Monte Sol Capital

NTS Part 5: Applying the Adoption Type Curves

Torin — Mon, 20 May 2013 23:29:04 +0000

In the previous post, I derived adoption “type curves” for NTS’s various customer bases. The task now is to apply those curves to NTS’ markets. The table below shows my estimate of how many potential customers (often referred to as “passings”) exist in each market, based on the Powerpoint presentation I linked to previously, as … Read more →

NTS Part 4: Market Share and Adoption Rate Case Studies

Torin — Fri, 17 May 2013 20:39:00 +0000

What market share can NTS win in its markets? How long will NTS need to win that share? I’ll try to answer those questions using a couple of early NTS fiber markets as case studies. I’ll start with markets focused on business customers. The original NTS fiber market was Lubbock. NTS began building its own … Read more →

NTS Part 3: Customer Adoption Rate

Torin — Thu, 16 May 2013 21:06:28 +0000

How many of the homes and businesses that NTS’ fiber lines pass will ultimately sign up as NTS customers? Information on national broadband adoption would be helpful in answering this question, and luckily the topic is one that gets a lot of research attention. Two recent reports in particular—one by the Department of Commerce and … Read more →

NTS Part 2: Fiber Broadband Economics

Torin — Thu, 16 May 2013 12:36:02 +0000

In the previous post, I offered some background on NTS and gave an overview of the three businesses the company operates today. Soon I’ll offer an analysis of the future profit contributions of each individual network. But before doing that I want to step back and look at the economics of broadband in general. To … Read more →

NTS Part 1

Torin — Wed, 15 May 2013 16:43:32 +0000

The series of posts to follow will explore NTS, a holding of Monte Sol and its affiliates. I have been sitting on this research for a while, waiting for the right time to post it. After yesterday’s stock price drubbing (for no reason—or at least no good one), I feel now is the appropriate time. … Read more →

Which of These is Not Like the Others? Part II

Torin — Wed, 05 Dec 2012 17:01:37 +0000

These are numbers for a real company: In ten years this company has multiplied its revenue 100 times. It hasn’t posted a losing year in a decade. What’s more, over the period shown this company has made exactly zero acquisitions. All of the growth has been internally generated. This company is Autoinfo, ticker AUTO. I … Read more →

Q3 Letter Excerpt: The Monte Sol Investment Process Summarized

Torin — Thu, 08 Nov 2012 03:01:26 +0000

The goal is to generate the greatest returns possible within the constraint of a portfolio that poses no more than a remote risk of losing money in the long-term. This concept sounds obvious but it is one that many investors gradually forget. Over time most investors drift toward one end of the spectrum or the … Read more →

Philosophy Friday: Emerson on Investing

Torin — Fri, 26 Oct 2012 19:11:46 +0000

To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men – that is genius … There is a time in every man’s education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for … Read more →

Titanomachy

Torin — Tue, 09 Oct 2012 16:53:06 +0000

An investor named Dan Beck recently posted an interesting write-up of Titan Machinery (TITN) on SumZero. Titan is America’s largest independent dealer of Case-New Holland (CNH) agricultural equipment. CNH is a major player in the industry, second in size only to John Deere. Mr. Beck’s write-up showed that Titan has much to offer as a … Read more →

Which of These is Not Like the Others?

Torin — Tue, 18 Sep 2012 15:52:47 +0000

The table below shows a relatively comprehensive list of North American exchange-traded electronic manufacturing services (“EMS”) companies. These companies are sometimes referred to as contract manufacturers because some or all of the goods they manufacture are ultimately sold by another company under another brand name. The P/E ratios for the industry are horrendous. The average … Read more →