On the morning of May 1, members gathered for our annual Best Ideas Omaha member breakfast, hosted by Tyler Howell. The format was simple: pass the mic, share a one-to-three-minute thesis. The result was a wide-ranging tour of the global opportunity set, from US large-cap compounders to Japanese capital allocators, Chinese property managers, African neobanks, and Canadian micro-cap rental housing.
We extend our gratitude to the event sponsors — Bob Robotti, Scott Miller, Christopher Tsai, and Dave Sather — who made the gathering possible.
What follows are the company-specific theses as presented.
The content of this post is for informational and educational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice, a recommendation, or an offer or solicitation to buy or sell any security. The investment ideas summarized here reflect the views of individual MOI Global members at the time of presentation and may not reflect the views of MOI Global, Latticework, BeyondProxy, or their affiliates. The speakers and/or their firms, family members, or clients may hold long or short positions in the securities discussed and may transact in those securities at any time without notice. The information presented is based on sources believed to be reliable but has not been independently verified, and no representation or warranty is made as to its accuracy or completeness. Past performance is not indicative of future results. Investing involves risk, including the possible loss of principal. Readers should conduct their own due diligence and consult a qualified financial, legal, or tax advisor before making any investment decision.
Builders FirstSource (BLDR)
The thesis opened with a reminder that “the next decade is going to be all about stock picking.” Builders FirstSource is the largest US distributor of lumber and sheet goods to home builders, with ~75% of revenue tied to new construction. The stock has been cut in half five times since 2015 and recently traded sub-$90, down from $220. The company’s undisclosed dominant share in key markets gives it pricing power the market underestimates in a depressed cycle, with mills now shutting capacity below normalized demand. Management has retired roughly half its shares over five years. With Brad Jacobs’s XPO recently paying 17–19x EBITDA for TopBuild, there is a path to roughly 2x today’s price as the cycle normalizes toward $18 of earnings power.
CoStar Group (CSGP)
CoStar was described as “the Bloomberg of commercial and residential real estate” — a platform spanning CoStar analytics, LoopNet, Apartments.com, and Homes.com, sitting on 8.5 million proprietary commercial property records granular enough to include when a building’s boiler was last replaced. That four-decade data moat insulates the franchise from AI commoditization. Founder-CEO Andy Florance just delivered the company’s 60th consecutive quarter of double-digit revenue growth at mid-to-high-teens ROIC. With the stock at $35 (down 66% from its high) and a $14.5B market cap, the core business alone is worth ~$45 a share — Homes.com is essentially free. EPS is modeled rising from $3.20 to $24+ in five years, with a five-year price target of $147.
UnitedHealthcare (UNH)
The pitch was “as much about the power of lobbying” as it is about healthcare. At ~$370 and a $335B market cap, UNH has been beaten down from $550 on Medicare-reimbursement noise, PBM-rebate scrutiny, and the tragic CEO incident in New York. Over the last decade, the government’s initial proposed Medicare rate increases averaged 0.9% but ultimately came in at 2.48%. Management has committed to passing through 100% of PBM rebates by 2028, streamlining authorizations by 2027, and publishing transparency data. Modeling EPS of ~$18.25 growing mid-teens through 2030 on a 24%+ ROE business, today’s 20x multiple is a good entry — AI-driven internal efficiencies are not yet in the price. The Haven joint venture (Amazon-JPMorgan-Berkshire) walking away is itself a comment on the moat’s depth.
Hikari Tsushin (9435 JP)
Hikari “probably has the best capital allocation record in Japan at scale by far.” Founder Mr. Shigeta has compounded profits 20%+ and book value 17%+ for 15 years. At ~$10B market cap, Hikari leverages a database of ~1 million corporate and 3 million individual customers to cross-sell utilities, gas, mobile, and insurance — Japan’s largest sales network. Discipline is the differentiator: management refuses to deploy capital below a 30% IRR. In 2017–18, Hikari borrowed $4B of long-dated yen debt at near-zero rates and built a portfolio of 500 Japanese microcaps that has compounded at 17% IRR with positive carry. The stock trades at ~1.5x book; ex investment portfolio, the core business is at ~6x EBIT. Hikari is also the 10th-largest Class A holder of Berkshire. [in-depth presentation]
S&P Global (SPGI)
SPGI is a high-quality compounder trading roughly one standard deviation below its 10-year average forward P/E at 21x. Ratings (about a third of revenue) sit inside a duopoly-plus-one with Moody’s and Fitch controlling ~95% globally; trillions of refinancings come due by 2030. AI risk is overblown — ratings are insulated, and Capital IQ is just ~8% of revenue, where near-100% data accuracy keeps proprietary contracts in place. With the Mobility spin-off and energy software divestitures making SPGI a purer data, indices, and benchmarks play, low-double-digit earnings growth is achievable. Moody’s already trades roughly seven turns higher on forward P/E.
TransDigm (TDG)
TransDigm is the company Will Thorndike would surely add if he rewrote The Outsiders today. With a $65B market cap, 90% proprietary parts, 75% of profits from aftermarket, and EBITDA margins in the low 50s on capex below 2% of sales, TDG is a “free-cash-flow gushing machine” run on the three Ps: price, productivity, and profitable new business. Esterline — where TDG roughly doubled the legacy margin profile, as it does on most deals — exemplifies the playbook. Long-term demand is structural: 80% of the world has never flown, and half of those who have did not fly last year. New CEO Mike Lisman, 43, is starting what could be a 15-year run; a recent shift from special dividends to aggressive March repurchases telegraphs the view on valuation.
Workday (WDAY)
Workday trades at a ~$30B market cap and ~$120 share — 55% off its 52-week high. The bear narrative bundles AI-driven seat compression, M&A overhang from $2.5B of recent acquisitions, and pricing-model transition risk. The pushback: payroll requires a deterministic outcome probabilistic AI tools cannot deliver, and large enterprise customers will not replatform for 7–15 years post-RFP. Workday spends 28% of revenue on R&D — well above Oracle and SAP — and trades at 8.6x free cash flow versus a peer median of 16.7x. With 65% of the Fortune 500 on HCM, cross-sell into financials is underappreciated; a re-rating toward 13x offers material upside.
Tractor Supply (TSCO)
The pitch was kept “short and simple, like the business.” TSCO trades at just under 16x forward earnings — a level reached only briefly two or three times in the past decade — yet possesses above-average qualities for a retailer: recurring-like animal-feed revenue, sticky rural customers, and minimal local competition. A reverse-DCF requires only sub-4% growth; the company is opening stores at above 4%, with low-single-digit comps, ~1% buyback yield, and operating leverage. As the new-store ramp normalizes and capex eases, mid-to-high-single-digit earnings growth is achievable — well above the implied hurdle.
The Trade Desk (TTD)
The Trade Desk is a case study in indexing-amplified mispricing. TTD’s removal from key indexes has compounded an already volatile narrative around UID 2.0 and a Publicis dispute over customer data privacy, which is expected to be resolved. The signal: the CEO recently made the largest open-market insider purchase by anyone — $150M of his own money. As passive flows dominate, idiosyncratic disruptions get magnified in both directions, and patient investors must be more willing than they would prefer to act when prices reach irrational levels.
Domino’s Pizza (DPZ)
Domino’s is a wide-moat compounder at a 14-year low relative to its own historical multiple. Franchisee cash-on-cash returns reach 30% with a three-year payback — versus McDonald’s at over four years — and Domino’s has nearly doubled market share over the past decade. At ~17x forward earnings versus low-to-mid-20s for QSR peers, the stock is treated as cyclically impaired by a burnt-out consumer. Leverage is used productively: nearly all incremental debt has funded buybacks, with shares declining at a 4.8% CAGR. A new repurchase authorization equal to ~9% of market cap, against a reverse-DCF pricing in only mid-single-digit growth, supports outgrowing expectations.
U-Haul (UHAL)
U-Haul is a Buffett-esque, family-controlled compounder. About 90% of the US population lives within five miles of a U-Haul dealer, and the company is reinvesting rental cash flow into self-storage — a business CEO Joe Shoen profiled in his Harvard thesis decades ago, estimating TAM at two square feet per person versus today’s seven-to-eight and a ceiling closer to ten. EBITDA margins are temporarily depressed in the high 20s versus a normalized 33–35% as an elevated capex cycle rolls off. Book value per share has compounded at 12–20% historically; even 8–12% going forward is attractive. The non-voting B shares trade at a 5–10% discount.
Customers Bank (CUBI)
Customers Bank is a $25B-asset New York-focused lender at ~$2.5B market cap, sub-10x P/E, and 1.2x tangible book. TBV has compounded ~18% over six years with disciplined credit (peak NDFI net charge-offs of 55 bps in 2024, zero in the capital-call line). The unmonetized optionality: cubiX, a stablecoin payments rail already at $2 trillion+ annualized — comparable to Visa’s commercial volumes — built entirely from internal earnings. With CET1 at 12.8% versus an 11.5–12.5% target, buybacks make sense; if cubiX monetization gains traction, the stock could re-rate well above $180 from the high $70s.
Daqo New Energy (DQ)
Daqo is a rare cigar butt. The Xinjiang-based polysilicon producer trades at $1.3B market cap with ~$2B in net cash, at 0.3x book. Industry conditions are near a cyclical bottom, and Beijing is treating polysilicon as a poster child of its anti-involution campaign aimed at irrational price competition and deflation. It is a deeply asymmetric setup that one really only finds in today’s Chinese A-shares and ADR universe.
Mainstreet Equity (MEQ)
Mainstreet is a “one-decision stock the big boys cannot buy.” Since its May 2000 IPO, the company has compounded book value per share at 17–18% for 26 years with virtually no dilution. Founder-CEO Bob Dhillon — a Calgary-raised Indian immigrant who still owns nearly 50% — operates as the low-cost producer in mid-market Western Canadian rental housing, buying sub-100-unit buildings at $150K–$200K per door versus $400K Canadian replacement cost. CMHC-insured five-year mortgages at ~3.4% (versus 6% for smaller competitors), in-house crews, and standardized finishes drive durable cost advantages. The stock trades just below book, with ~12% book-value compounding modeled going forward.
Irish Continental Group (ICG)
ICG operates eight fully-owned ferries on short-sea routes between Ireland, the UK, and France — a duopoly on the shortest Ireland-UK leg, plus a strong position on Dover-Calais. Ferries deliver ~80% of EBITDA; the rest comes from a 34-acre Dublin Port terminal that is essentially impossible to replicate. ROACE is in the high teens. CEO Eamonn Rothwell, on the board since 1987, owns 21.4% and has compounded the share price at 15% annualized for 38 years. With major Dover-Calais and environmental capex behind it, ICG can generate ~75% of market cap in after-tax FCF over five years, against ~7.5–8x maintenance FCF today.
Binjiang Service Group (3316 HK)
Binjiang is a Hangzhou-based property manager at ~$800M market cap, managing 83 million square meters with 35–40% ROE, zero debt, and ~3.8B RMB in net cash. It has no exposure to land or developer inventory, and receivables from its affiliated developer are clean — a red flag used to weed out peers. Management is committed to distributing 75% of free cash flow, producing an 8–9% dividend yield while investors wait through the worst Chinese residential downturn in years. Binjiang grew revenue 22% and 15% in the two most recent years by serving brand-new buildings in Binjiang District — effectively the Palo Alto of China, home to Alibaba, DeepSeek, and Unitree Robotics. The stock trades at just over 9x trailing earnings.
Lesaka Technologies (LSAK)
Lesaka is “a VC investment, kind of, in the public markets” — a $400M-market-cap South African neobank listed on Nasdaq. The thesis draws a direct analogy to Nubank’s decade-long ascent in Brazil: South Africa is ~60% cash, has a four-bank oligopoly, a large unbanked population, and a sleepy profit pool ripe for a digital-first attacker. Chairman Ali Mazanderani — a fintech specialist formerly on the boards of StoneCo and Fawry — has spent five years rebuilding the company; the business inflected this past year. Lesaka guides to ~20% organic net revenue growth this fiscal year and next, putting it at 8–9x next year’s earnings. Mazanderani bought ~5% on the open market in December.
Ascent Industries (ACNT)
Ascent Industries is the smallest name presented at $130M market cap. The company holds $60M of cash being deployed into aggressive buybacks. After activist intervention in 2020 simplified the asset base, the board in 2024 installed CEO Bryan Kitchen, who previously ran the same playbook at Clearon — taking it from -$8M EBITDA to $36M in 4.5 years before a strategic sale. Three plants run at only 45% utilization; there is a clear path to grow revenue from $80M to $130M with no material capex, lifting earnings from $8M to $17–20M — a forward multiple of 4–5x. Management plans to sell once 80% utilization is achieved. Even without a sale, the business will yield 20% on free cash flow; a sale could deliver 2.5–3x today’s price.
Listen to the audio; read the transcript
A lightly edited audio replay and transcript of Best Ideas Omaha 2026, including all company-specific “elevator pitches,” is available exclusively to MOI Global members and paid Latticework subscribers.
