Wynn Resorts Down More Than 50% Is A Long-Term Opportunity

The holy grail for contrarian, value investors is buying great companies at bargain prices, typically during a time when they have hit a short-term speed bump. While this is not an everyday occurrence, and it is even more rare when equity markets are elevated as they are today, you can find great investments in any market environment if you pay close attention.

Last week I initiated a new position in Wynn Resorts (WYNN), a leading gaming and resort operator with a pair of properties in Las Vegas and Macau, with two new properties in development (a second resort in Macau and one outside Boston). I paid $108 and change for the initial group of shares, which represented a more than 50% decline from the stock's 52-week high of $222. In fact, WYNN shares actually traded at $108 for the first time way back in early 2007.

I bought on a day when the stock was trading down more than 20 points after a disappointing earnings report. In addition, the company cut their dividend to conserve cash and fund the construction of their new resorts, each of which will cost billions of dollars. Wynn's recent struggles are due to weakness in the Macau gaming market, as China has recently enacted policy restrictions which have hampered both visitor traffic and spend over the last year.

While these issues were well-known to investors, the dividend cut came as a surprise (the annual payout was reduced from $6 to $2 per share). There were many investors who were in the stock for the income and wanted out, as the dividend yield has gone from over 4.5% to less than 2.0%. I like to pay close attention to dividend cuts because they often result in dramatic stock price declines, even though not every company cuts their dividend for the same reason. In addition, company valuations are not impacted by changes in dividends, but rather changes in actual earnings. Oftentimes the two are not directly related (e.g. the dividend cut is more dramatic than the earnings decline).

In Wynn's case, which is different from many instances where companies have seen their profitability evaporate and therefore are unable to continue paying a dividend out of free cash flow, the company is merely preserving cash now that sales levels are lower in Macau and they no longer have excess free cash flow above and beyond what they need to build out their new properties. The company remains very profitable. As a result, it is entirely reasonable to expect that once Wynn's new projects open, their absolute profit dollars will increase while their required capital expenditures decline, which will support an increase in the dividend.

We see this a lot with growth companies who are in highly capital-intensive businesses. As capital needs fluctuate, the dividend is adjusted both up and down based on where they are in their growth cycle. While this does not match up with most dividend-paying companies, which pride themselves on maintaining their dividends no matter what (including steady and predictable annual increases), a company like Wynn really uses them as a way to pay out excess cash that they don't need to build new or expand existing properties. In fact, the company also uses one-time special dividends to accomplish the same objective.

Lastly, I think it is important to note that one future positive catalyst for Wynn will be a leveling off and eventual rebound in their Macau financial results. The Chinese government is not going to suppress gaming their forever. At some point, given the popularity of the area, we will see growth in Macau again, especially considering how much of a drop there has been in recent quarters. I am not going to pretend I know when exactly that inflection point will occur, but that is one of the perks of being a long-term investor; I am willing to be patient.

To sum up, I believe a price of $108+ represented an excellent value for a great company like Wynn. That does not mean that the stock will not drop further in the short-term (I am not trying to pick the bottom here, just a good entry point for the long-term), but I think the stock will be materially higher several years from now. If true, we will look back and say that 2015 was an excellent contrarian buying opportunity.

What do you think?

Full Disclosure: Long shares of WYNN at the time of writing, but positions may change at any time.

New Amazon Disclosures Reinvigorate Bull Case For Investors

Amazon (AMZN) is a fascinating company for many reasons and their latest investor relations move has gotten the markets excited about their stock once again (it's up 57 points today alone as I write this). Bulls and bears on the shares have long had a disagreement about the company. Shareholders argued that Jeff Bezos and Co. were purposely "losing money" in order to invest heavily in growth and attain massive scale. Bears insisted that the spending was required to keep their customers coming back, and that if the company started to show profits the business would suffer dramatically. Regardless of which camp you are in, one thing is clear; Amazon chooses growth over profitability in the short term if it thinks they can be successful.

So when the company announced that it would break out the financial results of its Amazon Web Services (AWS) business segment for the first time in its nine-year history starting in 2015, the consensus view was that the division would show losses. After all, if Amazon embraces short term losses in exchange for growth, and AWS is its fastest growing business, why would you think otherwise? So imagine the surprise last evening when Amazon announced that AWS is profitable, and not just a little bit. Operating margins for AWS during the first quarter of 2015 were 17%. Add back an estimate of depreciation expense and EBITDA margins are likely approaching 50%. And the stock price is rocketing higher on the news.

All of the sudden it is possible that Amazon does not hate reporting profits (some have speculated that income tax avoidance is a motivating factor). Instead, maybe they are being sincere and simply invest capital when they think they have a good reason, regardless of whether it results in short-term GAAP profits. And maybe the thesis that Amazon's business model does not allow for profits is incorrect. That is surely what investors today are thinking. Given their corporate philosophy, there is no reason Amazon should be running AWS at a large profit, but they are. Why? Perhaps they have built a very good business. Simple enough.

The implications for the stock are important. We now have evidence that AWS is probably worth the $60 billion or so that the bulls have long thought. At the lows of the last year (below $300 per share), Amazon's total equity value was only a little more than double that figure ($130 billion). The bears on the stock will probably stick to their guns that the current share price (approaching $450) is irrational, but if you actually run the numbers, it is not that hard to value Amazon in a range of $200-$250 billion based solely on what we know today, given that non-AWS annual revenue will approach $100 billion this year and AWS alone can account for 25-30% of that valuation. The stock is getting close to my personal fair value target, but is not quite there yet. And given that Amazon could very well surprise investors more going forward (they don't exactly set the bar very high), I am not in a big rush to sell.

Full Disclosure: Long shares of AMZN at the time of writing, but positions may change at any time

Which Company Is More Valuable: Shake Shack or Red Robin?

I wanted to follow-up my post about the Shake Shack (SHAK) IPO because I think the stock is presenting an interesting opportunity on the short side (finding shares to borrow is another story completely). Sometimes investors use paired trades - shorting one stock and going long another in order to bet on the valuation differential - to reduce their risk and still bet against a highly valued stock.

First, let me give a quick recap of Shake Shack today, post-IPO. At $45 per share the company's equity is valued at $1.6 billion. This is for a company that had 63 restaurants open at the end of their most recently reported quarter, with more than half (32) franchised. The 31 units they own average $5 million in sales annually, but that figure will decline over time because the company's focus on Manhattan (where each unit does more than $7 million per year in sales) will dissipate over time as Shake Shack goes national.

The key for investors is a tidbit included in the company's IPO prospectus; over the long term Shake Shack sees room for 450 owned units in the U.S. with average unit volumes of $3 million per year and 20% four-wall margins. With less than three dozen U.S. locations today, you can see that it will probably take two decades to reach their 450-unit goal.

So why is that data crucial for investors? Well, consider that in 2014 fellow burger chain Red Robin (RRGB) operated 408 restaurants in the U.S. and each one averaged $3 million in sales. Furthermore, the average company-owned Red Robin had a four-wall margin of 21.4%. In addition, Red Robin plans to open 20 new units in the U.S. in 2015, so by the end of this year the company will have 428 units averaging $3 million in annual sales at a 21% profit margin. Essentially, Red Robin is today what Shake Shack will be in 20 years.

You probably see where I am headed with this. Red Robin's current equity market value at around $80 per share is only $1.14 billion, compared with Shake Shack at $1.6 billion. How on earth can Shake Shack be worth more today than Red Robin? It can't be, at least in any rational world (yes, I know, the stock market is not always rational).

By The Numbers:

Red Robin: 408 owned units, 99 franchised units, $1.14 billion equity value

Shake Shack: 31 owned units, 32 franchised units, $1.60 billion equity value

Bold investors can short Shake Shack by itself and hope the market comes around to realize the current share price is irrational sometime soon. Less bold investors can short Shake Shack and pair it with a long investment in Red Robin. As long as the valuation differential between the two converges over time, the trade will make money. Count me as one who does not think Shake Shake can maintain a 50% equity valuation premium to Red Robin over the long term. In the short term, though, anything is possible (as we see today).

Note: Shorting Shake Shack is difficult right now since it is a newly public company, but as time passes it will be easier to find shares to borrow (my broker, for instance, does not have any shares available as of now).

Full Disclosure: No positions at the time of writing but positions may change at any time

Why Carl Icahn's $216 Fair Value for Apple is Unrealistic

You may have read Carl Icahn's letter published yesterday in which he outlines why he believes Apple stock is worth $216 per share today. With the stock currently fetching an all-time high of $127, making it the most valuable company ever, you might be wondering if a company already worth nearly $750 billion can really still be 70% undervalued. Quite simply, I do not believe so. Let me explain why.

First, I think it is helpful to look at a snapshot of the last five years, to give you an idea of where Apple stock has traded relative to its business fundamentals. Below is a chart I constructed that shows Apple's revenue, earnings per share, ending stock price, and ending P/E ratio since fiscal 2010, along with consensus forecasts for the current 2015 fiscal year and Carl Icahn's above-consensus estimates.

From this chart you should be able to see how Icahn is getting such a sky-high fair value estimate for Apple; he's using an extremely optimistic P/E ratio assumption. There are many reasons why Apple shares are unlikely to fetch a P/E ratio of 20+ ever again. Some that come to mind are:

1) Apple's current size - With annual sales of over $200 billion, investors are unlikely to assume dramatic growth rates from here, which limits the multiple of earnings they are willing to pay.

2) Apple's industry - Though it may be hard to fathom right now, the tech sector has a decades-long history of musical chairs when it comes to market dominant companies, so investors often will discount their valuations if it seems as though things can't get much better and a technological shift in consumer preferences is likely at some point in the future.

3) Apple's poor capital allocation - When you are keeping $141.6 billion of net cash on your balance sheet investors will not always give you full credit for it since it is not generating an adequate return. When the cash pile reached $100 billion people were miffed and the hoard is more than 40% higher. For comparison's sake, Apple's total cash outlay for capital expenditures and acquisitions was $13.5 billion in fiscal 2014, making their cash "buffer" equal to more than 10 years' worth of growth investment.

4) Apple's historical valuation - Over the last five years Apple's average P/E ratio at the end of its fiscal year has been 15. Carl Icahn's insistence that Apple is worth 50% more than that does not make much sense. Over that five-year period Apple's sales have tripled. A higher P/E ratio usually implies the expectation of higher growth. It will be very difficult for Apple to triple its business over the next five years, which would mean that the average P/E ratio during that time could very well be less than 15 (not over 20).

So what do I think Apple stock is worth? Well, first off let me point out that I am far from an Apple bear. I have been long the stock for many years and some of my clients have an average cost basis in the single digits per share. I just think investors' expectations should be more muted than Carl Icahn's. Consistent with the points outlined above, I think Apple shares will trade at a P/E ratio between 10 and 15 going forward. Using a $9 EPS figure for fiscal 2015 and giving the company full credit for its cash position, that gets you to a range of $114-$159 with the midpoint being $136 per share. Relative to today's price of $127 Apple stock is neither dramatically overvalued nor undervalued.

Shake Shack: Another Predictably Overvalued Consumer IPO

Shares of burger chain Shake Shack (SHAK) are soaring more than 130% today to $48 on their first day of trading, after pricing at $21 per share. With 36 million outstanding shares, the company (which owns 21 restaurants and franchises another 19) is worth a whopping $1.75 billion. That equates to $83 million per owned restaurant. With the average unit volume for an owned location being $5 million, of which $1.25 million is profit, you should be able to see the wacky pricing for the shares pretty clearly. This is not surprising, though, given how much fanfare consumer brand IPOs have been generating in recent years.

Even if you consider that the company plans to open 10 units a year in the U.S. and let international franchisees open even more overseas, it is impossible to justify a $1.75 billion valuation for a company with a total of 40 units open globally. As a result, I suggest you visit the company's locations rather than invest in the stock at current prices. As we have seen with other consumer IPOs such as The Container Store (TCS), Potbelly Sandwich Works (PBPB), and Noodles and Company (NDLS), it is not uncommon for these IPOs to come back down to earth over time, so definitely monitor the situation if you are tempted to invest in SHAK today, but try to hold off for now.

Full Disclosure: No position in SHAK at the time of writing, but positions may change at any time