advice.

Transcript

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The program runs from four flights on the North Carolina coast in 1903 to the 737 line at Renton, near Seattle, by way of Lake Union, Hartford, Toulouse, Miami, Cleveland, Portland and Omaha. It is told through the people who built the industry and the people who created the most value for its shareholders. William Boeing, a timber heir who flew his first seaplane in 1916, and Bill Allen, the lawyer who put the company's own money into the first jet transport built in the United States, carry the first half. The second turns to the value creators: Bill Anders, the Apollo 8 astronaut who shrank General Dynamics on purpose; Larry Mendelson and his sons Eric and Victor, who took over a loss-making HEICO in 1990; Nick Howley, who founded TransDigm with Doug Peacock in 1993; and Mark Donegan, who ran Precision Castparts when Berkshire Hathaway acquired it for more than $32 billion. Test pilots and engineers, among them Tex Johnston, Joe Sutter and Roger Béteille, fill out the cast, with passengers such as the Boeing mechanic who saved for four years to fly on Pan Am's first 707 flight.

Part One stands on its own. The value creators speak in their own words, on debt, pricing, acquisitions and the people who work for them, and each one's record is given with its dates and its basis. The failures that changed the business, from the Comet's metal fatigue to the 737 MAX and the door plug of January 2024, are told for what they changed. The economics of the business, and the companies as investments, are the subject of Part Two and of the written primer.

The program runs in twenty sections:

1. It Sold a Lot of Airplanes. On Sunday, August 7, 1955, Boeing's chief of flight test, Tex Johnston, rolls the Dash 80 prototype twice over the hydroplane races on Lake Washington, with Bill Allen watching from a yacht among the heads of the world's airlines, and not one airline has yet ordered the airplane.

2. Home Christmas. Orville and Wilbur Wright fly four times at Kill Devil Hills on December 17, 1903, and on June 15, 1916 William Boeing, a timber heir, takes his first seaplane 900 feet over Lake Union in Seattle, a little farther than Wilbur's longest flight at Kitty Hawk.

3. Less Than a Million Dollars. The Air Mail Act of June 12, 1934 breaks up United Aircraft and Transport, William Boeing retires that year with the Daniel Guggenheim Medal for achievement in aeronautics, and the company that keeps his name is left, in Bill Allen's words to Time, with "less than $1,000,000 in liquid assets."

4. Thorny, but Well Rooted. Bill Allen, a lawyer who listed five reasons against taking the job, becomes Boeing's president on September 1, 1945, and in 1952 the board he leads commits about $16 million of the company's own money to a jet transport prototype that no airline and no air force had ordered.

5. Five Hundred and Twenty Fathoms. The de Havilland Comet flies the first scheduled jet passenger service on May 2, 1952, loses its certificates of airworthiness after two airplanes are lost off Italy in 1954, and on October 13, 1955 Pan American orders 45 American jets for $269 million, the first order any airline placed for American jet airliners.

6. A Dozen Bathrooms and No Engines. Pan American orders 25 Boeing 747s for $525 million on April 13, 1966, the largest order for commercial aircraft ever placed, and when the program runs over budget the chief engineer, Joe Sutter, asked to cut 1,000 people from his staff, tells Bill Allen he needs 800 more engineers.

7. Turn Out the Lights. Boeing's employment falls from 101,500 to 46,800 in a little over two years, and on April 16, 1971 two real-estate agents put up a billboard near Sea-Tac airport asking the last person leaving Seattle to turn out the lights; by October the payroll is back up to 53,300.

8. A Grave Statement. On February 4, 1971 a British minister tells the House of Commons that Rolls-Royce will ask for a receiver, its RB211 engines for the Lockheed TriStar costing £110,000 apiece more than the contract price, and the engine, finished under state ownership, enters service on April 26, 1972 and becomes the ancestor of every large engine Rolls-Royce has built since.

9. Seventy-Seven Seconds. On March 3, 1974 a Turkish Airlines DC-10 loses its rear cargo door after leaving Paris-Orly and strikes a forest 77 seconds later, killing all 346 aboard; the support plate a service bulletin called for had never been fitted, though three inspectors had signed records saying it had.

10. Never With a Single Aircraft. France and Germany found Airbus Industrie on December 18, 1970, the A300 first flies on October 28, 1972, and after sales stall, Eastern Air Lines takes four on trial in 1977 and on April 6, 1978 orders 23 in all.

11. Plan to Shrink as Well. Bill Anders, the Apollo 8 astronaut who took the photograph known as Earthrise, becomes chairman and chief executive of General Dynamics on January 1, 1991, parts with the businesses that cannot lead their markets and returns the cash to the shareholders, and $100,000 in the stock at the end of 1990 is worth about $650,000 three years later.

12. The Board Owned Nothing. Larry Mendelson, an accountant turned Miami real-estate developer, and his sons Eric and Victor take over HEICO, a small, loss-making maker of replacement parts for jet engines, on January 1, 1990, and the stock the company puts into its employees' retirement plan in September 1992, worth about $4.1 million, is worth more than $2 billion by 2024, by Eric's account.

13. We Slept Well Every Night. The Mendelsons run HEICO by unanimous decision and price its parts a third to a half below the original makers', and by HEICO's own count $100,000 invested in its stock at the end of October 1990 has become about $128.5 million thirty-five years later, about 23 percent a year against 11.5 percent for the S&P 500.

14. Faucets for Airplanes. Nick Howley and Doug Peacock form TransDigm in July 1993 to take over four small aerospace businesses for about $55 million, and in April 1999 it acquires Adams Rite, in Howley's words the largest maker of faucets for airplanes in the world, whose profit margin he doubles, by his memory, within 18 months.

15. The Part Nobody Else Can Make. On February 18, 2021 a parachute made by TransDigm's Airborne Systems opens in the air of Mars for NASA's Perseverance rover, and over the 20 years from September 2006 to September 2026 TransDigm's shares return 27.1 percent a year, the best of 37 aerospace stocks, with HEICO second at 21.1 percent.

16. It All Started With a Beetle. In 1947 Joe Cox, a logger who copied the jaws of a timber beetle's larva in a saw-chain cutter, founds Oregon Saw Chain in Portland, and the small foundry he sets up to cast the cutters becomes a separate business, Precision Castparts, in 1953, with sales of $443 million by 1989.

17. There to Listen. Mark Donegan, who joined Precision Castparts as a supervisor in its Portland casting operations, becomes chief executive in August 2002, the shareholders earn 21.3 percent a year from March 2002 to March 2015 against 6.7 percent for the S&P 500, and that July Warren Buffett offers $235 a share in cash on condition that Donegan stays.

18. The Profits Go With the Work. In February 2001 a Boeing structures engineer, John Hart-Smith, warns in an internal paper that when the work is outsourced "all of the profits associated with the work are out-sourced, too," and the 787, launched on April 26, 2004 with whole sections built by partners, reaches its first customer in September 2011, about three and a half years late.

19. A Million Dollars an Airplane. Boeing's December 2011 contract with Southwest Airlines would have cut the price of every 737 MAX by at least $1 million if the regulator required simulator training, and after the crashes of Lion Air Flight 610 in October 2018 and Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 on March 10, 2019, which killed 189 and 157 people, Boeing agrees on January 7, 2021 to pay over $2.5 billion.

20. Four Bolts. On January 5, 2024 a door plug comes away from Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 at about 14,830 feet, the NTSB traces it to Boeing's Renton factory, where the plug had been closed again without its four bolts, and on August 8, 2024 Boeing's new chief executive, Kelly Ortberg, tells employees he will be on the factory floor in Renton that day.

The program runs 2 hours 17 minutes (2:16:39). The written primer and its companion slide deck are on the Latticework Substack under the title Industry Primer: Aerospace. Part Two, the deep dive for professional investors, is a separate episode, available to members of Latticework.

This audio program is published by MOI Global for educational purposes only. It is not investment advice, an offer, or a solicitation, and no security mentioned herein is recommended for purchase or sale. The publisher and contributors may hold positions in securities discussed. Figures are believed accurate as of the dates stated but are not warranted; listeners should verify all data against primary sources before relying on it. Nothing herein constitutes legal, tax, or accounting advice.

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The transcript is available for download to members only.

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The subject is money that belongs to somebody else. A bank buys money from depositors and sells it to borrowers, and the money can leave at any time, by law, by a competing product, or by a wire transfer sent in the space of a morning. Every scene in the program is a case of that money arriving, staying, or going.

The program runs in fourteen sections:

1. Are We a Dinosaur? In the fall of 2004 the man who owned a bank in Plano, Texas stops buying loans, and over three years takes it from $7.7 billion of assets down to $2.9 billion, until one of his own directors reduces the matter to four words.

2. A Country of Small Banks. The first commercial bank in the United States opens in Philadelphia on January 7, 1782, and the Pennsylvania Assembly votes its charter away less than four years later because its credit reached the city and not the farmers.

3. Three Hours and Eight Million Dollars. The Knickerbocker Trust Company of New York, with $62 million of deposits, pays out $8 million in three hours on the morning of Tuesday, October 22, 1907 and is finished by lunchtime.

4. The Little Fellow. A produce merchant named A. P. Giannini opens the Bank of Italy in San Francisco in 1904 with $150,000 of capital, and twenty-six years later tells a House committee who a bank is really for.

5. The Week Without Banks. Franklin Roosevelt signs Proclamation 2039 at one in the morning on Monday, March 6, 1933, and a country of 125 million people goes a week with no banking at all.

6. We Hit the Jackpot. Two signing ceremonies two and a half years apart, Jimmy Carter on March 31, 1980 and Ronald Reagan in the Rose Garden on October 15, 1982, free the price of deposits and then widen what the institutions paying that price were allowed to lend against.

7. It Is Called Too Big to Fail. Continental Illinois loses its funding by wire in May 1984, and on September 19 a congressman in room 2128 of the Rayburn House Office Building gives the new kind of bank its name.

8. Where Were These Professionals? Judge Stanley Sporkin dismisses the suit brought by the owner of Lincoln Savings and Loan on August 22, 1990, and closes the opinion by turning to the lawyers and accountants who were in the room and said nothing.

9. The Builders. NCNB of Charlotte wins the failed First RepublicBank Corporation of Dallas in 1988 because its people had read the tax rulings nobody else put into a bid, and the Texas operation earns $308 million in 1989, half the buyer’s earnings for the year.

10. A Message to One’s Partners. Robert Wilmers takes control of a $2 billion Buffalo bank in 1983 and writes its owners a letter every year for thirty-four years, and Warren Buffett puts in writing in 1991 that what he has bought is a person.

11. The Wisdom of No. The chief credit officer of Washington Mutual stands in front of thousands of the company’s managers at a 2004 retreat and answers the advertising line the speaker ahead of him had been selling.

12. Not Even a Penny From the FDIC. Wachovia is handed to Citigroup on Monday, September 29, 2008 with the public absorbing the losses past $42 billion, and four days later Wells Fargo signs for the whole company with no assistance at all.

13. One Million Dollars a Second. Silicon Valley Bank loses $42 billion of deposits in ten hours on Thursday, March 9, 2023, expects to lose $100 billion more the next day, and is closed before lunch instead.

14. The Committee Will Deliver Price Stability. The Federal Open Market Committee votes twelve to none on Wednesday, September 16, 2026 to raise the federal funds rate to 3.75 to 4.00 percent, its first increase since the tightening of 2022 and 2023.

The program runs 1 hour 24 minutes (1:23:43). The written primer and its companion slide deck are on the Latticework Substack under the title Industry Primer: US Regional Banks. Part Two, the deep dive for professional investors, is a separate episode, available to members of Latticework.

This audio program is published by MOI Global for educational purposes only. It is not investment advice, an offer, or a solicitation, and no security mentioned herein is recommended for purchase or sale. The publisher and contributors may hold positions in securities discussed. Figures are believed accurate as of the dates stated but are not warranted; listeners should verify all data against primary sources before relying on it. Nothing herein constitutes legal, tax, or accounting advice.

Transcript

The transcript is available for download to members only.

The program runs in sixteen sections:

1. What These Hours Are For. The scale and the spread: the United States property and casualty industry wrote about 1.1 trillion dollars of direct premiums on the statutory basis in calendar 2024, and in fiscal 2025 Kinsale Capital reported a combined ratio of 75.9 percent while the insurance segment of Everest Group reported 114.6 percent, both US GAAP, calendar year.

2. Where the Money Actually Comes From. Return on equity is the underwriting margin times premium leverage, plus the investment yield times asset leverage, less tax and other, worked aloud on Progressive’s fiscal 2025 combined ratio of 87.4 percent, US GAAP, calendar year, and its 2.92 turns of premium for every dollar of equity.

3. Three Centuries, and What Each Regime Settled. What each era proved as evidence, from Chicago in 1871, where of the 182 companies carrying the city’s risks 68 broke and only 31 paid in full, to the January 1, 2023 renewal, when Guy Carpenter’s global property catastrophe index rose 27.5 percent and the attachment points moved with it.

4. The Stations of a Premium Dollar. Seven stations take a share before the balance sheet that pays the claim, and on a worked layer a 16 percent cut in the rate on line, the fall Guy Carpenter’s index recorded for 2026, takes 32 percent out of the margin.

5. Float, and the Price of Holding Other People’s Money. Berkshire Hathaway held 176 billion dollars of float at December 31, 2025, at a cost of minus 5.45 percent on the company’s own definition, and the cost was below zero in 17 of the 31 years from 1967 to 1997.

6. One Identity, Three Shapes of Company. The same identity at four premium leverages in fiscal 2025: 2.92 turns at Progressive, 1.38 at W. R. Berkley, 0.96 at RenaissanceRe and 0.77 at Chubb, and why a reinsurer’s bad year is an event while a casualty writer’s is a discovery.

7. The Models by Segment, and the Moats That Survived the Evidence. Four candidate moats against the record, including the nineteen points of structure between GEICO’s 12.4 percent expense ratio in fiscal 2025, on Berkshire’s own basis, and the 31.2 percent at the Business Insurance segment of The Hartford Insurance Group.

8. Forty-Four Companies, and the Accounts That Defeat Comparison. Fairfax Financial published two combined ratios for the same consolidated book in the same quarter of 2026 under IFRS 17, 93.1 percent undiscounted and 81.9 percent discounted, an 11.2 point wedge with nothing changed about the business.

9. The Allocators, One: The Records on One Basis. Book value per share plus cumulative declared dividends against the index over the identical window, and over the decade to December 31, 2025 three of ten owner-operated insurers beat an index that did 14.8 percent a year, with the median trailing it.

10. The Allocators, Two: The Playbooks, the Incentives and the Letters. Prem Watsa took over Fairfax in 1985 at a book value per share of one dollar and fifty-two cents, which reached 1,260.19 dollars at December 31, 2025, about 18.3 percent a year on the book value alone and 18.7 percent once the dividends are added.

11. Reading the Numbers: The Basis Rule, and the One Subtraction. Travelers’ general liability accident year 2018 has gone from a first estimate of 1,253 million dollars to 1,604 million, undiscounted and net of reinsurance, and the nine accident years from 2016 to 2024 have been strengthened by 1,593 million while the company reported net favorable development in nine of the ten calendar years to 2025.

12. The Accounting That Misleads. Four places where the numbers are right and misleading at once, including 2022, when Progressive’s accumulated other comprehensive income moved 2,843 million dollars against net income of 722 million and the company reported a comprehensive loss of 2,121 million, with nothing in the underlying insurance business changed.

13. The Sequence a Specialist Runs. Nine steps in order on any carrier, with the risk-based capital ladder read out from the 300 percent above which the regulator leaves you alone down to the 70 percent at which the regulator is obliged to take over the company.

14. What the Market Is Paying For, and What the Record Paid. At a 9 percent cost of equity and 4 percent growth, price to book equals return on equity minus four, over five, applied across a universe that ran from 0.37 times book at James River to 7.69 times at Admiral at the September 4, 2026 close.

15. The Countable and the Narrative. Every countable artificial intelligence disclosure this industry has made, including AIG’s statement on its first-quarter 2026 call of May 1, 2026 that AIG Assist lifted quoted submissions 30 percent, cut time to quote 55 percent and raised submissions bound by roughly 40 percent, and the fact that not one of the countable items is a loss ratio.

16. Three Clocks, the Arguments Still Open, and the Checklist. The advertised base rate is a median excess return of plus 1.21 points a year for nineteen listed American insurers on total shareholder return with dividends reinvested, each against the index over its own window to September 4, 2026, and the correction is that of roughly twenty Bermudians formed in the classes of 1993, 2001 and 2005, exactly four were still independently listed on that day.

The program runs 2 hours 33 minutes (2:33:01). The full written primer and its companion slide deck are on the primer post for members of Latticework, on the Latticework Substack under the title Industry Primer: Property and Casualty Insurance & Reinsurance. Part One, the story of the industry, is a separate public episode.

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The program runs in fourteen sections:

1. Four Hours on a Saturday. A twenty-year-old in Benjamin Graham’s class at Columbia takes the train to Washington in January 1951, pounds on a closed door, and gets four hours from Lorimer Davidson on why selling direct cost less than selling through agents.

2. The House That Sold Information. Edward Lloyd’s coffee house in London, first mentioned in 1688, where the product was shipping news, and Lloyd’s List, in print from 1734.

3. Sixty-Eight Companies. The fire that took New York’s financial district on the night of December 16, 1835, and Eliphalet Terry of Hartford, who guaranteed his company’s checks with his directors’ private fortunes.

4. The Word Nobody Would Say. San Francisco on the morning of April 18, 1906, and the argument after the fires about which cause of loss the policies had covered.

5. The Farmer Who Noticed. The New York Court of Appeals strikes down the state’s workers’ compensation law on March 24, 1911, and the Triangle Shirtwaist factory burns the next day.

6. Fifteen Minutes, No Lawyer, No Audit. Berkshire Hathaway pays $8.6 million in 1967 for National Indemnity and National Fire and Marine, on a page and a half of contract and no audit.

7. Capacity Is an Attitudinal Concept. The Manville Corporation files for bankruptcy on August 26, 1982 with 16,500 asbestos suits pending, and the industry learns what one word in an old policy was worth.

8. Down to the Last Cufflink. The Lloyd’s Act of 1982, and the Names whose liability for what their agents wrote had no limit at all.

9. Karen Clark at the Fax Machine. Hurricane Andrew comes ashore in south Dade County on August 24, 1992, and a model built in Boston puts the industry loss above $13 billion while the market is still working from a much smaller number.

10. I Violated the Noah Rule. The September 11 attacks produce about $32.5 billion of insured loss across property, aviation, workers’ compensation and liability at once, and Warren Buffett writes down the three rules his reinsurers were supposed to follow, and which two had been kept weakly.

11. Fair, Friendly Acquisitions. Prem Watsa takes over a failing Canadian trucking insurer in 1985 and renames it for the three words he intends to operate by.

12. A Bigger Slice of the Paella. Progressive, founded in Cleveland on March 10, 1937, and the underwriting profit objective it printed in 1971 and has not moved since.

13. Twenty-Two Days. The fire that took Paradise, California, on November 8, 2018, and the small Central Valley insurer the state moved to take over twenty-two days later.

14. Weather That Did Not Arrive. Greg Abel’s first annual letter, February 28, 2026, Berkshire’s insurance businesses at an 87.1 percent combined ratio for 2025 on the company’s own basis, and the single sentence that says why.

The program runs 1 hour 31 minutes (1:30:59). The written primer and its companion slide deck are on the Latticework Substack under the title Industry Primer: Property and Casualty Insurance & Reinsurance. Part Two, the deep dive for professional investors, is a separate episode, available to members of Latticework.

This audio program is published by MOI Global for educational purposes only. It is not investment advice, an offer, or a solicitation, and no security mentioned herein is recommended for purchase or sale. The publisher and contributors may hold positions in securities discussed. Figures are believed accurate as of the dates stated but are not warranted; listeners should verify all data against primary sources before relying on it. Nothing herein constitutes legal, tax, or accounting advice.

Transcript

The transcript is available for download to members only.

This program follows the written primer in fifteen sections. It opens with the toll the industry charges and with what the record of shareholder returns since demutualization shows, including a median of about 16.7 percent a year and a spread of roughly eighty times between the best and worst performers inside one industry. It then works through the life of a single trade and the six places it pays; the four regimes the industry has passed through and what each one proved; what anchors a pool of liquidity, and why some franchises have never been taken while others fell in a year; volume, capture and operating leverage; the three groups of listed companies and the unlisted institutions at the center of the system; the two capital allocation philosophies of Jeffrey Sprecher at Intercontinental Exchange (NYSE: ICE) and Terry Duffy at CME Group (Nasdaq: CME); the accounting that defeats comparison; the sequence a specialist runs on a single name; where the multiples sit, and where entry price rather than franchise quality decided the outcome; where long-run returns actually came from; what is countable in the industry’s newer businesses and what is still narrative; the six ways investors in this industry have lost money; and the due diligence checklist, spoken.

Ten examples are worked aloud, with the inputs stated in order and the arithmetic done one step at a time. They are the life of one E-mini S&P 500 futures trade in dollars; Cboe Global Markets (Cboe: CBOE) from gross revenue to the revenue it keeps; an estimate of a CME quarter built from the monthly volume releases; what a move of twenty percent in volume does to CME’s earnings; a reading of the quarterly clearinghouse disclosures at CME and at LCH; the bridge from ICE’s adjusted earnings to its reported earnings; a sum of the parts for London Stock Exchange Group (LSE: LSEG); MarketAxess (Nasdaq: MKTX) from its record close of $590.32 in December 2020 to the $167.00 a share in cash that ICE agreed to pay in July 2026; a decomposition of CME’s and ICE’s returns since listing; and the ladder of prices paid in past acquisitions.

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This program runs from Amsterdam in 1602 to the prediction markets of 2026, in thirteen sections. It opens on a December afternoon in 2012, when an Atlanta company most people had never heard of agreed to buy the New York Stock Exchange and said on television that it wanted a London futures business rather than the building or the brand. It then goes back to the night the subscription for the Dutch East India Company closed at Dirck van Os’s house in Amsterdam, with the clause in the capital book that made a share transferable; to the London brokers who paid sixpence each in 1773 to rename their coffee house the Stock Exchange; and to the twenty-four brokers who signed seventy-three words under a buttonwood tree on Wall Street in 1792 and fixed a commission that lasted 183 years.

From there the story follows the club as it becomes property and then a public company. It covers the price of a seat on the New York exchange across a century and a half, and Richard Whitney, who bid for United States Steel on the floor during the crash of 1929 and was sentenced nine years later for looting a members’ fund. It covers Leo Melamed, who crossed Siberia as a child on a Japanese transit visa, answered a classified advertisement he took to be from a law firm, and thirty years later put currencies into a futures market. It covers the paperwork crisis that closed the New York exchange every Wednesday for half of 1968 and produced the depository that holds the certificates still; the end of fixed commissions on May Day in 1975 and London’s Big Bang in 1986; the German government bond contract that moved from a London trading floor to a Frankfurt screen in the 1990s; the two professors who noticed that dealers almost never quoted in odd eighths; the eleven days in 2006 in which a seat on a New York commodity exchange turned into about $12 million of stock; the $9 trillion of Lehman Brothers interest rate swaps that a London clearinghouse worked through in 2008; the flash crash of 2010, and the software release that cost Knight Capital more than $400 million in about forty-five minutes in 2012; the night in March 2022 when the London Metal Exchange suspended nickel trading and canceled a day of trades; and the prediction market that was fined for operating without a license, then bought a licensed exchange and clearinghouse, and then took a $1.6 billion investment from the owner of the New York Stock Exchange.

The program runs about an hour and a half. The written primer, a 223-page report, and its companion 53-slide deck are on the Latticework Substack under the title, Industry Primer: Exchanges & Financial Market Infrastructure.

Part Two of the podcast on the industry, the deep dive for professional investors, is available to members.

This audio program is published by MOI Global for educational purposes only. It is not investment advice, an offer, or a solicitation, and no security mentioned herein is recommended for purchase or sale. The publisher and contributors may hold positions in securities discussed. Figures are believed accurate as of the dates stated but are not warranted; listeners should verify all data against primary sources before relying on it. Nothing herein constitutes legal, tax, or accounting advice.

Transcript

The transcript is available for download to members only.

Manpreet is a Portfolio Manager at Sugatu Capital, a London-based manager that runs a roughly $250 million fund anchored by a single family office. He brings more than fifteen years across global equity and credit markets, including distressed and high-yield credit at Nomura, and holds degrees from IIT Bombay and IIM Ahmedabad. His approach is to buy good businesses at low valuations in ignored, under-covered corners of the market, hold them for three to five years, and treat volatility as a source of alpha rather than a risk to be avoided.

He applied that lens to oil and gas services, and specifically to offshore drilling. The premise: global energy demand keeps compounding, fossil fuels still supply roughly 80% of it, and the most populous nations are only starting to consume. He also flagged a striking capital mismatch, noting that the world spent roughly $3.8 trillion on renewables over the past decade, yet the fossil fuel share of the energy mix moved only from 82% to 81%. Rather than forecast the oil price, which he regards as unknowable, Manpreet prefers to bet on oil volume, which is far more predictable. With conventional onshore output in structural decline and shale plateauing, he argues deepwater has to grow, and you cannot produce deepwater oil without the rigs that drill it.

That leads to the heart of the thesis: deepwater drillers. The last cycle gutted the sector. The global fleet fell from 300-350 vessels to about 200, roughly half of which are effectively dead. No new drillships have been ordered in a decade; at current day rates, newbuilds that cost $600 million to $1.2 billion and take five years make no economic sense. The survivors emerged from bankruptcy with clean balance sheets, consolidation would leave the top three players with about 80% of supply, and for the first time in 25 years, management or the board is the largest shareholder in each of the leaders. The stocks still trade at a deep discount to replacement value while paying dividends.

Manpreet was candid about the cost of admission. These are hypervolatile names and not for the fearful. He also worked through adjacent ideas across shallow-water drilling, seismic, floating LNG, and FPSOs.

The full transcript carries the argument in his own words: the supporting numbers, the company-by-company detail across the names he owns, and a candid Q&A on what he tracks and what could break the thesis. It rewards a careful read.

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If you’re not an engineer or otherwise technically inclined, you may have found it challenging to understand what really goes on in the semiconductor sector. The latter has emerged as hugely important to the future of artificial intelligence, and its weighting in key market indices has grown. As a result, even if we consider semiconductors outside our “circle of competence”, it may be worthwhile to dig into the sector and the key players.

In this multi-part series, we attempt to make semiconductors understandable to non-technical investors. The goal is to educate ourselves on the industry value chain in order to gain appreciation for the market positioning, business models, and sustainability of competitive advantage of the key players, ranging from well-known giants such as TSMC and Nvidia to lessor-known but deeply entrenched players such as Cadence and Synopsys. Other companies we seek to understand as part of this series include AMD, Applied Materials, ASML, Micron, and Texas Instruments, to name a few.

We have the privilege of learning from a former semiconductor industry insider: Adarsh Shyamsundar has two decades of experience in the industry. From 2002-2008, Adi was at Intel, including as product engineer and test team leader. From 2008-2022, he served at Micron in various roles, including as senior product engineer, engineering manager, and senior manager. Adi caught the investing bug in 2006 and founded Polaris Capital Management, based in El Dorado Hills, California, in 2022. He holds a MS in Electrical Engineering degree from Arizona State University and an MBA from the University of California at Davis.

In this fourth installment, recorded in April 2025, we cover:

• Processor types — CPUs, GPUs, TPUs, and NPUs — and the major chip designers and manufacturers, including Nvidia, TSMC, and Intel. We also touch on chips by Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and Meta.

• Networking and other chips, by Broadcom, Qualcomm, and Marvell.

• Usage of these chips in the AI space.

• John’s questions for Adi

In the third installment, recorded in February 2025, we covered:

• Semiconductor test equipment, and its role

• Test equipment providers: Advantest, Teradyne, Agilent, FormFactor

• Chip design and types of chips (CPUs, GPUs, etc.)

• John’s questions for Adi

In the second installment, recorded in January 2025, we covered:

• Electronic design automation (EDA) software, and its role

• EDA software leaders: Cadence Design, Synopsys, Mentor (Siemens)

• Semiconductor equipment manufacturers, and role in the value chain

• Players: ASML, AMAT, Lam Research, KLA Corp., Tokyo Electron

• John’s questions for Adi

In the first installment, recorded in December 2024, we covered:

• What is a semiconductor?

• Brief industry history

• The process of going from silicon to chip

• Industry value chain

• Some of the key players and how they fit in

• John’s questions for Adi

If you would like to learn more about the semiconductor sector, we highly recommend Chip War: The Fight for the World's Most Critical Technology.

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Volunteer by reaching out directly to John (john@moiglobal.com).

If you’re not an engineer or otherwise technically inclined, you may have found it challenging to understand what really goes on in the semiconductor sector. The latter has emerged as hugely important to the future of artificial intelligence, and its weighting in key market indices has grown. As a result, even if we consider semiconductors outside our “circle of competence”, it may be worthwhile to dig into the sector and the key players.

In this multi-part series, we attempt to make semiconductors understandable to non-technical investors. The goal is to educate ourselves on the industry value chain in order to gain appreciation for the market positioning, business models, and sustainability of competitive advantage of the key players, ranging from well-known giants such as TSMC and Nvidia to lessor-known but deeply entrenched players such as Cadence and Synopsys. Other companies we seek to understand as part of this series include AMD, Applied Materials, ASML, Micron, and Texas Instruments, to name a few.

We have the privilege of learning from a former semiconductor industry insider: Adarsh Shyamsundar has two decades of experience in the industry. From 2002-2008, Adi was at Intel, including as product engineer and test team leader. From 2008-2022, he served at Micron in various roles, including as senior product engineer, engineering manager, and senior manager. Adi caught the investing bug in 2006 and founded Polaris Capital Management, based in El Dorado Hills, California, in 2022. He holds a MS in Electrical Engineering degree from Arizona State University and an MBA from the University of California at Davis.

In this third installment, recorded in February 2025, we cover:

• Semiconductor test equipment, and its role

• Test equipment providers: Advantest, Teradyne, Agilent, FormFactor

• Chip design and types of chips (CPUs, GPUs, etc.)

In the second installment, recorded in January 2025, we covered:

• Electronic design automation (EDA) software, and its role

• EDA software leaders: Cadence Design, Synopsys, Mentor (Siemens)

• Semiconductor equipment manufacturers, and role in the value chain

• Players: ASML, AMAT, Lam Research, KLA Corp., Tokyo Electron

• John’s questions for Adi

In the first installment, recorded in December 2024, we covered:

• What is a semiconductor?

• Brief industry history

• The process of going from silicon to chip

• Industry value chain

• Some of the key players and how they fit in

• John’s questions for Adi

If you would like to learn more about the semiconductor sector, we highly recommend Chip War: The Fight for the World's Most Critical Technology.

Read more

John is the founder of SeaPoint Insights, an independent research and insights firm, and the author of Financials Unshackled, a free-to-read Substack newsletter covering UK, Irish, and select European and global banking sector and company developments. Previously, he was a top-ranked institutional equity and fixed income analyst at Goodbody, specializing in UK/Irish banks (and real estate).

Here’s what you’ll get from our conversation:

• UK banking overview and market dynamics

• Discussion of OSB Group (UK: OSB)

• Discussion of Barclays (UK: BARC)

• Discussion of Metro Bank (UK: MTRO)

• Prospects for UK banking consolidation

Editor’s note: For another in-depth perspective on OSB Group, see Daniel Gladiš’s presentation at Best Ideas 2025.

Let’s dive into the conversation with John.

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If you’re not an engineer or otherwise technically inclined, you may have found it challenging to understand what really goes on in the semiconductor sector. The latter has emerged as hugely important to the future of artificial intelligence, and its weighting in key market indices has grown. As a result, even if we consider semiconductors outside our “circle of competence”, it may be worthwhile to dig into the sector and the key players.

In this multi-part series, we attempt to make semiconductors understandable to non-technical investors. The goal is to educate ourselves on the industry value chain in order to gain appreciation for the market positioning, business models, and sustainability of competitive advantage of the key players, ranging from well-known giants such as TSMC and Nvidia to lessor-known but deeply entrenched players such as Cadence and Synopsys. Other companies we seek to understand as part of this series include AMD, Applied Materials, ASML, Micron, and Texas Instruments, to name a few.

We have the privilege of learning from a former semiconductor industry insider: Adarsh Shyamsundar has two decades of experience in the industry. From 2002-2008, Adi was at Intel, including as product engineer and test team leader. From 2008-2022, he served at Micron in various roles, including as senior product engineer, engineering manager, and senior manager. Adi caught the investing bug in 2006 and founded Polaris Capital Management, based in El Dorado Hills, California, in 2022. He holds a MS in Electrical Engineering degree from Arizona State University and an MBA from the University of California at Davis.

In this second installment, recorded on January 23rd, we cover:

• Electronic design automation (EDA) software, and its role

• EDA software leaders: Cadence Design, Synopsys, Mentor (Siemens)

• Semiconductor equipment manufacturers, and role in the value chain

• Players: ASML, AMAT, Lam Research, KLA Corp., Tokyo Electron

• John’s questions for Adi

In the first installment, recorded in December 2024, we covered:

• What is a semiconductor?

• Brief industry history

• The process of going from silicon to chip

• Industry value chain

• Some of the key players and how they fit in

• John’s questions for Adi

We look forward to bringing you installment three in March.

If you would like to learn more about the semiconductor sector, we highly recommend Chip War: The Fight for the World's Most Critical Technology.

Read more

Fortunes have been made and lost in real estate, a fascinating asset class with enduring relevance to humanity. It may be the only asset class that literally touches every human being, and nearly everyone has some idea of the utility of real estate. Due to its ubiquity and fundamental value, real estate is a vast sector with numerous sub-sectors, with residential and commercial among the highest-level groupings. Within each, multiple distinct sub-segments enable investors to own assets with a wide range of features and payoff profiles. When you overlay considerations such as geography and financing structure, it becomes clear just how tailored real estate investment strategies can be to the risk exposure preferences of investors.

In seeking to provide insights for investors in the stock market, my podcast co-host Elliot Turner and I invited real estate expert Bill Chen to join us on This Week in Intelligent Investing for a series on real estate. The episodes were recorded in recent months, and I am delighted to present them here as an in-depth primer on real estate investing in public markets. Having been recorded in recent months, this program is both timely and evergreen.

Bill Chen is the founder and managing partner of Rhizome Partners, Rhizome Real Asset Opportunity Fund, and Rhizome Hard Asset Opportunity Fund. Prior to forming Rhizome in 2013, Bill managed his own capital, focusing on deep value investments and event-driven strategies.

In this four-hour program, Bill provides a tour de force on the real estate sector. He makes the investment case for real estate investment trusts (REITs) from a long-term investor’s perspective and discusses large-cap multifamily REITs, among other market segments. He explains how investors should think about the capital structure of REITs, and highlights Vornado Realty Trust as an example. Finally, Bill addresses premortem failure analysis, management quality, and related topics.

The program is structured as follows:

• Introduction

• Bill's Background in Real Estate

• Publicly Listed Real Estate vs. Private Ownership

• Understanding REITs and Their Valuation

• Investment Strategies for Public Real Estate

• Challenges and Opportunities in the REIT Market

• The Role of Interest Rates in Real Estate Valuation

• Current Trends in Multi-Family and Commercial Real Estate

• Office and Retail Real Estate Market Outlook

• Final Thoughts and Takeaways

The primary purpose of this podcast is to educate and inform. The views, information, or opinions expressed by hosts or guests are their own. Neither this show, nor any of its content should be construed as investment advice or as a recommendation to buy or sell any particular security. Security specific information shared on this podcast should not be relied upon as a basis for your own investment decisions -- be sure to do your own research. The podcast hosts and participants may have a position in the securities mentioned, personally, through sub accounts and/or through separate funds and may change their holdings at any time.

Related Research and Presentations by Bill Chen

The following files are intended for your eyes only. Please keep them confidential.

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