APM Golf Tournament & 1H 2023 Newsletter
Inching toward modern communication
Hi all, I hope everyone is doing well.
Markets have been wild and thankfully I’ve already lost all my hair. I experimented with posting our spring semester portfolio recap on LinkedIn which you can find via this direct link or via our APM LinkedIn Group which should now be open for anyone to join without special invitation. We have, naturally, given back most of our outperformance as the market has accelerated over the last month, but we are not (yet) chasing.
2023 Golf Tournament September 8th
Our first announcement is we have finalized the 2023 APM Golf Tournament. We will be in Lawrence again at Eagle Bend Golf Course on September 8th, 2023. Registration will start around 10am, and we will have staggered team tee times following. Drinks will be available for purchase, and I’ll have food before/after the round. We’ll be using outside catering for a change, so watch for updates on if we reserve room at a local venue after the round. You can register online to participate. Reach out if you won’t be golfing but able to join for after the round.
KU Football is now scheduled to play Illinois on Sept 8th at 6:30pm in Lawrence after being flexed to the ESPN Friday night time slot. Stick around after golf to catch the game. My understanding is there are a limited number of spots available at our KU Endowment football suite for this game and John Breford, our new Business Development person, is eager to host APM friends and alumni. Let John or I know if you’d be interested, though I think numbers are a bit up in the air.
APM Investment in the Rock Chalk Investment Club
The KU Rock Chalk Investment Club has become one of the more successful student groups I’ve seen at the BSchool, with great reach and events. Many students have contributed here, but in particular, APM alumni Davis Harrison, Micah Burman, Robert Eggert, Ella Barnes, Vaughn McMahon, Sean Pleimann and Colten Joseph drove the group forward and convinced me to allocate $2,500 to a fund managed by the investment club. Everything still runs through me and we’re getting organization details straightened out, but I’m excited to involve students in the benefits of the APM experience anywhere from their first semester on campus until they move on in their careers. For me, I expect this will be an excellent “feeder system” to the APM class and for students I expect it will allow for much greater engagement in the process than being limited to one semester in a classroom. We hope to expand the relationship over time.
I know the Rock Chalk Investment Club has been reaching out for guest speakers and similar connections, so as always if you’d like to get involved there or as an APM guest, please let me know.
Spring Semester Round Up
I was not on top of my game this spring, but our students hung tough and turned a mixed start into a strong finish of the semester. We had our typical strong lineup of guest speakers, ranging from Kent McCarthy to John Dicus, Matt Hekman to Richard Hunt and many more.
One change this semester was Tim Burger joined for our end-of-semester final pitches from the students, where they are given free reign to pitch anything they’d like for the portfolio. I’d like to continue this, with professionals/alumni/friends joining for the final class and providing feedback to the student groups. Let me know if you prefer this sort of interaction, and I’ll be reaching out for the fall later this summer. I also plan on having the RCIC fund be required to present their activity to the class during this session.
Our groups this semester pitched the following final names:
Group 1 pitched long WBD. Ian Hanna, Brandon Jefferies, Maxwell Kasdan, Sam Moore, and Seth Tinkham presented a good case but ultimately felt this was a watchlist name rather than a buy due to the uncertainty around streaming economics and the fall off of the cable cash cow.
Group 2 pitched long Nintendo, NTDOY for the ADR. Ryan Parson, Sejal Thapa, and Grant Wood with help from Ashley Fox and Muhammed Ahmad made a strong case for the strong IP of Nintendo and their ability to monetize it regardless of whatever comes after the Switch console. Class voted to buy, and I’ve been trying to dial in valuation for risk/reward but we’ll own it soon enough.
Group 3 pitched long ABNB. Tae-Vheon Alcorn, Kelsey Davis, Dominick Mastrangeli, David Murrell, and Elina Shutova nailed the future investment banker pitch process, but class was split in the final count slightly prefering to do nothing rather than buy. As we currently own a good stake in BKNG, I agreed and want to wait for better setup on AirBNB
Group 4 pitched long ET. Grace Fanset, Cameron Ferencz, Sidney Henkensiefken, Spencer Roehll, and Hayden Rogers did the work and made a compelling case, in addition to taking home the best group of the semester award. Maybe not the most improved or learned the most, but Group 4 was solid all year and it showed in the class vote to buy ET. We have some concerns about ego-driven, non-economic empire building spend, but the valuation gave us some margin of safety. We’ll see.
All in all, I’m recharging and eager to start the fall. Always new ideas, speakers, and names, but APM remains great in large part because of your alumni support, allowing us to continue on now for 30 years. I couldn’t be more proud to be involved.