These announcements confirm the strength of the overall business (ex Auto) and make some form of Belron transaction in the near future materially more likely. That reduces my bear case probability, and there is huge potential upside should Belron IPO at a price that reflects its value. Overall, these developments improve the risk-return set-up for D’Ieteren stock in my view.

Summary

(1) Strong Results: Group adj. PBT was up 8.4% driven by Belron, PHE and TVH all performing well. On the other hand, D’Ieteren Automotive is really struggling with PBT down two-thirds. The outlook was confirmed for the year (LSD to MSD Group Adj. PBT growth) with the other segments partially offsetting automotive weakness.

(2) CEO Transition: The Board announced a CEO transition, with Francis Deprez leaving in December after seven years and Eric Machiels arriving from OMERS. I have little to add on this for now, other than to note that Deprez declined to comment on the circumstances of his departure when asked directly on the call. Machiels has been active in private equity and private equity owned businesses, including taking Infinis Energy to the London market and running it as a listed company. Given capital allocation will be a key part of his job, the board obviously decided he is well placed to lead D’Ieteren going forward. My own guess is that a new CEO with that background arrives with a mandate to make some changes, and I would not be surprised to see both Auto and Moleskine disposed of in time as the focus narrows onto Belron and expanding further in the B2B distribution businesses.

(3) Belron IPO Potential Confirmed: Confirmation of this should be positive for the stock and it is a key part of my thesis to drive both crystallisation of the NAV……

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^{The above is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice. Always do your own research. If you found this useful, consider subscribing to ValueJunkie for more.}

Busier than usual on the earnings front, with TerraVest and Idun both reporting and the results going in opposite directions. Quieter on the trading side, where I trimmed TerraVest after its numbers and started a small position in Gulf Marine Services. Changes, sizing and the reasoning below, along with what I make of Idun’s softer than anticipated quarter.

Trading Activity

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Disclaimer: This is not financial advice and only for informational purposes. Do your own research.

• 3.1x 2027 EV/EBITDA.

• 25% free cash flow (FCF) yield on 2027e.

• Contracted backlog of 3.5x revenue.

• 70% of book value, and enough cash flow to clear the debt by 2028 (assuming no further acquisitions).

I’m sharing a different type of idea today. I usually avoid investing in commodity related industries for numerous reasons; however, I have broken that rule by taking a position in this stock. This is a stock on a 25% FCF yield (with a c.5% prospective dividend yield on a 20% to 30% of Adj. PAT proposed payout ratio) with minimal attention paid to it given it is listed in the UK, reports in USD and the majority of its revenue stems from the Middle East.

This company has grown at a good clip over the past few years aided by a supportive market environment as it operates in a corner of the offshore fleet where there are fewer orders, with the orderbook running at about 3% of the regional fleet with some of the competing vessels >40 years old. Net debt has been primarily reduced with internal cash-flow from 8x EBITDA to 1.4x EBITDA as of YE25. Contracts run 3-5 years and the customers are typically national oil companies and the company reports EBITDA margins of c.60%.

Today’s stock is….

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July 2026 Portfolio Update

Welcome to the first of these portfolio updates. I write detailed pieces on individual companies, but a lot happens in between posts, so the idea here is to keep tabs on the names I have covered and own, along with any news that matters to the theses. This is a summary of the moves that seem worth mentioning rather than a log of every trade, and the intention is for it to become a regular note.

It has been a busier month than usual. I sold and then rebought some TerraVest around the insider trading story, added significantly to D'Ieteren, topped up Idun Industrier, and closed out my Whitbread tracker position at a profit. The details on each below.

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TerraVest Industries (TVK. TO)

During the month I sold a decent clip of TerraVest around the C$158 level before buying it back, and then some, at an average of around C$108 after the insider trading press reports that I covered in more detail here. To summarise what happened: the story broke on the 5th of June that Quebec’s financial regulator, the AMF, alleges that executive chairman Charles Pellerin shared privileged information with nine family members and acquaintances ahead of the announcement of the EnTrans acquisition in March 2025. No charges have been filed, and the board, excluding Pellerin, commenced a formal review and stated it will cooperate fully with regulators. The stock fell c.32% on the news. It is a significant governance blow, but one that reflects no deterioration in the underlying business, which is why I was happy to add on the drop.

Since then there has been no update on the case and the stock has recovered to the C$118 level, which should be a good base to build on over the coming months as TerraVest continues to produce earnings growth and acquire more companies.

The controversy hasn’t stopped the acquisition machine either, as TerraVest announced last week that it has completed the bolt-on acquisition of Superior Pressure Vessels Inc., an Alberta-based manufacturer and service provider of pressurized transport tanks and trailers that will join TVK’s Compressed Gas Equipment division. It is a positive sign that the controversy did not prevent this seller from completing their transaction with TerraVest.

“Headquartered in Calgary, Alberta, SPV is a well-known manufacturer of pressurized tank trailers serving the Canadian market. The Company has a loyal brand following, a reputation for quality and has been in business for over 45 years.”

I continue to hold TerraVest. Sentiment has likely been close to a bottom, and the company is well placed to move on from this controversy, continue compounding earnings and trade better in the market over the medium term.

D’Ieteren (DIE BB)

I added significantly to my position during the month on a pullback at an average price of c. €165, for the reasons I set out in my original piece here.

The clear catalyst to unlock value here remains the potential Belron IPO. While there was little news on that front this month, the successful IPO of SpaceX, the largest listing in history and trading well above its offer price, should lead to more positive conversations in the boardroom on Rue du Mail in Brussels. A healthy IPO market bodes well for CD&R and Belron’s other private equity holders, who may well decide this is the right time to list Belron.

In the last week or so the stock has traded between the €174-€182 level. Where it trades short term is anyone’s guess, but the move back upwards likely reflects enthusiasm for a potential Belron IPO, which, if announced, could send the stock to levels upwards of €200. I am a content owner for now.

Idun Industrier (IDUN-B ST)

I added to my position in Idun Industrier just this week around the SEK 300 level. In my piece here I mentioned I would be willing to add closer to the SEK 300 level, from SEK 330 at the time of the post, and the market gave me that chance this week.

Operationally, Idun continue to execute their acquisition programme, announcing another acquisition on the 29th of June, acquiring 85% of the shares in Nordbergs Tekniska AB, a leading Swedish distributor of highly specialised technical and engineered polymer materials, serving customers in areas such as medical technology, defence, telecom and demanding industrial applications. Nordbergs was founded in 1970, has net sales of c. SEK 77mn with a reported EBITDA margin of c. 24%, and will report within Idun’s Manufacturing business area. The brothers Valdemar, Oskar and Pontus Nordberg will remain as shareholders, and everyone currently active in the company will continue in their operational roles. This is the classic Idun playbook, buying a dominant business in a specific, overlooked niche, with the people who built it left in place to keep running it.

“It feels good for the future to have Idun as a long-term ownership partner. We have built the company over many years and look forward to continuing to develop the business together with Idun, with the same focus on customer satisfaction, quality, service and fast deliveries as always,” says Valdemar Nordberg, CEO and shareholder of Nordbergs.

The acquisition is expected to have a marginal positive impact on Idun’s 2026 earnings, and is financed through a combination of own funds and existing credit facilities. Alongside the deal and the previously communicated early redemption of the company’s last outstanding bond of SEK 220mn, Idun has increased its revolving credit facility from SEK 450mn to SEK 670mn, which leaves plenty of financial flexibility for further deals from the pipeline.

The backdrop for Swedish small caps more broadly is worth a mention here. REQ Capital, shareholders in Idun, noted in a recent letter that the first half of the year saw a flow-driven rotation out of Swedish small and mid caps, largely driven by redemptions from Swedish funds, and that small caps now trade at a 9% discount to large caps against a historical average premium of 6%, a spread last seen around the financial crisis. In their experience these dislocations tend to be relatively short-lived, and when capital starts flowing back in, the door can quickly become crowded. Idun’s shareholder register is almost entirely Nordic, so it sits directly in the path of any reversal of those flows.

REQ, who are a leading voice in the Nordic Serial Acquirer space, wrote about Idun in their latest investor piece, linked here. I have attached the Idun portion here below.

Closed Position: Whitbread (WTB LN)

Whitbread was a tracker position I took in the wake of the extremely negative sentiment that followed their Capital Markets Day in late April, which I wrote about here. At the time of the post the stock was trading around £22. I sold my position into strength at £25.35 in late June, a c.15% gain in two months.

While there is potentially a lot of value at Whitbread, the mechanism to unlock it will take time, and there continue to be disagreements between the activist Corvex and the management team on how best to do it. Sentiment was bombed out, which made for an attractive entry, but there are too many outstanding questions for me to have the conviction necessary to increase the position and I preferred to invest elsewhere once the stock recovered, as Whitbread would not be the prototypical type of investment case for me. I will continue to track developments at Whitbread as an observer for now.

Disclaimer: This is not financial advice and only for informational purposes. I hold positions in TerraVest Industries, D’Ieteren and Idun Industrier. Do your own research.

Each issue I highlight a few pitches and ideas from fund letters, blog posts and presentations that caught my eye. I go through a lot of material and filter for what I think is worth paying attention to, and thought it worth sharing what I find interesting with a wider audience.

Full credit goes to the original authors. I am just surfacing what I found interesting.

Over the past month I worked through c.200 published stock pitches. Below are some of the ideas that made the cut. I have kept a handful of the highest-conviction names for myself to look into further, and I may write up one or more of them here, so make sure you are subscribed to receive it when it lands.

Valuation multiples reflect the figures at the time each pitch was published and may have moved since.

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Ameriprise Financial
AMP US | ~$42bn market cap | $417 SP | Gator Capital Management

Ameriprise is one of the largest wealth management platforms in the United States, running an independent adviser network of over 10,000 advisers managing $1.7tn in client assets, alongside a captive asset manager in Columbia Threadneedle and a retirement and annuity business. The misclassification thesis is the heart of the pitch: Ameriprise is covered by life insurance analysts who apply insurer multiples to what is now predominantly a capital-light wealth management business, with insurance representing only 16% of earnings today against 34% at the time of the 2005 American Express spin-off. The right peer group is Morgan Stanley, Raymond James and LPL Financial, all of which trade at materially higher multiples.

CEO Jim Cracchiolo has run the business since inception, compounding earnings at double digits and retiring over 60% of shares outstanding. ROE is above 50%. The Signature Wealth platform, launched in mid-2025, adds an incremental fee layer that feeds directly into Columbia Threadneedle, and Goldman Sachs and UBS have both been cited as potential acquirers of the franchise.

The opportunity is a business being valued on the wrong comparable set, with a 20-year track record of compounding and a multiple at the low end of its own history.

Harley-Davidson
HOG US | ~$2.7bn market cap | $25.62 SP | Gate City Capital and The Value Road

Two separate analysts pitched Harley from different angles, which is worth noting in itself. Gate City Capital visited CEO Artie Starrs in Milwaukee and made the stock one of their largest positions. The Value Road published a forensic enterprise value deconsolidation. Both converge on the same point: Wall Street has the wrong enterprise value on Harley-Davidson because it includes Harley-Davidson Financial Services debt in the EV calculation as if it were corporate debt, when it is in fact non-recourse to the parent and matched against finance receivables. Deconsolidated properly, the motorcycle operating business has an enterprise value of approximately $1.1bn on $3.6bn of revenue, implying c.3x EV/EBITDA on management’s 2027 targets.

The operational turnaround under CEO Artie Starrs is substantive: the Hardwire strategy has been fully reversed, the HDFS loan book sale has generated approximately $935mn in net cash at the parent level, and new entry-level models are returning to the lineup. Gate City’s DCF gives a target of $37.50 per share.

The set-up is a new management team putting the business back on track after years of strategic missteps, and analysts who have yet to update their enterprise value calculation to reflect what has changed.

Semapa
SEM.LS | ~€1.8bn market cap | €22.30 SP | The Value Pond

Semapa is a listed Portuguese holding company controlling 70% of The Navigator Company, Europe’s largest producer of uncoated fine paper and one of the continent’s lowest-cost producers by virtue of its vertically integrated eucalyptus plantations in Portugal and Spain. The Secil cement division was sold at the end of 2025 for €1.08bn, moving the company from net debt to €761m in net cash, equivalent to roughly 40% of the current market capitalisation. The NAV discount stands at approximately 49%.

The thesis rests on a set of signals pointing toward value crystallisation: the controlling Queiroz-Pereira family attempted to take the company private in 2021 at a price rejected by Spanish value managers as too low, the dividend has been maintained for the third consecutive year, and the approved 10% buyback programme, if executed in full, would bring the family to 93% ownership, sufficient to launch a delisting bid. Navigator itself is the low-cost survivor in a structurally declining sector, benefiting from over 2m tonnes of competitor capacity closures since 2024 and announcing price increases of 4% to 7% for April this year.

The opportunity is a 49% discount to a clean, simplified holdco with net cash, active capital return, and a controlling family that has already shown a willingness to take the company private when the discount is wide enough.

Antin Infrastructure Partners
ANTIN.PA | ~€1.7bn market cap | €9.40 SP | Asymmetric Ventures

Antin is a listed French private equity manager with €33.8bn AUM investing exclusively in infrastructure across Europe and North America.

It is worth being precise about what Antin is: not an infrastructure company, but a fee-generating GP earning stable management fees on long-dated, illiquid committed capital. Since inception in 2007 it has achieved a 22% gross IRR and a 2.5x gross multiple across its funds. The stock IPO’d in 2021 at €24, peaked at €34.50, and trades today at roughly €10 despite no material deterioration in the underlying business.

An extended post-2022 deployment cycle, caused by the rate shock slowing infrastructure deal activity, created the discount. The inflection is now arriving: Flagship V is 75% deployed, exits from mature investments are beginning, and a new fundraising cycle starts late 2026, which will trigger carried interest distributions for the first time. With a free float of only 16%, the illiquidity discount has been structural and persistent, but the business itself has continued to grow AUM throughout.

At c.12x earnings and c.7x EBITDA, the stock offers a sustainable 7% dividend yield while the market waits for the next fundraising cycle to confirm the earnings trajectory and close the gap to listed peers.

QuidelOrtho
QDEL | ~$960mn market cap | $14.12 SP | McIntyre Partnerships

QuidelOrtho is a healthcare diagnostics company running a classic razor and blade model: instruments are placed at hospitals and central laboratories for minimal upfront cost, with customers then committed to purchasing consumables at high gross margins. Consumables represent approximately 95% of revenue, with 75% of sales on 5 to 7 year contracts carrying a 95% renewal rate, and the core business has been growing at mid-single digits throughout.

The mispricing stems from five separate, unrelated problems colliding simultaneously: the post-Covid testing collapse, an ERP implementation that disrupted accounts receivable collection, a weak flu season in early 2026, Chinese government reimbursement policy changes affecting a meaningful portion of revenues, and a margin drag from the launch of the next-generation LEX respiratory platform.

McIntyre Partnerships, who designated the stock their best idea, argues each issue is individually explainable and largely temporary, and that the core business stripped of these headwinds supports approximately $4 in free cash flow per share by 2028. At c.20x, in line with comparable diagnostics peers such as Siemens Healthineers, Roche and Abbott, that implies $80 per share.

The opportunity is a high-quality recurring revenue business being priced as if five temporary problems are permanent.

Blue Cap AG
B7E.DE | ~€86mn market cap | €19.30 SP | Boredom Baron

Blue Cap is a Munich-based permanent capital vehicle acquiring and actively managing SMEs across Germany, Austria and Switzerland, buying majority stakes in special situations at 4x to 7x EBITDA and exiting at 8x to 10x after operational improvement.

The model has generated four exits in 2024 and 2025 alone. At year-end 2025 the company held €50.9m in net cash and a disclosed NAV of €27.94 per share, against a current share price of roughly €19. The pitch centres on the May 2026 acquisition of Janoschka AG, a 50-year-old global prepress solutions specialist with 1,500 employees across 12 countries and €90m in annual revenue, acquired bilaterally from the founding family and a private equity holder without a banker-run auction process. Janoschka produces the gravure cylinders and embossing rollers used by global FMCG brand owners in packaging printing, sitting at a genuine chokepoint in the supply chain that cannot be substituted mid-project without material cost and delay. Post-acquisition guidance roughly doubles Blue Cap’s revenue.

The opportunity is a proven capital allocator buying a dominant niche business at a discount to NAV, with an analyst target of c.€30 implying approximately 55% upside from current levels.

Alquiber Quality SA
ALQ.MC | ~€85mn equity market cap | €15.90 SP | Floebertus

Alquiber rents 22,000 commercial vehicles to Spanish SMEs on flexible mid-to-long-term contracts and has compounded revenue at roughly 20% annually for eight consecutive years under its founder, who previously built and sold a competing business to Northgate before buying Alquiber back with his daughter and taking market share from Northgate again ever since.

The thesis is an accounting distortion that is both specific and verifiable. Alquiber depreciates its fleet approximately 35% to 40% faster than the actual economic life of its vehicles, suppressing reported earnings materially below true earning power. Three independent methods of analysis all converge on the same conclusion, placing true P/E at approximately 5.5x against 9x on reported figures. The specific 2026 catalyst is datable: the large vehicle cohort acquired in the post-Covid fleet rebuild of 2021 reaches disposal age this year, which should cause reported net income to jump from roughly €8m to €13–14m as the gap between book value and actual disposal proceeds is realised.

The opportunity is a consistently compounding, founder-led business available at c.5x true earnings, with a mechanical accounting catalyst that should make the mispricing visible to the market for the first time this year.

Disclaimer: This is not financial advice and only for informational purposes.

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The story broke on Friday that Quebec’s financial regulator, the AMF, alleges that executive chairman Charles Pellerin shared privileged information with nine family members and acquaintances ahead of TerraVest’s announcement of the EnTrans acquisition in March 2025. EnTrans was TerraVest’s largest ever deal by a considerable margin, a US$546 million acquisition of a premier North American tank trailer manufacturer that sent the stock from around C$109 to a peak of C$150 in the week following the announcement, reflecting how positively the market received the transaction at the time. The AMF estimates that the theoretical profits made by those individuals amounted to close to C$6.8 million. No charges have been filed. The board, excluding Pellerin, has commenced a formal review and stated it will cooperate fully with regulators. Based on that statement, this appears to be the actions of Mr. Pellerin alone rather than any wider failing within the company.

Before going further, just a note on the direction of the alleged trading. This is alleged inside buying ahead of positive news, not selling ahead of bad news. If the AMF’s account is correct, the implication is that Charles himself thought the EnTrans deal was a steal and acted accordingly, which is a different type of insider trade than say, an insider selling shares ahead of a profit warning, although it is not any less wrong, if true.

Losing Pellerin would be a very significant blow to TerraVest, and I think that needs to be said plainly. He is not a passive chairman in any sense of the word. Guy Gottfried of Rational Investment Group, who has followed TerraVest more closely than almost anyone outside the company, has described Charles as “a force of nature” and the architect of TerraVest’s M&A strategy, and from everything I have read and heard about how the company operates, that description rings true. When the Jerico business that Charles had built combined with TerraVest in 2014, he chose to take his entire consideration in TerraVest stock rather than cash, a decision that tells you a great deal about his conviction and his alignment. He has been hands-on ever since, instrumental in shaping the deal culture, the acquisition pipeline, and the strategic direction of the business. The investment case is certainly somewhat diminished by his potential departure even if everything else remains intact. These developments have been frustrating and costly for shareholders, and I am sure TVK insiders feel the same way.

The likely paths from here are reasonably clear.

• (a) No wrongdoing is found and no charges are brought, in which case a decision still needs to be made about whether Pellerin remains as chairman. Given the nature of the allegations, I view this as the less likely outcome.

• (b) The regulators find wrongdoing, in which case TerraVest will either decide or be compelled to remove Pellerin from the board, which I view as the more probable resolution.

There is also the separate question of Pellerin’s 15.7% stake. Should he exit the board he may choose to sell some or all of that position, creating meaningful overhang, or he may hold if he retains confidence in TerraVest’s long-term compounding ability.

There are further near-term risks worth naming. Law firms have already announced investigations into potential investor class actions, creating additional legal cost overhang and management distraction. The historical pattern with insider trading allegations at fundamentally sound businesses tends to involve six to twelve months of stock weakness and a governance discount that can persist for one to three years. That is the realistic timeframe to work with.

What gives me confidence is the quality of the team that remains. Dustin Haw became CEO of TerraVest in 2017, when he was in his early thirties. Dustin has compounded EBITDA per share at TVK at a rate of c.35% annually for eight years. He is analytical, disciplined in capital allocation, and has meaningful personal skin in the game. Mitch Gilbert, the CIO, spent fourteen years in M&A at a major Canadian bank before joining TerraVest in 2013 and has been central to the deal sourcing and execution that has driven value creation. Both have a long runway ahead and both appear untouched by the allegations. At the subsidiary level, John Jacob at Highland Tank and Ken Wagner and his team at Green Energy Services are entrepreneurs executing their own bolt-on strategies within the platform. The continued presence of these people should mean the compounding engine remains largely intact.

The table below captures just how exceptional the track record has been at TerraVest over the last eight years since Dustin became CEO, with shareholder returns to today’s C$108 stock price, not including dividends, which have grown from C$0.40 annually in FY17 to C$0.80 today.

Dustin has been central to TerraVest's capital allocation decisions throughout the period captured in the table above, and his incentives through equity remain fully intact. He is still in his early forties with what should be a long runway ahead as CEO at TerraVest.

So what are we paying today for TVK in the wake of the recent fall?

I value TerraVest on run-rate free cash flow rather than LTM figures, because the company completes so many acquisitions that trailing numbers consistently understate true earnings power. EnTrans, which is now a very significant part of the group, had a difficult year in 2025 due to softness in the tank trailer market, and the current numbers do not reflect its normalised earnings potential. Early data points for 2026 suggest the trailer market is beginning to recover, which should provide a meaningful tailwind to group earnings as the year progresses.

On a pro-forma revenue base of approximately C$1.85bn, accounting for full year contributions from all recent acquisitions, and applying TerraVest’s historical through-cycle free cash flow conversion of 10-11%, the business should generate approximately C$8 of free cash-flow per share.

At C$108 that is roughly 13.5x, against a peak of over 20x when sentiment was at its highest. Some compression is warranted given the governance overhang, but 13.5x for a business that has compounded EBITDA per share at c.35% annually over eight years feels like an overcorrection.

On the balance sheet, pro-forma net debt to run-rate EBITDA sits at roughly 2.6x. TerraVest has used a significant portion of its debt capacity over the past eighteen months, and with the equity issuance lever also impaired in the near term, another EnTrans-scale acquisition is unlikely in the short term. The more probable path is steady bolt-on compounding funded through operating cash flow, with more firepower rebuilding as earnings grow into the balance sheet.

In early May, TerraVest bought shares under its normal course issuer bid at C$117.50, a useful indication of where management saw value before last week’s events, with the stock now sitting below that level. My general rule of thumb with TerraVest to date has been to consider adding at or below 15x FCF and trim between 20x and 25x.

At C$80, or around 10x through-cycle free cash flow, I would be backing up the truck. At C$108 the stock looks attractively priced for a long-term investor and I added to my position at around that level. For someone not already in the stock this could be a reasonable entry point, though near-term volatility cannot be ruled out and my conviction is firmly in the medium to long-term picture rather than the next few weeks.

This is not a short-term trading call. It may take time for TerraVest to earn back the premium multiple it had been trading at, since that premium reflected confidence in the acquisition runway and the team’s ability to continue allocating capital at high rates of return. That confidence has been shaken and will need to be rebuilt through consistent execution and clarity on the Pellerin situation. Losing Charles is a genuine blow, and I do not want to minimise that. But with Dustin, Mitch and the broader team still in place, incentivised and with long runways ahead of them, I believe TerraVest has what it needs to continue compounding capital. The time to buy long-term compounders is when they are out of favour, and these developments have produced exactly that kind of opportunity.

Disclaimer: This is not financial advice and only for informational purposes. I hold a position in TerraVest Industries. Do your own research.

Market Cap: ~3.8bn SEK/ ~€350mn | ADV: 2,350 shares/ ~€72k

Summary:

Idun Industrier is a Swedish serial acquirer with a simple model: buy niche, market-leading industrial businesses at 5-8x EBITA, keep them operationally independent, and redeploy the cash they generate into further acquisitions. Do that consistently, add 5% organic growth on top, and you compound at 15% annually. Idun has done exactly that since inception, growing attributable EBITA per share at 16.6% per year from 2016 to 2025.

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Disclaimer: This is not financial advice and only for informational purposes. I hold a position in Idun Industrier. Do your own research.

Sources: Idun Annual Reports 2018-2025; Q1 2026 Interim Report; Q1-Q4 2025 Earnings Calls; Redeye Serial Acquirers Conference 2026; DNB Carnegie commissioned research; Swedish company register (Bolagsverket) and Allabolag.se for subsidiary revenue and margin data. All figures SEK unless stated. Images copyright Idun Industrier AB.

For further reading: Paul Dutz wrote a good overview piece on Idun in 2024. Carnegie produce commissioned research on the company. REQ Capital, shareholders in Idun, have written extensively on Swedish serial acquirers and are worth reading for broader context on the asset class.

Market Cap: ~€9.2bn | ADV: 73,200 shares/ €13mn | 53.7mn shares outstanding

Pitch

D’Ieteren is a Belgian holding company trading at a c.50% discount to my estimate of NAV, where 80% of that NAV is concentrated in a world-class business, Belron, that should IPO in the coming year or so. The IPO will drive a re-rating of D’Ieteren’s NAV and, I expect, a meaningful compression of the holding company discount as their largest asset becomes publicly liquid and impossible to ignore. This double play makes D’Ieteren a core position for me with a two-year probability weighted IRR of 21%. A world-class asset base at half price, with a family-controlled shareholder that has a history of returning cash via special dividends. I like the asymmetric set-up here into the potential Belron IPO event, heads I win, tails I don’t lose much.

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The above is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice. Always do your own research. If you found this useful, consider subscribing to ValueJunkie for more.

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Each issue I highlight a few pitches and ideas from fund letters, blog posts and presentations that caught my eye. I go through a lot of material and filter for what I think is worth paying attention to. I read thousands of investment idea pitches every year and thought I would share what I find interesting with a wider audience.

Alongside VJ Distilled, I will also be publishing my own investment ideas here. Subscribe to make sure you don’t miss them.

Full credit goes to the original authors. I’m just surfacing what I found interesting.

1. Marex Group | MRX US | $51.85 | $3.7bn Mkt Cap

Idea Source | @Kuppy | pracap.com

Note Q1 2026 results are due on Wednesday 6th of May.

The pitch (as of April 22nd, 2026):

Marex is a mid-market commodity broker providing clearing, execution and hedging to trading houses, producers and hedge funds across energy, agriculture and metals. Harris Kupperman (Kuppy) of Praetorian Capital dedicated a large portion of his Q1 2026 letter to the thesis. Kuppy believes commodity volatility is structural in a more fragmented world, and that mid-market commodity firms increasingly need to hedge risks they didn’t have to worry about before. He sees Marex taking share from bulge-bracket firms that are pulling back from the segment due to compliance costs and capital requirements. Revenue grew 27% in 2025, ROE was 27.6%. Looking towards 2027, Kuppy sets his fair value at $120 per share versus $52 today, at roughly 9x his 2027 earnings estimate.

Value Junkie View:

I have been a long-time reader of Kuppy, stretching back to the Adventures in Capitalism days to the present day through his quarterly letter. Kuppy is direct and open in his writing about his ideas. Praetorian focus mainly on themes related to inflation with holdings in land, energy, metals, refiners and select idiosyncratic opportunities like Marex. Q1 results for Marex are out on Wednesday morning, one to watch this week.

Marex appears to be set up well to continue taking share both organically and via M&A in a market that is growing due to increased external volatility. With clear incentives for executives to hedge out risks at the corporate level, Marex is positioned to continue benefitting from these trends. The stock has been on a good run YTD, up from $38 to $52 at the time of writing which would give me pause for thought not knowing a whole lot about the company. On the other hand, Kuppy points out that despite the appreciation, Marex trades at just high-single digit 2027e EPS with strong earnings growth and high returns on equity, while maintaining healthy levels of investment in their business. Sounds like there continues to be plenty of upside here, making MRX one to watch.

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2. Virtu Financial | VIRT US | $49.00 | $7.6bn Mkt Cap

Idea Source | east72.com.au | @East72Dynasty | Andrew Brown- X

The pitch (as of 31st March 2026):

Virtu is the only publicly listed pure-play liquidity provider in the US, a technology-driven market maker operating across equities, ETFs, fixed income and currencies. Andrew Brown of East 72 Dynasty Trust is a high-quality writer and drew on a presentation he gave at Value Spain in Madrid in March for this quarterly letter. Brown argues that US equity volumes have more than doubled from 7 billion shares a day in 2014 to over 20 billion today, driven by market democratisation via Robinhood and Interactive Brokers, the explosion of ETFs (now around 4,500 listed) and the shift to off-exchange trading which first crossed 50% of total US equity volume in November 2024. His more specific thesis is about a capital pivot. Brown points out that Virtu has paid away over $4 billion since 2017 in dividends and buybacks while competitors Citadel and Jane Street aggressively retained and deployed capital. From mid-2025, Brown believes Virtu changed course under new CEO Aaron Simons, with total deployed capital rising from around $3.8 billion to $5.1 billion by year end. Q1 2026 confirmed his view: adjusted EPS of $2.24 versus consensus of $1.25. Brown believes the stock at roughly 7x trailing earnings is pricing in a cyclical peak that he does not think is coming, and he puts his target at $6.75 EPS on a sustained basis once the capital deployment beds in.

Value Junkie View:

Andrew Brown is an investor whose letters I always pay attention to. He is a patient, concentrated investor who tends to own businesses where controlling shareholders are aligned with minority investors. He has written about Virtu across multiple quarterly letters, initially at $17 in September 2023.

I always pay attention to a change in capital allocation strategy, in Virtu’s case retaining more earnings which should enable management to grow Adjusted Net Trading Income (ANTI) while maintaining high returns on capital. The capital pivot story is the more interesting part of the thesis for me rather than the pure volatility trade. Q1 printed almost exactly as Brown predicted when consensus was sitting 78% lower, which gives the thesis credibility and also highlights how sell-side have been behind on Virtu. Given I am relatively new to the Virtu story, I would be interested to learn more about whether additional capital can actually recover market share that has drifted to Citadel and Jane Street, both of which are better capitalised private businesses with no pressure to ever return capital but Q1 earnings last week may be the first step towards Virtu proving that they can be more competitive. The stock is at $49, slightly below the level of $50.89 when the East 72 letter was published, which at least means it has not run away from readers since then.

3. IWG plc | IWG LN | 185p | £1.8bn Mkt Cap

Idea Source | @YaronNaymark | 1maincapital.com

The pitch (as of April 2026):

IWG is the world’s largest flexible workspace operator, running Regus, Spaces, HQ and other brands across 120 plus countries. In February 2026 the stock fell over 25% after Citrini Research published a viral Substack post imagining an AI-driven economic collapse scenario. Markets sold off white-collar adjacent businesses as if the scenario was a forecast rather than a hypothetical exercise. Yaron Naymark of 1 Main Capital believes the market read this completely backwards. He argues AI drives startup formation and makes enterprises reluctant to commit to long-term office leases, which increases demand for IWG’s flexible model. He also argues that AI-driven office vacancies create more building owners willing to partner with IWG under its managed partnership model, where IWG operates the space for roughly 15% of revenues and takes on zero capex. Naymark points to the full year 2025 results as evidence the business is not in distress: system-wide revenue of $4.5 billion, EBITDA of $531 million, free cash flow up 60% to $162 million, with net debt declining. He believes the stock trades at under 3x 2030 estimated free cash flow if management’s £1 billion EBITDA target is achieved.

Value Junkie View:

Yaron Naymark founded 1 Main Capital in 2018 and has compounded at 20.8% net annualised since inception. He runs a concentrated portfolio focused on high-quality businesses with long reinvestment runways. In terms of style and investment holdings, Yaron is an investor I have had a lot of overlap with over the years.

He is among a number of investors who have followed IWG for a number of years and are bullish. I have done a little bit of work on IWG in the past and was intrigued. I never got around to completing my work on it or getting to a place of conviction. It is definitely true that IWG is a very controversial stock with bulls and bears with strong opinions on both sides. I would want to do a lot more work on understanding the business model transition, assessing its quality, their leases and bridging actual results to IWG’s targets in more detail.

This is a business model transformation that is playing out over the coming years as they move towards this capital light strategy. If they deliver their plans, IWG is potentially a very cheap stock with huge potential upside. On the flip side, I have spoken with bears who question the credibility of management as well as the quality of the business model. A Substack post causing a 25% decline in a business reporting record free cash flow is a setup worth paying attention to, especially in a company that is buying back shares in the open market.

4. Raiffeisen Bank International | RBI AV | €45 | €14.8bn Mkt Cap

Idea Source | @UV_Shares | undervalued-shares.com

Note: Q1 2026 results are due on Tuesday 5th May.

Note: Source article is behind a paywall at Undervalued Shares.

The pitch (as of April 2026):

RBI is an Austrian bank operating across Central and Eastern Europe with 17.9 million customers across 11 markets. The Russian subsidiary has been the overhang keeping the stock cheap for years. Swen Lorenz of Undervalued Shares first wrote about RBI when the stock was €13 and has continued to follow it closely. He believes the Russia overhang is resolving and that the market is still not pricing the core CEE franchise correctly. Swen argues that stripped of Russia, the core business trades at roughly 5.5x 2027 estimated earnings and 0.6x book value, versus the average European bank at c.9x PE. He also points to active capital deployment as a sign of management confidence: a voluntary takeover bid for Addiko Bank and the acquisition of Garanti BBVA Romania both announced in recent months, positioning RBI as the consolidator of a fragmented banking landscape in CEE as Western European banks retreat. Swen sees Ukraine reconstruction as additional optionality on top of what he already considers a cheap core franchise. RBI has more than tripled since he first covered it and he still considers it one of the best proxies for investing in the CEE region.

Value Junkie View:

Swen Lorenz has over 30 years of investing experience and runs Undervalued Shares, a research service focused on finding opportunities that mainstream investors overlook. He has a strong track record of finding early-stage situations in less-followed markets. His original RBI call at €13 was specific and ran counter to consensus at the time.

I like that RBI is consolidating the market by making accretive acquisitions in CEE. Q1 results out tomorrow give an immediate read on the core business. What I would want to understand better is the governance questions, actual Russia exit timeline, what residual regulatory and legal exposure looks like post-exit, and whether the CEE re-rating happens on its own or needs a specific Ukraine catalyst to get there. Worth flagging that the Russia situation is genuinely complicated and this is not a clean story. Overall, one of the strongest banking franchises in an outperforming CEE banking market with M&A consolidation opportunities at 5.5x looks interesting especially with potential upside optionality from an exit of their Russian subsidiary.

Note: This post is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice. I may hold positions in securities mentioned. Always do your own research before making any investment decision.

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Better Plan, Now Down to Execution

Whitbread is not the type of business I would normally invest in but the activist involvement here caught my eye. Capital allocation has been poor, underlying earnings growth has been so-so, the UK hospitality environment is genuinely difficult, and management have just abandoned one five-year plan after 18 months. The stock is down 30% over the last five years, near-term earnings momentum is weak and sentiment is at a low ebb. That said, this week’s announcements are worth paying attention to. Pushed by an activist, management seem more open minded and have taken real and uncomfortable steps to reset the business to become a leaner, more pure-play hotel operator: exiting food and beverage, cutting gross CAPEX by £1bn, recycling £1.5bn of property, cutting 3,800 jobs, and shifting from growth-at-any-cost to a returns focus. This is a management team trying to regain credibility and they are under big pressure now to deliver this plan with the activist investor, Corvex, present on the register.

The stock is cheap on normalised cash flow, the property floor limits the downside, and the right tail is interesting. Feels like sentiment is close to a bottom after yesterday’s earnings downgrades. If the market still fails to rerate after delivery, Corvex has every incentive to push for something more radical. I think this is a reasonably cheap entry (£22 SP, <12x earnings), with bombed out sentiment, an activist backstop, and structural optionality. I’ve taken a small tracking position.

This ship will take a while to turn and I’m not in a rush to take a meaningful position here as this plan is a five-year story. I'd need to see early signs of delivery before pressing the position further. Execution was the problem with the last plan and it remains the key risk here.

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A Reluctant Reset: Better Tone, Abandoned Targets, Capital Allocation Finally Improving

The stock fell over 6% yesterday on the day of announcement. The sell-off was driven by the FY27 earnings downgrade that wasn’t fully baked in by sell-side consensus. Headwinds from business rates, the Accelerated Growth Plan extension, inflation at the top of the guided range, and a £5mn hit from the Middle Eastern JV hurt FY27 guidance. Buybacks have also been paused. Some brokers had flagged this but consensus had not come down enough and the market sold the stock on this. I thought that the market might look through this more, or have already incorporated it, but the stock sold off on the earnings downgrade with the strategic reset an afterthought. FY26 itself was decent: adjusted PBT flat at £483m despite real cost headwinds, Germany profitable for the first time at £2m, cost efficiencies beat at £83m, and UK RevPAR outperformed the market.

The management tone was noticeably candid. CEO Dominic Paul acknowledged on the call that Germany was run with a UK mindset from the start and that they overpaid for some sites that do not fit the model as it has evolved. That level of honesty is refreshing. The broader acknowledgement that capital allocation has not been returns-led and that the FY30 plan is being scrapped after 18 months was overdue. The new plan runs to FY31.

In fairness, management have been genuinely unlucky in places. The UK government reaching for business rates and national insurance to plug the fiscal hole was a material and largely unpredictable headwind that changed the economics of projects that were viable under the prior plan:

“It is fair to say that the last two UK budgets have not been kind to the hospitality sector... taken together, these factors have hit the whole hospitality industry hard. For us, before mitigation, they are expected to reduce future profits by around £160m.” — Dominic Paul, CEO

At the same time, Whitbread management have created enough of their own problems. They over-invested in expansion, chasing growth for the sake of it at the expense of returns. Germany was underperforming before business rates were an issue and the prior expansion programme was too aggressive regardless. Some of this reset is clearly Corvex-driven. The activist took a 6% stake in December 2025 pushing for exactly this, a reduction in the property discount and more disciplined capital allocation. Corvex have not made money here and will keep the pressure on. The question is whether management can execute a second plan having failed to deliver the first. If they cannot, board representation is the logical next step for Corvex.

The most significant shift is from growth and market share towards returns on capital. UK room growth targets are reduced, pipeline projects below hurdle rates have been exited, and the Germany room target has been cut from 20,000 to 18,000 rooms. Dorchester is the clearest example, planning consent had been secured but the site is now being sold because business rates pushed the return below internal hurdles. The CEO was explicit on the call that this is no longer about chasing a growth target for the sake of it.

The Plan: Exit Restaurants, Cut CAPEX, Recycle Property & German Improvement

So what does the updated plan actually look like? The headline numbers are: £1bn gross CAPEX reduction over five years, £1.5bn of freehold property recycled, net CAPEX at £200-250m per annum versus £500m previously, freehold ownership falling from 50% to 30-40%, £275m of incremental PBT targeted by FY31, and a 500bps ROCE improvement to around 16%.

The most operationally significant decision is extending the Accelerating Growth Plan to cover all remaining 197 branded restaurants. These currently generate £284m of food and beverage revenue but run at a site-level adjusted loss of £13m before tax, plus £10m of central overheads. Management are converting 87 into hotel extension rooms and selling or closing the remaining 110 over the next two years, involving around 3,800 job losses, a direct consequence of UK government policy making the operation uneconomic. The transition hits FY27 profits by a net £10m and the full £100m incremental PBT benefit is not seen until FY31. Simon Ewins put the economic logic plainly:

“The average margin across our 500 integrated sites is around 10 percentage points higher than it is for sites served with a branded restaurant.” — Simon Ewins, MD UK Operations

On property recycling, the net CAPEX reduction is the most important financial change in this plan. Gross CAPEX falls by £1bn over five years, but more importantly net CAPEX drops from around £500m per annum to £200-250m, funded by recycling £1.5bn of freehold property. That halving of net capital intensity is what drives the step-up in free cash flow and shareholder returns over the life of the plan. Management sell mature freeholds at 5-6% yields and redeploy into the AGP at guided 15-20% returns. The spread is attractive if it comes through. Most shareholders would probably prefer the proceeds back via buybacks rather than trust management to redeploy at those rates given the track record, but if the AGP delivers what management expect the redeployment is likely accretive. The capital return story is back-end loaded: no buybacks in FY27, Germany cash flow positive by FY29, and the full £2bn shareholder return target not reached until FY31.

Germany is the part of the plan that requires the most faith. The business turned profitable for the first time in FY26 at £2m of PBT, with Hamburg already delivering double-digit site-level returns, and management now have a clearer view of what works, larger city centre hotels in the right locations. The room target has been cut from 20,000 to 18,000 and all future growth will be funded via leaseholds or property recycling. Encouraging progress, but brand awareness sits at 19% in Germany versus over 90% in the UK and the journey to profitability took far longer than expected. There is a lot of execution risk and it remains to be seen what returns on capital the >£1bn German investment will ultimately deliver.

Low Expectations… Worth Tracking Execution

UK hospitality is not a sector you would generally seek out. Roughly six businesses are closing per day in 2026. But the activist involvement, the reset, and the valuation together create a situation worth paying attention to. There is genuine turnaround and re-rating potential here if management execute, with the property estate providing a floor on the downside.

On normalised cash flow, stripping out expansion CAPEX and assuming the plan broadly delivers, the stock looks cheap relative to the current market cap. That yield improves significantly, well into the teens, as the AGP completes, Germany matures, and the cost programmes work through. There are three things to watch closely for over the next 12 months: (i) the disposal yield holding near the FY26 level of 5.4% on £450-500m of guided FY27 proceeds, (ii) early AGP site performance as more completions come through, and (iii) any signal from Corvex on whether they are satisfied or pushing harder. If those are moving in the right direction by the interim results, the case for building gets considerably stronger.

The risk-reward looks more interesting than it has for some time. Earnings downgrades are out of the way, sentiment is at a low ebb, and the right tail is genuinely interesting. If management execute and the market still fails to rerate, Corvex has every incentive to push for something more radical. At this price relative to asset value and the stock’s own history, the case for a more fundamental review only grows stronger the longer the discount persists. The business is becoming simpler and easier to underwrite, a cleaner candidate for some form of transaction if the new strategy does not close the gap.

The key risk is the same as it was with the last plan, execution. That is why I have taken a small tracking position, watching closely.

Note: This post is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice. I may hold positions in securities mentioned. Always do your own research before making any investment decision.

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Charts and data

1. Group financial summary

2. Summary of New Five-Year Plan Guidance

3. External Challenges

4. Capital Allocation

5. Key Initiatives to FY31

The Setup

The market has punished Whitbread for a combination of poor capital allocation, a weak UK trading environment and rising costs. Business rates following the Autumn Budget added a £35m annual headwind from FY27. NIC increases and labour inflation compound the pressure. RevPAR was negative for six consecutive quarters before a partial recovery in Q3 FY26. The five-year FY30 plan set in 2024 is being reset after 18 months and Germany, the long-term growth story, is only turning profitable now. The stock currently trades at just over £24, close to its five-year low and the stock price has gone backwards over the last five years. (Image Source: Google Finance)

The result is a company trading at a c.£4.6bn EV against an independently verified property portfolio worth c.£6bn, meaning the market is ascribing zero to negative value to the operating business. That operating business is Premier Inn, the dominant UK budget hotel operator with 86,000 rooms and approximately 40% of the UK branded budget segment. This dislocation attracted Corvex Management, a proven activist, which took a 6% stake in December 2025 and has publicly forced management to reassess their Five-Year Plan, including the £3.5bn investment programme.

The downside is anchored by the property floor. The upside is a forced capital allocation reset, with a hard public deadline of April 30th.

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Background

Whitbread (WTB LN) is a FTSE 100 hospitality company and the owner and operator of Premier Inn, the UK’s largest budget hotel chain with over 86,000 rooms across more than 800 hotels. It also has a growing presence of over 11,000 rooms in Germany. Once a sprawling conglomerate with interests in Pizza Hut, Costa Coffee and Stella Artois, it has spent the last decade simplifying into a focused hotel business.

What makes Whitbread an anomaly in the global hotel industry is its ownership model. The modern hotel playbook, adopted by Marriott, Hilton, IHG and Accor, is asset light: these groups franchise or manage hotels owned by third parties, collecting fees without tying up capital in property.

Whitbread never made that journey. It owns 51% of the hotel rooms it operates, sitting on a property portfolio independently valued at up to £6.4bn. That asset has been hiding in plain sight for years, and the SOTP argument has long been discussed. The reason it has never fully re-rated on this basis is straightforward: structural value that cannot be unlocked is theoretical value. A company sitting on a property portfolio worth more than its market cap is interesting, but not necessarily actionable if management has no intention of doing anything about it. The SOTP has historically been a framework that showed the discount without providing a reason for it to close.

What has changed is Corvex. The presence of a credible, well-resourced activist with 6% of the company and a public position on the property discount transforms the previously theoretical into something that now has a realistic path to realisation. April 30th is the first hard test of whether that path is opening.

Who is Corvex?

Corvex Management is a New York-based activist hedge fund founded in 2010 by Keith Meister, who spent years as a key lieutenant to Carl Icahn before striking out on his own. The fund manages approximately $3bn and runs a concentrated, fundamentally-driven book with a longer-term investment horizon than most activists. Meister’s approach is less table-thumping than some of his peers: he prefers to engage constructively with boards and management teams, treating activism as a last resort rather than a first move.

His track record of forcing structural change and unlocking value at companies with complex capital structures is well established. He pushed for management changes at CenturyLink, partnered with Icahn to force the sale of Energen Corporation, and has repeatedly targeted situations where he believes the market is undervaluing assets trapped by poor structure or capital allocation. The fact that Corvex chose Whitbread, a UK-listed company outside its usual hunting ground, and took a 6% stake with a public letter calling out the property discount, signals serious conviction and intent to follow through.

Catalyst: April 30th, Three in One

FY26 results, an updated strategy, and rebased FY30 targets all land simultaneously on April 30th. This is a rare convergence of catalysts.

The base case is CAPEX rationalisation, reset targets, and accelerated sale and leaseback transactions beyond current guidance. The January 2026 LondonMetric transaction (£89m across 9 sites at a 5.3% NIY) confirmed the sale and leaseback programme works beyond prime London assets.

A full PropCo/OpCo split is operationally complex and unlikely on the day, but cannot be ruled out given Corvex’s public position on the property discount. The CEO committed on the January earnings call to reviewing “all options.”

Update, Sunday Times April 25th: Whitbread is expected to announce the sale and leaseback of one in five freehold properties it currently owns, releasing approximately £1.5bn for shareholders. This would reduce freehold ownership from roughly 50% to 40% of Premier Inn hotels, turning Whitbread into a majority leasehold business for the first time since Premier Inn was founded in 1987. Deutsche Numis described the April 30th announcement as “particularly important” while analysts at Morgan Stanley said the revised plan should “reassure investors.”

The stock reacted with a 3% gain on Monday morning following the article before retracing the move by the close. That is an interesting data point in itself. Either the market is treating it as just a rumour until confirmed on Thursday, or the scale of the strategic shift has not yet been fully absorbed. Either way, with the confirmed announcement two days away, the move has faded rather than been built upon.

Valuation: Two Frameworks, Same Conclusion (Roughly)

Sum-of-the-Parts (SOTP)

Separating Whitbread’s property and operating businesses:

The independently verified RICS portfolio is valued at £5.5bn to £6.4bn at yields of 5.5% to 6.5%. The OpCo, if it were to pay market rent on those properties, would earn approximately £400m of EBITDA (maybe more), which I value at 9x, reasonable for a dominant branded operator. Deducting net financial debt, SOTP fair value is c.£50 per share against a current price below £25.

As noted above, this SOTP has been visible to the market for some time without closing the gap. The difference now is that Corvex has latched onto the same framework and is actively pushing to make the theoretical real. That is what makes the timing of this interesting rather than just the valuation itself.

One genuine caveat worth flagging: the RICS valuation reflects Whitbread as a strong, creditworthy tenant on a relatively modest rent burden. As more properties are sold and leased back, the total rent obligation grows, fixed charge cover deteriorates and subsequent buyers of freeholds may demand higher yields to compensate for a weaker covenant. In practice this means the first tranches of the S&LB programme clear at tighter yields (the LondonMetric deal at 5.3% NIY supports this) while later transactions may be done at 6.5% to 7% or wider. The programme has diminishing returns at scale, and the aggregate proceeds are unlikely to reach the top of the RICS range. The base case is probably the right anchor rather than the bull.

Traditional Multiples

Even rejecting the SOTP framework, Whitbread trades at 8.5x EV/EBITDA and 12x P/E against five-year pre-pandemic averages of 10x and 16x respectively. Both frameworks point to the same conclusion: Whitbread is undervalued relative to the latent value trapped by its current structure, which is now being addressed.

As Corvex stated plainly in December 2025, the current share price appears to ascribe no value to Whitbread’s UK operated leasehold portfolio, its German hotel assets, or its development properties under construction.

The Short Position and Why It’s Interesting

WTB is the fifth most shorted stock in the UK, with 9.2% of the float disclosed short according to ShortTracker. Names include Marshall Wace, Millennium, Citadel, D.E. Shaw and Two Sigma. A who’s who of multi-strategy pods, not tourists.

The shorts are probably focused on near-term earnings risk into April 30th. Given these managers have the resources they do and focus on these events they may well be right that Whitbread is under near-term earnings pressure. The EPS headwinds are real and well documented: the £35m business rates hit in FY27 rising under transitional relief over three years, NIC and labour inflation, and the ongoing German drag. Sell-side numbers have been coming down, and it is likely consensus has not yet fully caught up with where updated buyside expectations have settled, which could pose guidance risk on the day. The shorts could be right on earnings, and I am not going to argue otherwise.

Where it gets interesting is whether April 30th reframes the conversation entirely, away from near-term EPS and toward structural value realisation. The thesis here is not that earnings are great. It is that there is significant value trapped in the structure of this business that Corvex is pushing hard to unlock. If management delivers something credible on April 30th, the question shifts from “when does EPS recover?” to “how much capital gets returned and when?” which could change the narrative.

Risks and Mitigants

(i) Management disappoints on April 30th Delivers only incremental changes with no structural commitment. Mitigant: the stock is already mispriced on a standalone property basis, and Corvex with 6% would be expected to escalate.

(ii) Near-term EPS pressure Business rates £35m FY27 headwind increasing under transitional relief over three years, plus NIC and labour inflation. Mitigant: Whitbread has a strong track record of cost delivery (c.£80m in FY26), though full offset over the three-year transition is not assumed.

(iii) Sale and leaseback at scale creates permanent rent costs and diminishing returns Later transactions in the programme may happen at materially wider yields as the covenant weakens, reducing aggregate proceeds below headline RICS-implied values. Mitigant: £1bn+ of Group EBITDAR with rent cover intact, and the value unlock remains significant even at wider yields on later tranches.

(iv) Weak UK economy and consumer RevPAR recovery depends on supply continuing to tighten. A weaker-than-expected UK economy could delay or reverse this. Mitigant: structural supply dynamics from independent hotel closures and below pre-COVID supply levels provide a tailwind independent of demand.

(v) Germany continues to drag The German business is only now profitable after years of capital consumption. A slower path to profitability would weigh on group earnings and capital allocation credibility. Mitigant: German RevPAR up 7% in Q3 FY26 and the business is on track to reach profitability this year.

(vi) Corvex has no confirmed board seat Mitigant: 6% stake, a public letter, a hard April 30th deadline, and Meister’s track record of escalation.

What to Watch

April 30th is the key date. A strategy reset, a move toward a more capital-light model, CAPEX rationalisation, meaningful capital returns and rebased targets would likely be taken well by the market. The interesting thing is that this combination does not yet appear to be catching the attention it probably deserves. April 30th may change that.

The question is whether management delivers something structural or merely incremental. A credible sale and leaseback programme and CAPEX rationalisation would likely reframe the investment case meaningfully. A same-as statement with no structural commitment would disappoint, though the property floor limits how far the stock can fall from here.

Corvex’s next move is the other thing worth watching. With 6% and a hard public deadline, the activist dynamic does not go away quietly regardless of what management delivers on the day.

This is not financial advice. Do your own due diligence.

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