Business Breakdowns

This is Zack Fuss. Today, we are breaking down Kaspi, a leading financial technology company based in Kazakhstan best known for its super app. Kaspi plays a central role in the lives of millions of Kazakh citizens by offering a seamless ecosystem that combines payments and digital wallets, e-commerce, and financial services.  Its success is often attributed to its ability to solve pain points spec...

Today's episode is the third in our three-part miniseries on video game consoles. Here, we are breaking down Nintendo. Our guest is Ryan O'Connor, the founder of Crossroads Capital. He has a wealth of knowledge about Nintendo, and you will hear it throughout this episode.  We discuss the history of the brand and business, including how it revitalized the industry in the 1980s, some of its strategi...

This is the second episode of our multi-part series on the video game console market. If you've yet to listen to Episode One, Sia Kamalie is the founder and fund manager at Skycatcher. Join me in breaking down the video game console market and his thesis for why it's an inflecting opportunity.  In this episode, we go micro and Sia is back to break down Sony. Sia and I spend a lot of time talking a...

Today's episode is the first in a multi-part series on the video game console market. Our guest is Sia Kamalie, the founder and fund manager at Skycatcher. Skycatcher describes itself as focused on capturing asymmetry at the internet frontier, and Sia has very strong conviction that the video game console market is entering a major paradigm shift with an app store model set to hit its inflection p...

This is Zack Fuss. Today, we're breaking down Arm Holdings. Arm designs the architecture powering billions of devices, from smartphones and data centers to IoT devices and automotive systems. In this episode, we'll explore Arm's unique value proposition and how it thrives as a licensing giant in a market dominated by leading-edge manufacturers. To break down Arm, I am joined by Jay Goldberg, who i...

Today, we are breaking down the global luxury group Kering. You know Kering from its brands Gucci, YSL, Bottega Veneta, Balenciaga, and the list goes on. It's a luxury house similar to LVMH, but LVMH over the past five years is up over 40% and Kering is down over 60%. To break down Kering, I am joined by Jonathan Eng, portfolio manager at Causeway. We cover the owners and operators of Kering, the...

Today we have a special year-end episode of Business Breakdowns, running through some of the best ideas that were featured on the podcast. The goal of the podcast is to detail whatever business we're covering that day. But when you think about the best investors, the best business builders, they're constantly borrowing insights from the success stories that are happening around them.  We start wit...

Today we‘re breaking down FilterBuy. From time to time, I come across a compelling founder who is willing to cover everything about their business and David Heacock, founder of FilterBuy, is exactly that. We explored the psychology of David's transition from Goldman options trader to starting an air filter business in Alabama just over 10 years ago. Since then, the business has grown into somethin...

Today we are covering the world of fast fashion. If you don't know the name Inditex, you certainly know Zara, the core business inside Inditex. My guest, Alistair Wittet, recently launched Aecus Partners, an equity boutique specializing in European and global equities, and has followed Inditex for decades.  He gets into how the company pivoted its business over the years from the initial store exp...

Today we are breaking down commercial real estate lending with Josh Zegen, co-founder and managing principal of Madison Realty Capital.  Josh and his team at Madison launched in 2004 and evolved from a hard money lender when there really was no alternative industry called commercial real estate lending. They've developed into a single-source capital provider today with more than $21 billion in AUM...

Today we are breaking down SpaceX. Luke Ward from Baillie Gifford was the perfect match for this episode, as he and his team first invested in SpaceX in 2018. We cover the story of SpaceX and its scientific magic, but we really key in on the business model. We focus on the cost curve of launches, separating manufacturing from reusability. Luke gets into how Starlink represents a key component in m...

Today, we are covering the increasingly thematic market of venture secondaries. My guest is Ravi Viswanathan, founder and managing partner of NewView Capital.  We cover some of the basics around these transactions because so much of private markets are bespoke. And while Ravi confirmed that the bespoke nature makes each individual secondary deal unique, there are consistencies in terms of how they...

Today we are breaking down Informa. At its core Informa is a live events business headquartered in the UK. While media conversations often revolve around consumer giants like Disney, Informa operates in a different realm entirely - dominating the world of business-to-business connections through the largest portfolio of trade shows and events globally. I am joined by Nick Shenton from Artemis Inve...

This is Zack Fuss. Today we're breaking down Fastenal. Starting as a small fastener retailer in Minnesota, the company has evolved into a mission-critical supply chain partner for its industrial customers. Today, the business sports a nearly $50 billion market cap and produces nearly $8 billion in sales.  The impact of Fastenal's founder, Bob Kierlin, on Fastenal's commercial success can't be over...

Today, my guest is Fernando De Leon, founder of Leon Capital Group. Fernando operates 14 different businesses under the Leon Capital umbrella, which vary across real estate, healthcare, and financial services. But as you will hear in our conversation, the businesses are connected and instruct one another. The connective tissue throughout this conversation is how demographic insight sits underneath...

This is Zack Fuss. Today we are breaking down Merck, one of the world's largest and oldest pharmaceutical companies. The company has been shaping medicine and fostering innovation for over 130 years. From its humble beginnings as a small family pharmacy in Germany, today's iteration of Merck has transformed into a nearly $300 billion market cap business with particular strength in oncology.  At th...

Today we are breaking down American Tower: the REIT, the communications giant, and the infrastructure asset. To break down American Tower I'm joined by William Heard, founder and CIO of Heard Capital Management. William founded Heard Capital in 2011.  Today, the firm manages $2 billion in assets, holds about 15 to 20 names, and has very specific criteria for investing in companies. We cover AMT fr...

Today, we are breaking down the insurance giant AIG. AIG's story is one of a remarkable turnaround, a tale of a global insurance giant emerging from near collapse during the great financial crisis. Over nearly two decades, AIG has transformed itself into a more focused and efficient property and casualty insurer.   To grasp the magnitude of AIG's journey, consider this: During the financial crisis...

Today we are getting into the world of coffee with Gregory Zamfotis, the founder of Gregorys Coffee. We breakdown the New York City born coffee chain that now spans across twelve US states.  This is a true look into what it takes to open up a coffee shop and the economics behind it. We get into what it's like to innovate in an industry where innovation can last a week before a competitor releases...

Today, we are covering what might be the most interesting investment strategy I've come across in a long time: activism in Japan. In this episode, I talk with Masumi Nishida, Partner and Managing Director for Dalton's Tokyo research office. As part of this intro, I brought on the catalyst for this episode, Nick Bartolo, founder and Managing Partner of Essential Partners. The conversation delves in...

Today we are breaking down healthcare, one of the most impactful sectors in the world, yet one of the most unique for investors. My guests are Rod Wong, founder and CIO of RTW Investments, and Stephanie Sirota, chief business officer of RTW Investments. RTW was founded in 2009 and operates a sector-specific strategy in healthcare. We discuss the evolution of their model, which feels particularly i...

Today we are breaking down the paint giant Sherwin-Williams. Founded in 1866, Sherwin Williams is a great example of a company where everyday consumers might not appreciate just how great of a business and stock this has been. Over the last 20 years, Sherwin has compounded earnings at 14% per year. And over those 20 years, the stock has returned 26x your investment. And that's compared to the S&P...

Today, we are breaking down the Japanese internet conglomerate Rakuten. I'm joined by Matt Brett, the lead manager of the Japan Trust at Baillie Gifford, which has continuously invested in Rakuten since 2005. Rakuten is the unique Japanese conglomerate that wasn't started over a hundred years ago and instead was part of the late nineties global internet boom. Matt helps explain what was different...

Today, we are breaking down Renishaw, a leading supplier of measuring and manufacturing systems, specifically focused on accuracy and precision. What does that mean in layman's terms? Renishaw is a picks and shovels provider to many of the fastest-growing end markets in the world. The company designs and develops systems for anything revolving around semiconductors, robotics, and medical devices. ...

Today we are breaking down the publicly traded investment company 3i. You may think if you've seen one publicly traded investment vehicle, you've seen them all. Yet, 3i is an investment vehicle where one business, Dutch retailer, Action, represents well north of 50% of their net asset value.  Our guest to break down 3i is Luke Bridgeman, a partner and portfolio manager at Hosking Partners. Luke sh...