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#83 | Discover 4 Quality Stocks w/ Joep Dikken from Tresor Capital

48m 22s

#83 | Discover 4 Quality Stocks w/ Joep Dikken from Tresor Capital

The discussion centers on two distinct companies. The first is TransMedics, which provides a comprehensive "transplant as a service" for organ transplantation. It manufactures specialized perfusion devices that preserve organs and manages the entire logistical chain, including transportation via a private jet fleet and coordination of surgical specialists. This vertically integrated model addresses critical time constraints in organ delivery, especially for complex cases like donations after circulatory death, and is expanding from the U.S. into Europe. The second company is Duolingo, a leader in mobile language learning with a freemium subscription model. It boasts high profitability, strong gross margins, and a large cash position. However, its future is challenged by the rise of AI-powered translation and tutoring, which could undermine its core service. While Duolingo excels at user engagement through gamification, concerns remain about the depth of learning and the app's ability to sustain long-term user motivation against technological disruption.

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[Music] The interesting part about the company is that they own the machines, they put the organs onto the machine and then they bring it to the other hospital and then they dispatch it from the machine. That is basically the process you would imagine when you say transplant as a service. So they own the whole chain from outside of the body to inside of the body. The private jets, the surgeons, the pilots, the machines, everything. [Music] And we're talking about 72% gross margins. A company that is profitable, I believe 30% of their market cap sits in cash. They have no debt and they own about 90% of the mobile language learning market. [Music] [Music] [Music] Welcome, YUP. Welcome to the Dutch Investors Podcast. It's great to have you and thank you for taking the time to jump on. Thank you. Thank you for having me. Before we jump in, what sort of companies do you personally look for when you research companies as an analyst and do the two companies you're going to pitch in a second, pass your personal investment criteria? I mean, I have two different sets of companies that I always find really interesting. One is a set of companies that is very interesting for Treasor Capital, the firm that I'm working at right now. We have a very specific scope towards family investment holdings and, as you said, serial acquires. So within that scope, I am always looking for the best and the most interesting companies. And then for my personal investing career, so to say, I really like a lot of different companies that have some sort of technology edge combined with just a very good management team, more niche companies, rather than the big and most popular companies in the world or on Twitter. Do you stick to a specific market cap size or are you very broad based? Is there a limit to how large a company can be for you? No, there's not really a limit on the market cap for my personal portfolio. If a company is interesting enough, then there's always a good fit for it. I do try to limit my own portfolio to a maximum of 15 names, because I think over diversification is a genuine thing that not a lot of people take into account when investing. Your first company is very intriguing. I have no clue what the company does, so I'm very excited to hear about Transmedic. So I'd love to hear your pitch on the company. Yeah, so my very first company is called Transmedics. And Transmedics is a company that operates in the organ transplant market. And before everyone labels it as too complex to put it on the too hard to understand pile as I believe Buffett says it when it comes to technology stocks. I'm here to reassure you you don't need to understand every single thing about their healthcare and about their machines that they make. I'm here to explain it to you in relatively simple couple of steps. So the machine at the company basically makes a device that allows organs to be transplanted and transported from one body to another body. And these devices that they produce, they label it themselves as one of the best devices in the market. Obviously, I don't have and I don't need the exact knowledge about this device if that's actually the case. Because the whole investment thesis of this company is that they have a very good device, but they have an amazing supply chain network around it. If a hospital needs to organize a transplant, then they can just call Transmedics and then they take care of everything from body to body. So to say you can label it as a transplant as a service. I'm calling the guys on X call it that it's a new term specifically made for this company. Transplant as a service TAS. And let me explain how that works. So the company has this device and they have specialists that know how to put the organ onto device and detach it from the device again when it's when it's new. It calls the company, the specialist come in with the device. The hospital can choose to basically rent the device and rent the service or buy the device and then rent the service on top, which is probably a bit cheaper. But then they put the organ onto the device, then they transport it and then they detach it again. But the interesting part is industry transportation process. The company takes care of everything. And when I say that, it's literally everything. They take the device, they bring it to the airport. That's where there's a Transmedics jet. They own 22 jets. Where there are Transmedics pilots ready for the device to take off to get to the next hospital as fast as possible. Because obviously when you're transplitting an organ, you're on a time limit. And these devices prolong the time limit, but it still has to be done as fast as possible. So they own the jets, they own the pilots, they own the specialists that work with the machine. And then they also have their own surgeons. And within all that process, the device makes sure that the organ is tracked 24/7, that the team is informed about the status and the quality of the organ, which prevents bad organs being implemented into bodies and lead to failure after a transplantation. And with their market expansion into Italy, it opens up a new market, but also might increase their margins for that specific market. Because Italy is obviously a lot smaller than the US. So you won't need jets, but you can do it with cars, with buses. And that's also what they do. Instead of jets, they are replacing it with Mercedes V-Class fleet. So I can imagine that for the European market, the cost of one transplant might be a bit lower solely due to the shorter distance that they have to travel. Makes sense, yeah. So this should become more profitable. It could if they utilize it well and the European markets gain traction and they gain market share there as well, yeah. So they land on like an airport close to a hospital and then they have their own fleet of cars or something as well? Yeah, it's everything. They own the buses to the airport, they own the private jets from airport to airport. They have the salaries on the pay slip, the pilots on the pay slip, I mean, and then the surgeons on the pay slip, everything. Just out of curiosity. Let's say they fly to a hospital and answer them or to the airport, go to a hospital and answer them. I assume that one of like the surgeons has to work for them as well, right? So they would need to have their own section within the hospital or do they just pay the hospitals to use the rooms or. I'm not entirely sure about that. They have surgeons on the pay slip. So I can imagine that where there are hospitals that is not a qualified surgeon to do transplantations, they can bring one. But I can also imagine that a lot of hospitals, especially the bigger ones, have surgeons on their own pay slip and they will need a surgeon service. Yeah. So they have a specialist that puts it onto the machine, then they bring the machine to an airport, then they put it onto a private jet. Private jet is owned by the company. The private jet has its own pilots. The pilots are paid by the company. Then the specialist goes onto the private jets, they fly towards the hospital where the organ is needed and then they dispatch it from the machine and then they also have 50 plus surgeons in their salary and their in their pay slip. That's crazy. So they're highly vertically integrated and they build the machines themselves as well. Yeah. Yeah. So that is their main differentiator indeed. They have the knowledge and they have a superior machine and then on top of that they provide the full service. So if you compare it to what is the alternative is, a hospital has a different machine or cool box and then they have to do everything themselves. So transport and make sure that the heart is in good condition when it arrives and during transport as well and away until it arrives at the surgeon where it needs to be transplanted to. So right now they can all outsource that to to transmittings. Am I correct in saying that this company sort of relies on donors as well? Yeah, it does but the main business case is also that there's a lot of organs right now that will be up for donation but that are not utilized. There's a significant underutilization of current donors and that means people that are not a donor themselves. People that know that's not really what I'm aiming at. It's people that would be donors but that just can't get that they can't get there in time. For example, or they there's just not enough capacity to move their organ towards towards a different body. There's there's two different types of deaths so to say. And there's this there's the death the death called donation after brain death and this is where the organs are still functioning but the brain is not and from here this is the easier one because you can all the way up to to the operation for a donor. You have all the time in the world. You can plan everything because as long as the organs are beating or pumping the blood, everything's fine. And then as soon as you cut that off, you can just transport it directly into the other body so to say. Then that is quite straightforward because you can set the timing of the extraction of the organ and the implementation yourself on beforehand. Obviously when you put it out of the body, there's a short window to put it back in. But that's that makes sense. And then you have another death called the donation after circulatory death. And this is where someone is on life support and you stop that. And that's where a lot of regulation comes in because when you stop the life support, you have to wait until the organs stop by itself. Then you have to wait another five minutes just to be sure that the organs have stopped and they won't restart pumping. That happens sometimes. And then when that five minutes is over, then you have to recover it as fast as possible. Because within that five minutes, there's a high risk of something called warm ischemia. I won't go into full deal tears but it damages the organ. And then within so the whole process of stopping life, life support all the way until getting it onto a new machine that has to happen in 30 minutes. And within that 30 minutes, you're already sacrificing like five to 10 minutes by just waiting. So we have like a 10 minutes time frame to do it very well or otherwise the hardest just damaged. And this is where the machine comes in. So they have this they they build their own machines and the machines are way more advanced than than the current the current environment. And it prevents a lot of these damages once it's installed onto the machine. It's a yeah that's basically it. Yeah, it's just way better. Fascinating. It sounds quite complicated. But what I like about it is that I think this is a company you should invest in if you have a very good management team since if you haven't really studied like medical sciences or anything like knowing the ins and outs of a company like this sounds quite complicated. But if you know what they're doing and you know what KPIs to track and you trust the management team in making the right decisions, it seems like a battle on like management. And it's a good cause. That's what I really like about this company. I think it's it's it's net beneficial to society, right? Yeah indeed. And it only gets gets better to works the future would say because people are getting older. People might need more more donors. And this this company is single handedly increasing that in the United States. I think and they have a slide somewhere in their deck where they say, okay, this is the exact time point where we have started our program and we can see from that time point, the organs have increased massively. So you can literally track their own impact on the whole US donor market, which is very interesting. And coming back to one of your points, I don't think this is a company that is only for the people that are very interested in in in healthcare and have a lot of knowledge about organ transplants or something like that. The thing is the machine itself is too complicated for me as well. And the most interesting part about the company is they own this whole supply chain and it's you can track this supply chain before the earnings comes out. And that sounds really weird. But it's actually quite straightforward. There's a guy on X that does this. He builds a tracker for this company and he does it by just tracking the flights that they operate on their jets. Because the jets obviously have a number and you can just track them every single day. And then based on the amount of revenue that they generate per flight that they do, he makes an estimate on their daily revenue. And looking back at those numbers, he has been quite accurate. How about if a competitor develops like a cheaper or a better version technology wise, what is their mode exactly? Well, the mode is obviously like the whole process that a hospital can just outsource the whole process from body to body. But that's also one of the weaknesses. As you rightfully noticed, it's probably quite expensive. Yes, it is per transplant. I think their revenue is 170,000. So it's very expensive. The servers that they offer, but margins are really good. And they're gaining market share. And the mode is I think the technology is obviously patent. And they're innovating and they have upcoming machines that are even better for the quality of the organs, but also margin efficient, so they're cheaper. And I think that they claim they have the best machine. And as I said, I obviously don't have the knowledge if it is. But I can imagine that there's very high switching cost for for a hospital. Yeah, I can only imagine that this is a much requested surface for sure. Well, you my next pick is almost as exciting as this one, but I gotta admit, the company intrigues me more than I thought it would. And I didn't know it was like so vertically integrated. What did you call it? Trends planned as a surface? Transplant as a service. I've never heard of that before. So that's pretty cool as well. That's what the ex guys admit. Yeah, it's cool. Yeah. So next my pick for today, it's a company that's likely sitting on your phone right now. I don't know. It's not. No, I don't have it. Well, me neither, but I did have it. And I used it a lot before. And as an educator, I use it a lot with my students as well. It's dual-lingo. And it is probably one of the most debated stocks right now. They're famous for the aggressive notifications. If you ignore all the current sentiment and risk, the business is not doing bad at all. It's a high margin. It's low cap-axe. It's a high cash generating business. It's it's it looks similar to Spotify. They run a freemium model where about 80% of the revenue comes from subscriptions. And we're talking about 72 percent gross margins. A company that is profitable, I believe they are like 30% of their market cap sits in cash. They have no debt. And they own about 90% of the mobile language learning market. So obviously there's something going on right. The red flag or rather the massive uncertainty and disruption risk is obviously AI. Think about Gemini or ChatGPT where you could just ask ChatGPT to be your language tutor and talk to it. But also the easiness to build a similar platform yourself. At least that's the risk what they're saying. And not to mention the future possibility of instant translation through I don't know earpods maybe. To be honest, I love learning. But if I could just have instant translation, I probably wouldn't have the need to learn any language and I'll just focus on learning a different skill for example. Exactly. Yeah. I would agree with that. Yeah. So one could argue that dual-lingo is more than an educational app. It's more of like an habit company. And for example, two of our analysts own the company. Their mode is sort of a data flywheel. And with millions of users, they run A and B tests all day long and more than anyone else to figure out exactly how you keep coming back. So they're sort of of fighting for your attention, they use gamification, like the streak, for example, to win that battle. And I am on the fence with Duelingo, especially when it comes to AI. I think it can be both a headwind as a tailwind. Management is actually leaning into it. They were one of the first to integrate GPT-4 to their next tier to offer real-time conversation practice. But my skeptical take is that AI is just amazing at translating, but it's terrible at motivating. So you still need sort of discipline to learn. And Duelingo is probably one of the few companies that has turned that discipline into a game. Yeah. I have a question, though, but obviously, it keeps you disciplined on a daily basis. But does it keep you motivated for a longer period of time on a daily basis? So I'm not saying five minutes a day, but like 30 minutes or an hour a day. Because in my personal experience, that is what it takes to learn a new language. I think I agree with you. Found a source, a couple weeks back, that said that 80 or 90% of Duelingo users only use the app below two minutes a day. First of all, I don't know how you monetize people that are on an app for two minutes, except if they pay, but I don't believe they paid. I wouldn't be paying for an app if I used it two minutes a day. And like the top 5% of Duelingo users account for almost all the revenue. So you could say that there's a lot of upsell potential, but at the same time, I think like-- OK, so my colleagues will not like me saying this, but I think Duelingo is more similar to a candy crush than like an Instagram. People get stuck on Instagram for hours. Me included sometimes. And I'm like, oh, no, I'm in the loop again. I never get stuck on Duelingo. I've tried it. I love learning. I would say I'm a geek for learning. And even they can't really motivate me that long. So I don't know. But it's so profitable. And the current valuation is so extremely low that I think we-- I mean, the valuation last time. And it was like, if they just grow revenue for like 5% to 10%, you'll get a 12% to 15% return. It's crazy. But the risk of disruption is massive. Yeah. I would agree that the AI translation and hardware instant translation with classes or something like that where we're still far from that in a sense of not that the technology doesn't exist, but global adoption of that technology. Because if there will be a class, if there will be classes or airports, that will do instant translation, it won't be cheap. And I think there will be a lot of people that won't be able to afford it that still want to learn the language. And I think they have an incredible platform with the amount of users that they have built. But speaking from personal experience, the only thing that will actually learn you a language-- let's talk about a language. Obviously, they have more than that. But that's what they're most known for-- is speaking the language, being forced to speak the language, speaking the language for 30 minutes a day, minimum, an hour a day, minimum. I personally tried it with Spanish because I had to. I moved to Chile for six months. I tried Duolingo. And I noticed that I really tried to push myself and learn the language on the app. But it was so slow-paced as well. I was like, ready to learn something new now, ready to learn some grammar, ready to learn some actual sentences. But it paid for the app. I did not. No. But eventually, I found a substitute, which was just a podcast. And I was actually hearing the people speak the language of full-on conversation, repeating the conversation. And I noticed that helped me so much more than just filling in a couple of sentences, a couple of words every single day. And that's where I think a lot of people are on the same page when it comes to Duolingo. Yeah, so why did I pick Duolingo? I think if you believe that the AI disruption is overblown, there is so much to like about this company from a fundamental basis. It's founder, let, I love the mission. They have a ton of optionality. They can literally expand into any subject they want. So I mean, language might be disrupted, right? But they can lean into chess. They can lean into math. They can lean into programming. They can lean into whatever they want. Geography, you name it. They have no debt, revenues growing, high margins. I mean, they're market leaders. So there's a lot to like. And if you think the AI disruption is overblown, like I said, it's probably a good company to look into. If I'm being completely honest, I don't think I'll be investing in Duolingo anytime soon. I think the range of possible outcomes is too large for me personally, even though the current valuation is so much more attractive than it's ever been before. So I always come back to this quote from Buffett when facing these kinds of decisions. And I believe he said, I don't look to jump over seven foot bars. I look around for one foot bars that I can step over. And this feels like a seven foot bar. Why just risk it for if you can just, I don't know, pick a company like Transmatics that feels like they can't really get disrupted by AI or a retailer where the possible outcomes are less diverse. So those are my thoughts. Yeah, I think I would agree. I think first of all, if you have used a product before of a company and you don't believe in that product yourself, I find it very hard to invest in that company on personal beliefs. And I have to agree that the AI, the AI discussion is probably a bit overblown. We see it in other software names. But I still would be hesitant just because I wouldn't never invest because I don't believe in the product. But from a valuation point, I see why some people would say right now, like it's overblown. And there's a good IRRs for the future. Yeah, yeah. All right, your next company, take us through it. Yeah, so my next pitch is something really different to my first first pitch, my first company. Would you say what you say it's boring? I wouldn't say, I mean, maybe the explaining it might be a little bit boring. But the company itself is definitely not boring. It's a company that also is in our interest at the firm, at Trezor Gepetto, where I'm an analyst. And the company is called Brookfield. Brookfield Corporation, to be exact. And I think more people would have heard of this company. It's a relatively large company. It's an alternative asset manager, originally from Canada, but it's also listed on the New York Stock Exchange with the ticker BN, and not to be confused with Brookfield asset management. It's another publicly listed company, and it's part of the ecosystem. Brookfield Corporation is the holding company above Brookfield asset management. Okay. What makes this company so interesting is that it is into the same bracket. It's moving into the same bracket as Berkshire Hathaway and also Markel, which are investment led insurers. They have insurance, which creates a float. And with that float, they invest in higher returning opportunities, public equities, they own private companies. And then they have, they create a nice return. And then they can, with that, they can cover their insurance bit and then earn more on top of that. And Brookfield is slowly moving into this as well, because you have Brookfield asset management, which is their asset manager, more like a BlackRock, a Blackstone on EQT, which are the private equity players in the world, big private equity players. They manage, they manage institutional investor capital and retail investor capital. And then on the other side, they have Brookfield wealth solutions. This is not a publicly listed companies, and they own 100% of it from Brookfield asset management. They own 73%. And this Brookfield wealth solutions is where they create, it's a new division since 2020. And this is where they create annuities. So this is the insurance part. They get annuities from like 401Ks, the pension plans in the United States. And then they can, with that money, they can invest it under their Brookfield asset management division. They can create returns and then get like a flywheel internally where more AUM in the wealth solutions creates more float for the Brookfield asset management and then more floats. Obviously when you invest it well, means more returns, more dividends for Brookfield corporation. You got that? It is quite complex or well, a bit like it goes to different places. Is there a reason? Why are there so many different divisions within different stakes within those companies? Is there a reason for it? I mean, a reason, it's a conglomerate. It's just very big. And I don't think there's a specific reason for it or an explanation. It's just how it is. It's complex to understand, but that's also what makes it interesting. Because if a company is very complex, it gets a label as a complexity premium. And I think that is the case for this specific company. Because it's a very complex ecosystem to go from brute-foot corporation, to brute-foot asset management, to wealth solutions, to also operating businesses that they own, that a lot of analysts and especially retail investors just don't know what is going on. And therefore, it makes it really hard to analyze. And if you do this well, I would say you have an edge on most retail investors and that creates this premium. And the main thing about brute-field is if you're not convinced yet, let me tell you a little bit about their performances. It's a very old company already. They've managed to get an annualized total return of 19%. So they're up there with Berkshire Hathaway when it comes to returns. And then if you think like 19%, everyone would like that, right? Over 30 years. That is incredible. But not only that is 19%, it's only getting better. If you look at 20 years, it's 20 years ago. It was 16% caggar. The last 10 years, it's 17% caggar. And the last 5 years, it's 22% caggar. So over the last 20 years, it has improved so much. And that's what really should convince you to look into this stock, I would say. Is a brute-field the company that uses a lot of leverage? No, I don't think so because there's not a lot of debt on there. I don't think there's a lot of debt on their balance. But obviously there's a lot of capital that they don't own themselves. That makes sense. And am I correct in saying that if you buy what was a brute-field corporation, you're sort of getting a discount on the management business? A brute-field asset management. Exactly. Yeah, because brute-field asset management also has a little bit of this complexity premium. Let's just put it like that for now. They also trade at a discount normally. So it's the same thing with the next company that you're going to discuss where you have one company owning the other one. And if the company that they own trades at the discount, then you're getting like a double discount. So it's like when you own brute-field corporation. I think this is also just a case of incredible management. And still a lot of potential because management is just the main CEO of brute-field corporation is Bruce Flat, incredible allocator and incredible speaker as well. I would definitely advise you to reach shareholder letters and to watch interviews of Bruce Flat because he's very optimistic always about brute-field, but it's very interesting. And I have a high hat of management because they have an investor day every year and then every five years they set out targets. And if you look at the targets that they set out in 2020 in the midst of COVID, so they saw in one of the big crashes from our time, they set out very, very high targets for themselves. If you look, those targets were for 2025 and if you look at those targets, they've met every single target that they've set. So if you have a look at their latest investor day, which was 2025, they set out new targets with 2030. And if management managed to accomplish all their targets previous time, then obviously you should listen to their targets for the next five years as well because they're very credible if you meet your targets in one of the biggest pandemics ever. So I would say they are very credible for their target for 2030 as well. What would need to happen for this to be like a really bad investment? I think that is already happening right now a little bit. It's labeled as a private equity or a alternative asset manager. And these guys are investing in a lot of private companies and they invest in the best possible sector at this moment always for the past five years. So the past five years, that sector was a lot of software. And if you have a look at the companies like KKR, Blackstone, BlackRock and also Brookfield, you would see that they're currently at a dip of 40% from their highs, if not more. And that has a lot to do with investor thinking they have a lot of exposure to software and that these investments into these private software firms become insolvable and less valuable and that they eventually have big riders. For Brookfield specific, that is not really the case. It's getting punished because it's labeled as one of those companies. But management has continuously communicated. They only have maximum 1% exposure to software companies compared to other asset managers where that's between like seven to fifteen. For Brookfield, that specific thing is in my opinion a little bit overblown. And the other part that they're very exposed to is the interest rates. Lower interest rates means cheaper financing, cheaper financing for private equity. So higher interest rates and uncertainty when it comes to interest rates is not great for these companies. Interesting business. Do you own it yourself? I own it myself. Yes, it's one of my larger positions. And that's, yeah, like I said, that's also because I believe a lot in management. It's a very well diversified company that which I really like, what you said you didn't really like is with the insurance, with the asset management and within the asset management there's a lot of diversity in renewables, in AI, in real estate. So yeah. Yeah. So I like the business models. Maybe you misunderstood me. I just don't feel like my edge is within understanding the ins and outs of insurance and flow. But if I had like a really good feeling with management, I would probably still be okay with holding such a company like I have no clue how Berkshire operates for a long time. You don't really know what they're buying and what they're looking into. But if you just trust the Buffett, you'd be fine. Yeah. Just trust flat. Well, my next company, I have not a lot of faith in the CEO, but I'll get to that. So to be completely transparent, I have a meaningful position in process. Obviously, I might be more biased than others. So just keep that in mind when I'm giving this thesis. But process is a Dutch holding company and the funny thing is, I think process itself is a very average, maybe even below average quality company. Interesting. Yeah. So they're doing many things I dislike. I don't like the new CEO. Well, he still has to prove himself somewhat, but he's giving me empire building vibes, investing heavily in many different, I don't know, AI startups that are, we'll see if that's actually, if that ever turns profitable or not. Like management has a history of not really building lots of value by investing in anything. Besides the investment in Tencent, my investment in process is completely based on two factors, which makes it quite simple to follow. First, the ongoing buybacks to close the discount on NAV and the massive stake in Chinese tech company Tencent are, arguably, the strongest company in China, power wise. Process is basically like a wrapper and it allows me to buy Tencent at a very significant discount. Now, obviously, this varies day to day, right? But it's been as high as 70% and as low as 15%. So obviously it matters when you get in. But Tencent, for those that don't know, it owns the Super app WeChat with over 1.4 billion users. It's the world's largest gaming company. It owns the Payment Rills in China. It's its own advertising segments, a TikTok alternative, has investments in companies like Riot Games from League of Legends and Epic Games Fortnite, Clash of Clans. It's the owner of games like Honor of King, Call of Judy Mobile, PUBG. So there also investing heavily in Tencent Cloud, which is growing fast. Currently I believe number three behind Alibaba and Huawei Cloud. We also have a Netflix alternative called Tencent Video, Spotify alternative, Tencent Music, Facebook and Instagram alternatives. So I mean, we call this an ecosystem mode. It's the rarest kind of mode. It's basically network effects, switching costs. intangible assets, massive scale, all just working together, just like alphabet and meta and Amazon. So yeah, by buying process, you basically get 10 cent of the discount, but as soon as the discount is gone or they stop buying back shares, I would probably sell process because I don't like the company itself. No, I think I also personally own it just to just to give a disclaimer there, but I have a different view on on on what they're doing on the side to be honest. Okay, because I think that what they're doing and the company said they own is actually trying to replicate a little bit of what 10 cent is doing, but then in different markets. Because if you look at their portfolio, they own a lot of different platforms and a lot of different tech-based companies and also food delivery, but that's also on a platform where they can cross sell and link things to each another platform where they can increase their own sales and create this flywheel. And there are a lot, they're present in emerging markets like India and Latin America and also quite big in Europe. But I think with all those platforms that are being used by millions of users a day, they can actually try to replicate like this type of ecosystem when they cross sell it well. Ernest, I was just saying and I sort of can agree with you. So I'm not saying that the other parts of process have no value. There is definitely potential. Process has to try something, right? If they don't invest in anything else, they are basically eventually worthless where they sold all 10 cent shares and have nothing left. So they're sort of killing their own business. So I completely understand that they need to make investments elsewhere to create value. Besides 10 cent, it's currently mostly a collection of lost making low margin ventures. They have potential. For example, I think pay you and India has a lot of potential. If they can make the food delivery, they all market leader there in lots of areas. Although the market is very difficult and low margin, so they'll need to scale it a lot. They're currently investing heavily in like lots of AI startups. There's always the potential of a unicorn there. Yeah, that's a hit or miss. Yeah. So I understand it. For me, as a investor that just wants a good return, all they need to do is slowly sell 10 cent shares and buy it back their own. That's how they create value for me. It's true. And it's also the main reason why you buy it. That's like I do see the value to potential value of the other parts that they own. But obviously it's only 20% of their net asset value. The other 80% is still 10 cent. So if you're saying I'm buying process because of that 20% that doesn't make any sense. The first business case and the first investment thesis is always 10 cent here. And I agree with you there. It's very interesting. But it being 10 cent is also the main risk of the company, I would say. True. Absolutely. Yeah. There's always a discount to China discount and the China discount. I am a big believer in looking at history and whether that's for a company or for markets or whatever is happening in a country, I think history often repeats itself while people often repeat themselves. And if you look at process history, they just have a history of buying poor quality companies or they're paying too much, lots of write-offs, a couple companies that are not doing good at all. So yeah, if I look at the historical, if I take history as like a guideline, I would, you know what I'm saying? Yeah. Yeah. I know I get it. So that's also why the investment thesis is all about 10 cent and 10 cent is really interesting. But like we said, the China discount, there's a lot of regulation happening in China for companies like 10 cent and I think last week as well, we got news from regulation from the US that 10 cent, they're going to talk about the stakes that they have in these big gaming corporations from the US. That might be at risk at some point because there might be a threat to digital security in the United States. And that's the main thing that I dislike about it being China. It's just the political environment for companies is just so uncertain and unstable at some point. For sure. Yeah. And the previous CEO for process was a very, very clear, blow noisy. I believe that's how you pronounce it is more of a innovative AI empire building type of guy. At least that's what the VIP gives me. But as long as the incentive, he's incentivized to buy back stock for now. So that just gives me the confidence to hold on. But I'll be tracking that for sure. And if 10 cent buys back its own stock as well, you're sort of getting like a double, a double like return where they buy back stock, the stake of process increases and they, you know, that's that's also a good way to create value. We, I think we delivered four good and interesting pitches to the listeners and it's up to them to determine which ones they like more and want to do more research on. If you had to pick just one valuation aside, which one do you think is highest quality? I would have to go with Brookfield for my really? Yeah. I have so much trust in management. There's such, there's so much diversification and simple maths around their targets for 2030 offer very attractive returns. Okay. I think I would have to go with if it was 10 cent, I would say 10 cent. Yeah. But I think I'll have to go for transmatics. That business seems very hard to disrupt and it seems very high quality because there are so much on the line that their quality has to be exceptional for this to work properly. Yep. There's a very high barrier of entry due to regulations and especially if you do the whole service, there's a lot of capital involved with all the jets as well. So where can people find more on maybe Brookfield or transmatics or maybe share some of your socials as well? Well, Brookfield is what we cover at the firm, Tiazor Gapetzol, so that is TR-E-S-O-R and capital like normally at Tiazor Gapetzol News. And now that's where we upload a weekly newsletter so people can sometimes read about Brookfield over there. For transmatics, we don't cover that at the firm that is not within our scope. That's something I personally invest in. So I would advise everyone to just go to X, type in the ticker and then there are a lot of very passionate guys talking about it. And like I said, there's one guy operating a tracker on the amount of flights, so definitely follow that. And I'm feeling an opportunity here, you. We might have to do a transmatics deep dive. Yeah, sure thing. That will allow me to be a little bit more clear on the business and a little bit more detail on the machine. Thank you so much. I'll put all the links in the show notes. Tiazor Gapetzol definitely subscribe to the newsletter. Thank you so much for coming on to show you, and I'm sure we'll do it again.

Podcast Summary

Key Points:

  1. TransMedics operates a "transplant as a service" model, owning the entire supply chain for organ transport, including specialized machines, private jets, pilots, and surgeons.
  2. The company addresses organ underutilization by prolonging organ viability during transport, particularly for donations after circulatory death, and is expanding into European markets like Italy.
  3. Duolingo dominates the mobile language learning market with a profitable freemium model, high gross margins, and significant cash reserves, but faces major disruption risks from AI translation tools.
  4. Duolingo's strength lies in gamification and habit formation, though user engagement is often brief, and its long-term viability depends on adapting to AI while maintaining its motivational edge.

Summary:

The discussion centers on two distinct companies. The first is TransMedics, which provides a comprehensive "transplant as a service" for organ transplantation. It manufactures specialized perfusion devices that preserve organs and manages the entire logistical chain, including transportation via a private jet fleet and coordination of surgical specialists.

S. into Europe. The second company is Duolingo, a leader in mobile language learning with a freemium subscription model.

It boasts high profitability, strong gross margins, and a large cash position. However, its future is challenged by the rise of AI-powered translation and tutoring, which could undermine its core service. While Duolingo excels at user engagement through gamification, concerns remain about the depth of learning and the app's ability to sustain long-term user motivation against technological disruption.

FAQs

TransMedics is a company in the organ transplant market that provides a 'transplant as a service' model, offering devices to transport organs and managing the entire supply chain, including transportation via private jets and specialists.

Hospitals can call TransMedics to handle organ transplants end-to-end. The company provides the device, specialists to attach and detach the organ, and manages transportation using its own jets, pilots, and logistics, ensuring timely delivery.

Duolingo has 72% gross margins, is profitable, holds about 30% of its market cap in cash, has no debt, and dominates approximately 90% of the mobile language learning market.

The investment thesis centers on TransMedics having a superior device combined with a vertically integrated supply chain, which allows it to offer a comprehensive service that hospitals can outsource, leading to high margins and market expansion.

Duolingo operates on a freemium model where about 80% of revenue comes from subscriptions. It uses gamification and data from millions of users to encourage daily engagement and habit formation in language learning.

The primary risk is disruption from AI, such as ChatGPT or instant translation technology, which could reduce the need for language learning apps. However, Duolingo is integrating AI to enhance its offerings.

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