Anatomy of a 10-K

Still jet-lagged by 8 hours from a day and a half in London, I haven't slept for a good 48 hours and remembered I owe WSO my process for dissecting a10-k in the usual form. Before I get right into it, keep in mind every business is different and that will dictate the way you should read their specific annual report. What might be important to look at for an oil & gas company might be completely ignored for a hardline retail company, so don't take this as gospel when your PM tells you to get up to speed on a company and you remember the stupid shit old BlackHat told you was right and you end up missing something crucial to making an investment decision.So with that, here is a full breakdown of how I like to look through a 10-k for the first time, what's important to focus on, and what can be glazed over (if anything) to save time and/or not confuse yourself. As always, I'll field questions afterwards if and when I feel like it to clear anything up.Business Description

No matter how simple the business appears to be on the outside, I always go into researching a new business assuming I know absolutely nothing because chances are I do. On the cover page alone, I'll always highlight a few things: fiscal year end, headquarters location, and shares outstanding/market cap if included. Simple stuff, but I still do it no matter what.

Moving on, business description is the first portion of every K. Things that are surprisingly important to me include the history of the business and any historical changes in the company's defined reportable segments. The way a business perceives its moving parts is really important to understanding what they consider important. Sometimes management will decide to move from functional segmentation to geographic segmentation (or the other way around), or might simply consolidate segments or anything similar. I always want this in mind before I get into the granular aspects of the business so I have a frame of reference for how management looks at their own business. If I end up disagreeing it could be an interesting angle if we end up doing something activism-ish or if this may be a short candidate.

I always read the Business section in its entirety (note: I read every section in its entirety to be honest). Besides the things I've already mentioned, the obvious things to focus on are revenue breakdown by whatever segmentation they choose, key business relationships, and key business risks. The main things I'm trying to answer in this section are:

1) Where is the crown jewel of this business? I want to identify the cash generator/main earnings driver for the company. Most of the time this isn't going to be the same segment as what I'm looking for in #2, but it's very important to understand what the majority cash generator is for the company. Normally a company can't survive long enough without its bread and butter to develop any high-growth areas, so determining the key risks to it are just as significant as determining the catalysts to the explosion of another segment.

2) What is the major growth generator? Having a cash cow is great, but doesn't make for a compelling investment if it's growing top line at 1% annually. Normally management will make a point to highlight any major growth in a particular segment, but then again sometimes they won't. Always have this question in your mind when you're looking through segment information. If sales as a % of revenue have moved up from something like low teens to mid-thirties over the past few years, all the sudden you may have a good idea of

where growth is coming from... or where a segment will have to pick up the slack as a crown jewel business starts to wither away...

3) Where are the key risks for #1 and #2? Section 1A will always list the risks to the business. A certain chunk of business risks seem identical in every company and can probably be skimmed, but firm-specific risks can be very important and disclose some important information. The things you can usually glaze over include the standard "macroeconomic conditions" clauses, litigation risks (unless it's a litigation-heavy business like a medical supplier, car company, airline, etc.), and key man statements. Specific things to look for might be in regards to expansion plans re: the growth engine and market share or other revenue losses re: the crown jewel. Management will usually outline what they think is scary about both of these things, and that will help you build a foundation for what you need to go out and investigate after you're done reading the K.Properties

Skim through them, but usually not a big deal because there should be no surprises here. If it's a retailer and they provide historic square footage numbers, it's helpful to see how square footage has grown and you'll probably want to evaluate sales/sq. ft. over time to see how if the business has been able to grow its store base in an efficient way.

Commitments/Contingencies (i.e. Litigation)

Again, not particularly important for most but sometimes in lock-step with the business risks section, management might highlight a certain lawsuit or risk of lawsuit that could be make or break for the company. In those cases, obviously focusing on this section becomes a must. But when Kohl's has a $12M lawsuit hanging over its head in regards to a black woman's discrimination lawsuit after she got fired for shoplifting, you probably don't need to spend too much time figuring out what's gonna happen with that one.

Market for Equity / Selected Financial Data

The market for equity section should be pretty straight forward, and chances are if you decided to take a look at the company you already know where their stock has traded recently and if they have a dividend. Other times though you might want to at least skim over this to see if there could be any plans for a dividend or discontinuation of a dividend. Usually one of the more unimportant sections to me (except maybe Mine Safety Disclosures, haha).

Selected Financial Data is your first look at the actual performance of the business. I don't spend too much time here but I like to get an idea of the recent growth trends on the important line items, a sense of the margins at a high level, and anything particular that sticks out, like enormous one-time charges or a year where all the sudden everything fell off a cliff. These are really just things that quantify our idea of business risks, and hopefully we'll see these addressed later in the MD&A or footnotes. If not, we have some phone calls to make...

Management Discussion & Analysis

This, along with the notes to the statements themselves, are pretty much the bulk of the K for understanding what the hell is going on with a business. I spend a good amount of time scrutinizing this section and tend to re-read it once or twice before I feel like I'm actually done with that particular K. This is where the management team will outline their strategy and give a breakdown of what happened during the fiscal year.

It's not uncommon for this section to be a way for the company to explain away their failures, or to pump a successful plan.

While I think this section is different for every company, the big things to watch for in getting acquainted with the way the business runs are 1) the important operating metrics that management uses to gauge performance, 2) any non-GAAP accounting that you might otherwise come across in an earnings release and be confused by, and 3) understanding the cash position of the business and seeing where any cash burn might be coming from. I always find myself playing the role of operator of a competitor, trying to scrutinize management's positions on everything they explain and coming up with a list of questions - no matter how basic - that I might have if they're still unanswered by the time I finish the annual report. This section also helps for providing some outlook and giving you better visibility/confidence in any projections you might make for an operating model.

Financial Statements / Notes

Before I get too excited, I always force myself to highlight in the auditor's note the phrase "fairly, in all material respects" twice, and "maintained, in all material respects" once. While most companies will have an unqualified opinion from their auditors, it's just a good exercise to make sure you don't miss any language changes or anything from year to year that might indicate something is a little fishy. I think it's a good habit to get into if you can help it.

Into the financial statements, I always go line item by line item to see if everything jives with what I think I now know based on the MD&A section. I'll highlight any lines or year-over-year changes that indicate significant strength or weakness, and all that good stuff. This post isn't about analyzing financial statements (and I don't want it to get too long) so I'm not going to dive into the color of what would be important... not to mention the fact that it varies from business to business.

Another good habit to get into here though is, while picking apart the statements and identifying any strange areas or major changes that manifest themselves in the numbers, create an ad-hoc checklist on a sticky note or notepad or something and write down all the things you wish you had an explanation for. When you go through the Notes to the Financial Statements (yes, you should go through this section with more detail than any other, no matter how long it is) you can then cross off every concern as they get answered in the notes. The ones left over are the ones you will probably want to ask IR about, or perhaps answer on your own from external sources such as other operators or sell-side analysts (if it's something they'd have expertise in).

Also a quick note: I have a (possibly dangerous) habit of almost completely ignoring the statement of comprehensive income. To this day I don't really understand what the point is and yet to be punished by it. I'm not sure if there's much intelligence to be gained from it and anything important enough to be on it is probably going to manifest itself elsewhere. This could be something I need to change, but like I said I haven't been punished for ignoring it yet.

Of particular interest to me are Revenue Recognition, Stock-Based Compensation, anything related to Inventory Management (if applicable for the company), and any accounting standards that require a significant level of subjectivity. I'll also make sure to understand how the company is accounting for their pension and evaluating the discount rates and other assumptions they use for it, which can often be indicative of the aggressiveness with which the company accounts for other things. It's a fair measuring stick in most circumstances, particularly when you're skeptical they might be a bit aggressive in their accounting.

Another thing about the notes to the financial statements... you will notice a lot of repeated language from earlier in the K, particularly from the MD&A and business description, but sometimes the company will slip little changes into the same language over time, and that's something to look for if your ADD will allow it. I guess this is really just my way of stressing the practice of reading the notes in their entirety even when you think you've already read something earlier. A lot of analysts will be too passive and possibly trust the company too much to notice funny little changes, but they can be the difference between recommending the stock and having a clear, fundamental misgiving that keeps you from doing so.

Apologies for the way this is scattered, but I have no other way of thinking about it... yet another thing to look at is the stock repurchase history of the business. As always, the three main questions I want answered to determine whether or not we're dealing with a quality management team: 1) are they skilled operators, 2) do they have capital allocation expertise, and 3) do they have industry-leading vision? Most of the time, only one of these is even required to have a good management team, and anyone with multiple traits is a slam dunk. So anything that quantifies these is important, and stock repurchase is one of many that do. Be sure to see how much is left on their repurchase program and factor that into your models as needed.

The Segment Information section is the last (I promise) part of the notes that should always get extra scrutiny. This is where you get the full breakdown of how much each segment contributed to the company as a whole, how much each subsegment (if that's a word) contributed to their respective segments, and how profitable each segment was. This usually is just a way to get more color in identifying or evaluating the crown jewel and growth engine areas of the business.

Follow-Up

After finishing with the notes and everything else, hopefully you have some questions left over. If you don't, chances are you just weren't asking enough questions and unfortunately might need to double back because you've been too lenient on the company. Now that we feel good about the K, I always move on to the most recent Q or two, an earnings transcript, etc. But before I do that, I always go to the  proxy statement. Making sure you have a good grasp on the management team's background/history, their incentives, and how well they are lined up with yours as an investor, is just as important as having a good grasp on the actual business itself. Management quality is more or less important depending on how defensible an industry is, so the level of care to address that with is really up to the situation. Anyway -proxy statement, recent quarterly releases and transcripts, and any conference transcripts you can dig up are next on the docket after the K. If after all that you still have questions left (I hope you do) then it's time to hit the phones and any less than orthodox sources of information you can find. When you're looking for a business you want to own (or short) for the long-haul, you really need to understand what they're doing, and a lot of the time you just don't know what you don't know yet... so never pull the trigger too soon. Regret is a better feeling than poverty, or so my boss says.Hope this wasn't too long for you guys, and I'm pretty sure I've rambled plenty enough in here. I found myself having trouble explaining what to actually look for since it varies so much from situation to situation, but if you can take one or two little pieces of information away from this then I think it's served its purpose.

I'll try and answer anything in more detail in the comments. Enjoy!

On the Job With Simple As… My Research Process

When I did my AMA thread a while back I promised at least one person that I would share my general research process. So here you go...

Every analyst has his/her own way of conducting due diligence. There certainly is no one correct way to come to an investment decision, however, I’d argue that there are certainly several wrong ways, but that is neither here nor there for the purposes of this post. What I am going to describe in this write-up is my personal routine for conducting due diligence. As a disclaimer I would like to state that this is in no way a comprehensive list and my process can vary significantly based on the business and other factors. So, if you use this template to get up to speed on a business and end up missing something crucial don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Also, I think it is necessary to point out that my “process” has evolved significantly since I started managing a bit of money in 2008 and has progressed even more since beginning as an analyst. Howard Marks said, “[An] Investment approach must be intuitive and adaptive rather than fixed and mechanistic.” I do not think the importance of this belief can be overstated.

Throughout the write-up I will link to tools that have influenced me or that I think are great resources. In fact, at least one of them is listed twice because I think it is just that great of a resource.

The Investment Process

I’m going to begin by listing some resources that I believe were instrumental in helping me to learn to think like an investor and/or gave me a solid understanding of economics/markets, etc.

Economics in One Lesson Economic Principles  by Ray DalioValuation by McKinsey Berkshire Hathaway Letters to Shareholders The Most Important Thing Illuminated You Can Be a Stock Market Genius The Little Book That Still Beats the Market Margin of Safety Fooling Some of the People All of the Time Security Analysis Mike Price at Columbia ‘06 Fundamentals of Value Investing  by Bruce GreenwaldHedge Fund: The Investment Life Cycle Anatomy of the 10-KI’ll consider this post a success if you monkeys understand the two simple main points I’ve tried to relay…

1) You need to think independently of everyone else and come to your own conclusions. Howard Marks said it best, “Unconventionality shouldn’t be a goal in itself, but rather a way of thinking.” In short, you have to be different and better.2) You should know your target company better than your dominant hand knows your Johnson.

To illustrate these points, I have a short but sweet second list of general resources that may seem odd for a fundamental equity guy to recommend. However, I believe you’ll understand why I consider them so important if you really think about it and maybe even agree with me.

Resources:

The Handbook of Fixed Income Securities   Interest Rate Markets   Distressed Debt AnalysisBefore I get in to the meat of the write-up I’d like to point out that I make use of nearly all SEC filings, Investor Days, Conference Call transcripts, Industry Reports, Industry and customer contacts, etc. There is a wealth of information out there about your target, go find it… [Part of what makes a good analyst is being able to find places to look for information. Use your imagination.]

What drives revenue?

The first thing I want to know about a business is how it makes money and, to dig a little deeper, how it defines it’s revenue - producing segments. If you can’t get a handle on how the business drives its revenue then it’s probably not a good idea to invest. Even further, how a management team divides up a business provides a great deal of insight in to what management thinks is important and how they are situating the company competitively for the present and future.

If you don’t understand how a business drives revenue then what do you know about the business? Essentially nothing.

What are you doing when you make an investment in a business? You are taking an ownership stake in a company based on the understanding that the operators of the business will execute a plan to provide you returns on your investment greater than your required return. Therefore, understanding what the operators of the business think is important and how they plan to compete in the marketplace is very important and should be one of the first things you understand about a business.

A quick, easy and not completely relevant example is Google. It isn’t completely relevant because Google doesn’t segment its business this way, but I think it will get my point across.

Google’s main revenue driver is its search/advertising business. You can call this its “bread and butter” or “cash cow”. A cash cow is usually characterized by high margins, solid returns on capital and strong  free cash flow , and high barriers to entry – Warren would call this a durable competitive advantage. You generally want a cash cow because the large amounts of free cash flow  it produces has the ability to organically fund other “growth” segments/areas of the business. Sometimes you get lucky and the cash cow for a business is strong enough and has enough run- way that it is a compelling investment in and of itself. This certainly seems to be the case for Google at the moment as its stranglehold on mobile is only going to get stronger while there are certainly a lot of improvements for Larry & co. to make in the area that can provide strong returns. However, more often than not there just isn’t a whole lot of room for growth/improvement in the cash

cow that can realistically provide solid returns on its own going forward. This is when you need the growth segments financed by the cash cow to keep pushing the company forward. For the purpose of this exercise in mental masturbation we are going to assume that the company’s “Google Glass” division and “Driverless Car” division are the growth segments for Google. Each division is being financed internally by the  free cash flow  from the search/advertising business and each is – theoretically – well positioned to lead its respective market and, as such, may be considered a catalyst for multiple expansion, etc.[Once again, this example was purely an exercise in mental masturbation and should be treated as such. I am fully aware that there are factual inaccuracies in the example as it relates to real-life Google. Therefore, there is no need to point them out.]By now you should really have an understanding of how the business drives its revenue and a general idea of the way management sees the company competitively based on the way it segments the business. Which happens to allow me to transition nicely in to…

Competitive Positioning

At this point I’m going to take what I know about the company’s revenue drivers and management’s competitive mindset and judge  the viability of each in the marketplace. Every company discloses a list of competitors, but sometimes the list isn’t that good and even if it is I don’t like to take anything at face value so having an understanding of revenue drivers and management’s mindset allows me to hand pick a universe of competitors.After I determine my target’s competitors I can begin to get a handle on how a business should operate in the space in respect to competitors and customers.

Essentially I am asking three questions:

1) How does the market see my target?2) How do competitors see my target?3) How do customers see my target?

Resources:

Competitive Strategy   Competition DemystifiedBy now I should have an understanding of how my target is seen from most of the interested parties, namely the market, competitors and customers. While I’m answering these questions I’m developing an understanding for how the industry works as whole and am starting to think about how it is changing and what it may look like in the future.

If you take a step back and look at what I’ve got floating around in my head at this point… I know how the business drives revenue as well as where it is competitively situated. I also have an idea as to where the industry is headed as well as a general understanding of how management thinks of the business going forward. And, almost by accident – but, not really – my research has given me the same general understanding of my target’s competitors. I know how each competitor drives revenue as well as how each management team is situating its business going forward.

My thesis is probably starting to form at this point, but I’m going to have to keep calm and contain my excitement because there is still too much work ahead of me to get distracted. This leads me to one of the most important parts of – as well as possibly my favorite – my research process…

Management

Why is management so important to me?

As I previously stated, when you invest in a business you are taking an ownership stake in the company with the understanding that the operators of the business will execute a plan to provide you returns on your initial investment that are greater than your cost of capital.

Therefore, in my opinion, in order to make an investment you not only need to be confident in management’s plan going forward, but also in the management’s ability to execute that plan in a volatile and perpetually changing environment.

I divide my analysis of management in to two areas:

1) Structure and Incentives2) Decision-making

By structure of management I mean that I look at who makes up the BoD and what each person brings to the table amongst other things as well as the operators of the business and what they bring to the table… amongst other things. Larry Robbins’ great letter about HMA is a perfect resource to learn about this stuff. A copy was floating around WSO not too long ago so you should be able to find it on the site.

Management’s incentive is pretty straight - forward. I want to make sure that management’s compensation structure aligns closely with what I want as a shareholder as well as my time frame for the possible investment.

Analyzing management’s decision-making is where it gets fun and interesting! Basically, I’m judging management’s capital allocation decisions based on realized returns and future positioning. If I’m feeling really bold I may throw together a bare- bones operating model and run the company over the past few years to see if I would’ve done anything differently.

Resources:

The Outsiders by Will ThorndikeValue by McKinseyBy this point I’m going to have an idea of how confident I am in a management team’s ability to execute on its strategy. Industry environments are constantly changing as is the overall economy and an exceptional management team can do a lot to position a company for continued success as well as limit downside risk.

My thesis is continuing to come together and now I’m going to sit down and talk with my boss and/or the most senior analyst on the team about what I have so far. This update is not mandatory or necessary, but I like to hear other people’s opinions and be as intellectually honest as possible. I may even talk to a few guys in the industry whose opinions I trust. As we should all know, “You gotta know what you don’t know.”

Financials

Right now I’m far enough along in my thesis that I’m committing to really get down and dirty in this thing. What I’m going to do now is dissect the financials in pretty great detail.

Basically, I’m going to tear the company to pieces line- item by line- item as deep as I can, going back usually 5 to 7 years. Anything that catches my eye, either good or bad, will go on a list of questions for management that I have been compiling since the beginning of my research.

This isn’t a post about financial statement analysis and it’s already unbearably long so I will refrain from going in to detail, but as always, will post some resources I’ve gotten a lot of insight from.

Resources:

Financial Statement Analysis Quality of Earnings Financial Shenanigans Creative Cash Flow Reporting

By this point you should really have a good grasp on the company’s accounting procedures and know that there isn’t any funny business going on in regards to the way they report things, etc. This process should also reinforce everything you have learned about their competitive positioning, capital structure, and the way they drive revenue. I wait longer to actually model out the historical financials than most but that does not mean that I am not intimately familiar with them before this point.

Speak with Management

At this point I’m going to sit down with management and ask them any questions I have up to this point.

Model and Valuation

After management has answered my questions I generally feel like I’ve got a good handle on the business and what is going to happen going forward. So my next step is to sit down and try to knock out my forward model. I think it is important for me to say that I always model each company from scratch. No two companies are the same and you really do get a much deeper understanding if you start from scratch rather than just dropping stuff in a template.

I will not be able to finish the model in one sitting because more questions will come up that need to be answered and I will find an answer to those on the fly as they arise.

When it comes to valuation you just really need to find a way that works for you personally. My valuation method in skeleton form:

1) Derive projections from thesis.2) Stress –test projections3) Derive range of values for the business

I’m kind of vague on the valuation portion of this write – up not only for the reason I pointed to above, but because finding the exact valuation for my target is not my main priority. Basically, all I am looking for from my valuation is a reasonable range of value for a given set of operating scenarios.

My take on value isn’t very complicated. Essentially, in my eyes, value is a product of:

1) Growth2) Returns3) Cost of Capital (Also called Discount Rate or Required Return)

What’s more important – in my opinion – than a scientific and precise valuation is that you understand what is going to cause the market to realize the intrinsic value of the asset and that you get the timing of the catalyst correct. If you’re too early you can get forced out the trade before anything materializes for any number of reasons and if you’re too late you’ve lost some upside at the very least.

Much like my feelings about the search for a precise valuation, I find the search for the “correct” cost of capital to be – in the gentlest terms – a fool’s errand. The best investments are not made because you nailed the discount rate in percentage terms and if making an investment decision comes down to whether you go with a 10% or 12% discount rate I can say with almost absolute certainty that it won’t be a good investment.

I often find it helpful to know what discount rate the market is implying when I am looking to make an investment, but rarely – if ever – is the absolute number of great concern to me. Approximating a required rate of return is mostly a way to keep investment risk at the forefront of my mind. Risk is anything from macro on down to the guy/girl on the other side of your trade. Often, you may start with the market - implied discount rate and then adjust it based on everything from macro factors to industry/company factors and finally to the generally psychology of the other market participants.

Finally, I think it’s pretty important to understand that at any point in time a single driver of value can dominate the others. If we look back to not too long ago, in the tech bubble growth was the main driver of valuations and returns fueled the housing bubble. Today, one can certainly make the argument that risk is the driver of the current bull market. With liquidity being pumped in to the market and treasuries at rock-bottom yields it seems as though investors have re-priced risk in the search for return.

Resources:

Valuation by McKinsey Accounting for Value Financial Modeling Investment BankingBy this point my thesis is pretty much complete and I have a general range of value for the business. Now I’m going to begin to prepare for my pitch.

The Pitch

Before I bring it to my boss for the real deal I want to feel like I’m prepared to answer any question he can throw at me confidently. I try to know more about the business than anyone, even the COO in a lot of cases, so this is a great test for me.

Every firm and PM is going to have a different structure for how they like an idea to be pitched. Some places may have a more formal process that involves multiple investment memos, etc. while my fund is pretty informal. My boss has never so much as asked me to write something down let alone write-up an investment memo. Everything is done via face-to-face conversation or maybe a phone call if one or both of us is out of the office when a discussion is necessary. I personally love this informal structure and believe it is great for my development as an analyst.

Basically, my pitch boils down to five basic steps:

1) Company/ Why market it wrong2) Catalyst(s)3) Upside %4) Downside %5) Brace myself for a game of 20(0) questions

I think it is important to mention that even though the way I pitch an idea seems simple, in reality it is far from it. I generally have multiple conversations with my boss about an idea before I actually sit down with him for the actual pitch and like I said earlier I come prepared to answer any possible question about my idea.

Conclusion

Much of what I described here is not very difficult. Most anyone can break down some financial statements or slap a value on a business. To do well you need to be able to time inflection points, properly handicap the risk/reward scenarios and determine the appropriate cost of capital (required return) for the risk profile of the investment. Each of these is extremely difficult in practice and is – in my opinion – what separates a great analyst from a good analyst.

The things I listed in the paragraph above that – I believe – separate a good analyst from a great analyst (and eventually allow a great analyst to become a PM) only come with experience. Risk includes everything from macro to the other guys in the market and it’s likely you’re not going to be able to pick these things up overnight or even in a few market cycles. Hell, there’s no guarantee that you’ll ever truly get it. [I’m including myself in the collective ‘You’ here.]

Inexperience isn’t damning for a young guy/girl in the business, even if it is difficult to overcome. If you work hard, stay humble, and make a point to be intellectually honest you’ll likely be more than OK.

A final, but very important part of my process that I forgot to mention is that I spend a great deal of time observing the way my target’s stock price moves/reacts to market/macro/micro news. Basically, this helps me to understand the psychology of those I am trading  with in the market. I learn what they think is important about the business/stock relative to what I think is important about the stock.Resources:

Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds   The Alchemy of Finance   The Hour Between Dog and Wolf   Thinking, Fast and Slow   The Practicing Mind   Manias, Panics and Crashes: A History of Financial Crises   The Social Animal   Market Wizards   The New Market Wizards   Hedge Fund Market Wizards   The Psychology of Judgment and Decision Making   Decision Traps   Reminisces of a Stock Operator

I’ll try to answer any questions as quickly as possible in the comments. Enjoy!

Hedge Fund: The Investment Life Cycle

Hey guys, so after some encouragement from a few of you guys I'm gonna go ahead and start a bit of a series of posts on my experience in the hedge fund industry , particularly in how one goes from the start of an investment idea, to taking a position, to monitoring the position, and finally what happens when it's time to close it out. I'll explain all of that and will also try and do Q&A in this thread also to help anyone with specific questions. Before I get into that, here is a bit about my background that will help you guys understand what my investment approach is like.As some of you know, I did my undergrad at Penn, specifically Wharton, majoring in finance. I hate making the distinction that I was in Wharton and not "just Penn" but it's relevant here so I'll deal with it. I did my summer analyst  stint at a pretty value-intensive AM /HF  hybrid company where I accepted full-time and spent about 1.5 years there before getting poached by a fairly large hedge fund. I spent two years there and was fortunate enough to get out right about the time they started heading downhill, and have now been working at a smaller fund for about 8 months. My current fund is decently large in terms of AUM (a little over 2b) but we don't have many analyst with a single PM who runs everything. We are a  long/short fund with a heavy emphasis on value. The best part about my job is how much freedom we are given as analysts and how flat the structure is, unlike my last fund which was very structured in comparison and much larger by headcount. I can answer more about my background in the Q&A if I missed anything. It's late.Anyway, so I will try and go through the life cycle of a successful investment idea here which should hopefully give people an idea of what a day in the life is like and what is important in looking for a good idea. Here goes...

Sourcing an idea is really tough for me to explain. A lot of my ideas come from really random places. My most recent idea came because my girlfriend forced me to download an app on my phone and play a game with her, which I thought was absolutely stupid and couldn't be more than a fad. (Obviously you all know what company I'm talking about now) Sometimes I walk into a store and realize how much I've hated that business... or maybe how much I've loved it. These random sources are hard to quantify, so I can't really explain how I source those, but more traditionally I do spend a lot of time looking through newspapers and keeping up on current events to see what companies are hot or hated, and if I have some basis for looking further I can go from there and start researching if the company is in my circle of competency. Sometimes I'll spend time reading through 13-F's and if I see the same name too many times I'll start to look at the company and see if there's something to be looked at. The only real criteria for the source of an idea for me is hotness. Has the stock been beaten up recently or has it had a huge ride up? The answer to that question doesn't necessarily have to be yes, but for me it usually is. If a company has been hated on recently it's going to be a better value, and vice versa for potential short candidates. Anyway, so let's say you have sourced your idea and done very preliminary research, now it's time to actually do some analysis...

The first thing I do is make sure I understand the industry. I'll spend time reading industry reports, reading the most recent 10-K's of the target company and major competitors, and reading the past 3-4 quarterly reports and earnings transcripts in their entirety. Once I do that I usually have a good idea of how the industry works and what the main metrics are. If I don't, I might head out to a trade conference or go to more aggressive lengths to make sure I answer all the basic questions I have about the way a firm would do

business in this space. After that's done I can start building the backbone of my model. I never use a template since I believe every company needs to be modeled differently, so I'll start from scratch. The biggest thing I want is to figure out how this company drives revenue, and what pricing power is like. I don't want to go into details on the model but basically the main purpose of it is to look at what earnings have been like, what margins look like, and what the main points of the capital structure are and how management has handled the company up to this point. I love consistency here. Obviously I want to find what  Buffett  would describe as financial evidence for the "durable competitive advantage." I won't finish the model at this point but I will have enough blank space on it to find out what I need to answer to make my assumptions for the future.From here, I'll go line item by line item analyzing the trend of whatever account I'm looking at on the financial statement, and if I have any questions about what's happened with it (let's say receivable spiked enormously in the most recent year), then I'll write that down and through this process start forming a list of questions for IR or management, depending on the size of the company. I always like to speak with management eventually but for my first list of questions I actually prefer IR because they know less and sometimes will either answer the question the way management wouldn't want them to, or will be blissfully ignorant to whatever I'm asking about, which is usually some sort of red flag that could help if this is a short idea. Let's say this is a long idea though, and IR is able to answer all my questions sufficiently and I start to feel good about the prospects of the company.

At this point it's time to talk to management, hopefully the CFO if possible.  Since I'm typically looking at a company that's been beat up or run up, I want to get an idea of how legitimate the reasoning was for the move, and there's nobody better to talk to than the CFO about that. I can't really explain the nuances of learning things from management, but with experience you are able to evaluate management a lot better and I think this is one of the most underrated parts of the investing.

So now I have an idea I like. I'll typically spend a little bit of time looking at some technical analysis and some reasoning behind getting in at a certain price. I have a model with a bull case, base case, and bear case for my company and am able to develop a target price range and target time frame for the investment. I'll pitch this to my boss, our PM, and engage in some dialogue about this. He usually knows a lot about the company no matter what it is, and often will have additional questions for me to go out and answer. Sometimes I'll have to get in touch with former employees, take a walk through the store or whatever it may be, or even buy the product and show it to my boss (example: made him play Words with Friends until he got tired of it. Took 3 days.) He'll generally take my advice on sizing based on my conviction, but it also depends on what our capital situation is like and what sector the company is in or the volatility and risk behind the investment. He agrees to go long for 1.5% of the fund.

Now that we have a significant investment in the company, I have maintenance duties.Most of the time this means just keeping track of the movement on the stock, attending meetings with management periodically, sitting on earnings calls, and reading all company filings as they come out. The main goal of maintenance is to make sure that our agreed-upon thesis for investing in the company is still valid, and that nothing has changed that would make this company lose its competitive advantage, no longer be considered a "good" company by our standards, etc. This is most hectic around earnings time, especially when management suggests that they may not perform so well. They don't do this explicitly, but once you spend enough time on a company and with its people, you can tell when they're having a hard quarter. I'll keep my eye on all of this while I keep sourcing and working on other ideas.

If any of the criteria I outlined when we initially invested in the company is broken, we will exit the position. Also, if we believe we have broken into a price range that meets whatever target I have set out, we

will also exit. At this point the investment has reached the end of the line and we're all done. With some companies that have extremely impressive advantages and continue to grow earnings and increase shareholder value, we may hold an investment indefinitely though with no target price range. During maintenance I may begin altering my target price depending on how earnings have been looking and what the industry landscape has done since the beginning of the research process.

I hope this stuff helps a bit and that it wasn't too long or boring to read. It's kind of hard to explain the actual investment and research process since it's always different and a lot of it is art rather than science when using the approach I do. I like to believe that experience is really important and urge anyone who wants to work at a value-based fund to spend a ton of time paying attention to the markets and reading 10-K's . I probably spend most of my day either reading reports or speaking with management or sell-side analysts about different companies and industries.

The great part about my job is that I don't have to be in the office or putting in face time . We don't care that you're "working your ass off," we only care that you know how to analyze a company and can provide a reasonable thesis behind an investment. Oh, and you won't last long if you're picking losers. Work all day and night but pick losers and you'll be fired. Only show up at the office for 5 minutes but spend that 5 minutes pitching a winner and you could be seeing 7 figures. All I know is if I do my best work in a sewer in Harlem, that's where I'll be.

I'll take Q&A from anyone through PM and post them in the comments anonymously along with my answers. Hope this helped guys!