The Latticework Monday Morning Briefing is our weekly “Guide to the Markets” for long term-oriented investors. It is sent on a separate mailing list (complimentary to members). If you do not wish to receive it, opt out here.
Latticework 2026 (November 10-11) is fully booked. I look forward to welcoming a great group in Chicago for fireside chats, panel discussions, idea pitches as well as a reception and dinner.
Highlights of the Latticework Monday Morning Briefing:
Ideas from our member newsletter
We highlight a few stock write-ups from the latest Weekly Inspiration:
CEWE (Xetra: CWC) sells more than 6 million photobooks a year, Europe’s most popular, through 20,000 retail partners, and does so with high-teens ROCE, net cash and 16 consecutive years of dividend increases. Photofinishing brought €745.5M of the €864.5M 2025 turnover at a low double-digit margin; WhiteWall, Pixum and Cheerz sit behind the CEWE name, and the company builds full photobook ordering into retailers’ own websites rather than merely placing terminals in stores. Kevin Durkin of Ballina Capital, which bought in 2025, argues the market filed CEWE under consumer cyclicals and punished it with the sector while earnings held up, and that the weak Commercial Online Printing segment (€89.6M of sales, little pricing power) obscured the core. That segment went to Cimpress in July at a gain; without it, the 2025 EBIT margin rises from 10.2% to 11.2% and ROCE from 17.6% to 19.6%. In August CEWE agreed its largest acquisition, Kodak Moments, carved out of Kodak Alaris for an €88M EV on €200M of revenue, adding 37,000 photo stations, a plant in Colorado and the US, Mexico, Canada and Australia, where CEWE has virtually no presence. Closing is expected in mid-2027; management plans 24 months of synergies before omnichannel photobook expansion, and long-term incentives are tied to ROCE. At about €114 the stock yields 2.7%; five-year average multiples imply €126-132, peers €152 and a DCF at an 8.5% WACC €216. He expects €140 within two years plus dividends, then a rerating toward 8-10x EBITDA. The risks are three quarters of small accounting losses before a decisive Q4, the integration, AI agents, shipping costs and very low liquidity; the Neumüller family holds roughly 27%.
Disney (NYSE: DIS) still earns money from Snow White, Pinocchio, Fantasia, Dumbo and Bambi, all released between 1937 and 1942, and trades at 14x FY27 consensus EPS against a 21x median P/E since 1980. The moat is the flywheel Walt Disney sketched in 1957: a hit film creates characters that sell toys and fill parks, and animated characters outlive any actor. Disney took $6.6bn at the 2025 box office against $4.3bn for Warner Bros., leads licensed retail sales at $63bn, and runs eight of the ten most-visited parks. Experiences (parks, cruises, products) earned $10.0bn of FY25’s $17.6bn segment profit from roughly 40% of revenue at a ~30% margin, double the FY15 figure; a Disneyland ticket has gone from $1 in 1955 to $224, 8% a year compounded. Samuel Ziff of Oldfield Partners argues Disney rebuilds its revenue mix whenever distribution changes: TV money funded Disneyland, the $19bn Capital Cities/ABC deal lifted Media Networks profit from $1.7bn to $7.8bn by FY16, and streaming went from a $4.0bn loss in FY22 to breakeven in FY24 and a 13% margin in Q3 FY26 after price rises, a password-sharing crackdown and folding in Hulu. Free cash flow runs at 90-95% of earnings and buybacks have cut the share count about 5% from its post-Fox peak. He does not state a position. At $105, his base case of 20x on $7.50 gives $150; a recession case of 12x on $6.50 gives $78, a drop he sees as temporary. His risks are the parks cycle, no original $1bn film since Zootopia, sports costs, ROIC near 9% since Fox, and an untested new CEO in Josh D’Amaro.