We were delighted to welcome Wyatt Sparks back to the Zurich Project last month, and we are grateful to him for once again sharing his wisdom and insights with the group. While Zurich Project proceedings are kept confidential by default, Wyatt has generously approved the release of the session replay.
Wyatt is the founder and chief investment officer of Sea Meadow Capital, an investment partnership launched in 2021. His path to portfolio management is unusually well-rounded: long-only equities at T. Rowe Price, CMBS at J.P. Morgan, institutional credit at Delaware Life, and an operating chapter as CFO of DMVans, a Colorado-based motorhome manufacturer. Of the ideas Wyatt shared at last year’s Zurich Project, Solaris Energy gained 164% and Atlas Energy Solutions 55%, performance he calls unrepeatable in his characteristically humble manner.
Wyatt’s 2026 talk was built around survival. Roughly 40% of Russell 3000 constituents have produced negative absolute returns over their lifetimes, and two-thirds have underperformed the index. In Wyatt’s taxonomy of alpha generation, namely be smart, show up, or “degen down,” he places himself firmly in the “show up” camp: do the work consistently, respect base rates, and let a sound framework serve as a helmet in a profession defined by frequent losses.
He described today’s market as a strange hybrid of 1999 and 1973, momentum-driven and hyper-narrative, with leveraged single-stock ETFs proliferating and retail speculation at fever pitch. His response is to hunt for “Act II” stories among beaten-up cyclicals. Citing Michael Mauboussin’s drawdown research, he noted that stocks down 80-85% from their highs have recovered to prior peaks roughly half the time. The discipline lies in understanding why Mr. Market has discarded a name and whether the common equity will capture the enterprise’s future cash flow. Wyatt seeks “earned duration” and positive carry on an 18-month, 18-month forward curve, in effect a three-year holding period.
The centerpiece was Weyerhaeuser (NYSE: WY), the 126-year-old largest private landowner in North America, with 10.4 million U.S. acres. Wyatt sees a “snoozy” but mispriced Timberlands business trading at a discount to private-market values, a positive-carry land bank in Strategic Land Solutions whose climate businesses he calls a hidden jewel, and a wood products franchise, the second-largest lumber producer on the continent, that the market values at roughly zero due to a REIT shareholder mismatch. His prescription is a separation of the two businesses. His sum-of-the-parts appraisal reaches the mid-$40s per share, roughly double the recent quotation.
This summary only skims the surface. The full session includes Wyatt’s candid assessment of Rayonier, the REIT-structure mechanics behind a potential breakup, and a lively exchange with fellow members. We invite you to enjoy the complete audio replay, slide deck, and edited transcript.
