Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio news. This is Bloomberg BusinessWeek Inside,
Speaker 1: from the reporters and editors who bring you America's most
Speaker 1: trusted business magazine, plus global business, finance and tech news.
Speaker 1: The Bloomberg Business Week Podcast with Carol Messer and Tim
Speaker 1: Stenebek from Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 2: This is not my world.
Speaker 3: But bear with me for a second here. Okay, Let's
Speaker 3: say you're a manufacturer. You've designed a specialized widget, but
Speaker 3: you need a machine to make said widget.
Speaker 2: Okay, are you with me? Yep?
Speaker 3: Okay, you need special machine designing that machine. It's not
Speaker 3: in your wheelhouse because you're a widget designer, not a
Speaker 3: widget machine designer. That's where ventionin comes in. It's a
Speaker 3: cloud robotics platform that allows people of all stripes to
Speaker 3: build their own custom industrial machines. It's got some big backers,
Speaker 3: Ban Capital Ventures, Georgian Fidelity Investment, Canada, Bolt Ventures, among others.
Speaker 3: It counts Amazon, Bowing, Blue Origin, and Striker among its clients.
Speaker 3: That's according to its website. We've got with us the
Speaker 3: founder and CEO of at Bention, Atien Lacroix. He joins
Speaker 3: us here in the Bloomberg Interactive Broker's studio.
Speaker 2: How did I do? Did I describe? You say?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 4: Well, thanks for having met him.
Speaker 2: Thanks. You create the machines that create the widgets.
Speaker 4: We create the machine that create the machine. Correct, And
Speaker 4: we help small meats in business mostly get starting where
Speaker 4: they're in dashall automation journey.
Speaker 3: So you said small and medium businesses, but some of
Speaker 3: your clients are huge, I mean Boeing, Blue Origin Striker,
Speaker 3: those are Amazon. Amazon is not a smaller medium size.
Speaker 2: Correct, we serve both.
Speaker 4: But let me speak about small meats and business first, right,
Speaker 4: those are ninety percent of the business manufacturing business in
Speaker 4: North America, and they face the same labor shortages and
Speaker 4: cash pleasure as those bigger client Yet it's really really
Speaker 4: hard for them to automate profitably today with indush all
Speaker 4: automation technology. If we want to solve to some extent
Speaker 4: the manufacturing renaissance, this is the problem to solve small
Speaker 4: meats and businesses. And that's what we're trying to do here, Adventure.
Speaker 5: Well, it's the bulk of the backbone, Like we talk about, right,
Speaker 5: what is really the backbone of our economy? And there's
Speaker 5: so much you know, obviously small businesses, but in the
Speaker 5: MidCap space, there's so much that goes on. We don't
Speaker 5: necessarily spend as much time as we do to the
Speaker 5: big cap names, but so much is going on there.
Speaker 5: What would surprise someone who was listening about your business?
Speaker 4: Right? I think what's changing in the world of industrial
Speaker 4: automation is what I call software platforming and hardware productization.
Speaker 4: Software platforming basically is the ability for somebody who designed
Speaker 4: machine to do all the act of design, programming, deployment
Speaker 4: in a single platform versus six to ten different points
Speaker 4: solution today. And hardware productization is having kind of lego
Speaker 4: kits industrial lego kits where all the components are de
Speaker 4: facto compatible with one another. When you bring those two
Speaker 4: things in the same platform, magic happen and you can
Speaker 4: make the act of designing those machines that make the
Speaker 4: machine significantly faster and accessible to small measum manufacturers.
Speaker 5: Give us an example, like I think, if somebody's listening,
Speaker 5: and like I get when you're kind of talking like
Speaker 5: big picture and stuff, But give us an example of
Speaker 5: something that you've done without maybe giving away too much
Speaker 5: of what you.
Speaker 4: Have done for a customer. Let's see, you're a small
Speaker 4: om decore manufacturer. You're manufacturing good frame for Walmart, and
Speaker 4: you need to apply glue. There's a machine that needs
Speaker 4: for that. In fact, on manufacturing floor, most manufacturing assets
Speaker 4: are custom made. They're unique, they're unique to the finish
Speaker 4: good being manufacturer. And as a result, those unique finish
Speaker 4: good manufacturing asset needs to be designed and program So
Speaker 4: you're the small medium frame manufacturers. With frame manufacturers, you
Speaker 4: need to figure out how to staple that frame, how
Speaker 4: to apply glue, how to apply to back cover. Today
Speaker 4: those things are made with custom machine that are designed
Speaker 4: with traditional technique.
Speaker 3: So how much time and money does your technique say
Speaker 3: versus a traditional technique.
Speaker 4: When you start to platform and productize, what we see
Speaker 4: our users save is around forty percent and go three
Speaker 4: to five time faster than more traditional industrial automation technology.
Speaker 4: This is a game changer for the industry.
Speaker 5: So you're actually creating the equipment. I bring this right
Speaker 5: because I'm bringing this up like early on as a
Speaker 5: college kid, and my mom worked for a company and
Speaker 5: I would spend some time in summers and my time
Speaker 5: off working for them.
Speaker 2: And they were a.
Speaker 5: Plastic company and they made things like sprockets and gears,
Speaker 5: and they would have molding, and they would have all
Speaker 5: these corporate customers, and they would custom design the molds,
Speaker 5: if you will, to make whatever designs they needed. So
Speaker 5: you guys are actually doing if I was kind of
Speaker 5: doing apples to apples, the molds or the devices and
Speaker 5: designs to make whatever that they have.
Speaker 4: All that gear that is an initial mold that needs
Speaker 4: to be put in and out of a machine. At
Speaker 4: least a human doing that today, but it could be
Speaker 4: a robot and that robot needs to figure out how
Speaker 4: to take the part out of the machine, how to
Speaker 4: put it in the trade when you go to the
Speaker 4: next operation. That machine that replaced a human is unique,
Speaker 4: and those machines are really really hard to design today, right,
Speaker 4: That's what we're solving.
Speaker 5: So like you do have some big customers though you
Speaker 5: have Tesla, you have Facebook, you have Apple, can you
Speaker 5: can you share what you.
Speaker 4: Do for them? So even in those large troueput manufacturers,
Speaker 4: you always found what I call secondary in tertiary process.
Speaker 4: It's not the finel assembly line, it's perhaps the metrology
Speaker 4: lab or perhaps the R and D lab, and those
Speaker 4: lower troteput processes also need to be automated, and it's
Speaker 4: really really hard to automate with today's technology because the
Speaker 4: cost is simply not compatible with the payback. That's what
Speaker 4: we're going to do with those Tesla and Apple of
Speaker 4: the world.
Speaker 3: So if somebody were to use the product, or when
Speaker 3: somebody does use the product, they design it using their
Speaker 3: web browser correct sort of like a version of CAD
Speaker 3: on the web browser.
Speaker 4: You designed with Industrial Lego. You go online, you will
Speaker 4: design with a library of Industrial Lego parts, robot conveyor,
Speaker 4: sensor motors. You will see price in real time, assembly time,
Speaker 4: in real time automatic Billo material. When you're done, you
Speaker 4: program in a code for your environment, so we keep
Speaker 4: the experience simple, and you order and you get your
Speaker 4: IKEA box equivalent the next day.
Speaker 2: That's what I was gonnample. That's how much time does
Speaker 2: it take.
Speaker 4: So from an ideation of a machine to the delivered machine,
Speaker 4: we have client to go as fast as three days,
Speaker 4: and that contrasts with the traditional world of automation where
Speaker 4: those project takes three eight to nine months.
Speaker 3: You know, when you're setting up something for my ki
Speaker 3: ed has the picture of like the two people standing
Speaker 3: there scratching their heads. Yeah, and they're like the question
Speaker 3: mark is over their.
Speaker 4: Head that you stare at me.
Speaker 2: We make it easier than I keep.
Speaker 4: We actually laser engrave departm nuber on the parts, you
Speaker 4: know what goes where?
Speaker 2: Okay, That's what I was going to check. How easasy
Speaker 2: to do?
Speaker 5: Like how much customization do you have to ultimately do?
Speaker 5: Because it sounds like you guys have things that people
Speaker 5: can kind of take off the shelf, right, but how
Speaker 5: much customization goes into this process?
Speaker 4: There's around twenty ten plates available online for people to
Speaker 4: jump start in their journey, but most people design again
Speaker 4: machine that are unique to them.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 4: The goal is not to serve here a control expert
Speaker 4: to a roboticists. The goal is to serve an average
Speaker 4: manufacturing professional who knows this shop well but couldn't do
Speaker 4: it if the tool is too complex.
Speaker 3: How often does that average manufacturer need to pay you money?
Speaker 3: Because I'm thinking here, is there an opportunity for recurring revenue?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Or is this like you know, you fill your shop
Speaker 3: with the parts you need and then you don't need
Speaker 3: to go back to them.
Speaker 4: Actually, most of our business is actually reoccurring. This sort
Speaker 4: of thing recurring, and those manufacturers when they learn the
Speaker 4: tool that are freely available online, stick to it because
Speaker 4: it's so easier and more convenient and more traditional approach.
Speaker 2: So for their next machines, and we go for.
Speaker 4: The next machine, and the next machine and the next machine.
Speaker 5: So the business that you are seeing did you play
Speaker 5: in like the small and mid cap space, although you
Speaker 5: do have some really well known companies as well. What
Speaker 5: you are seeing, what does it tell you about the
Speaker 5: level of business activity that's happening right now, and what
Speaker 5: does it tell you about the business and comments.
Speaker 4: So we're definitely operating at a lower level than what
Speaker 4: we've seen in twenty twenty, twenty twenty one and mid
Speaker 4: twenty twenty two.
Speaker 2: Right that said, the.
Speaker 4: Cash pressure and the labor shortage are just as intense
Speaker 4: as they were back then.
Speaker 5: So the pressure, the need to automate.
Speaker 4: The long tail positive, the long tail win is there
Speaker 4: until twenty thirty because the labor shortage in the United
Speaker 4: States is structural until that time.
Speaker 5: So what does that mean for your business in terms
Speaker 5: of what kind of growth you into quite twenty thirty,
Speaker 5: you're seeing that's a pretty long runway. You're saying six
Speaker 5: years out that you say the labor market there's going
Speaker 5: to be shortages, correct.
Speaker 4: Right, So we're very well positioned to leverage those tails
Speaker 4: win and help those small businesses automated by themselves profitable. Now, yeah,
Speaker 4: there's a lot to build to build the next industrial
Speaker 4: automation giant. So we deliberately invest quite a bit in
Speaker 4: R and d IPO on the horizon because mention Is
Speaker 4: is a platform business and there's so many revenue stream
Speaker 4: monetization potential. Yes, Mention as the characteristic to be an
Speaker 4: apeable business.
Speaker 1: Very cool.
Speaker 4: Staff. Yeah, when you know, we'll see what the future
Speaker 4: brings to us. But that at ridden we grow, we
Speaker 4: believe is going to be possible behind the before the
Speaker 4: end of the decay.
Speaker 5: Thanks all right, at On Laqua, thank you so much,
Speaker 5: Founder and CEO of Bention. Joining us here in our
Speaker 5: Bloomberg Interactive Broker studio, Carol Master, Jim Stanevik. This is
Speaker 5: Bloomberg BusinessWeek.
Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Business Week podcast. Catch us
Speaker 1: live weekday afternoons from two to five pm. Easter Listen
Speaker 1: on Apple, card Play and and brout Auto with a
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Speaker 3: Well chairs of the microcap publicly traded biotech Koya Therapeutic,
Speaker 3: surging earlier today up as much as eleven percent, on
Speaker 3: news that the Alzheimer's Drug Discovery Foundation has purchased more
Speaker 3: than six hundred and three thousand company shares for total
Speaker 3: investment about five million dollars. Here to talk about the
Speaker 3: investment and on the work they are doing around als
Speaker 3: treatments as well as Alzheimer's is Howard Berman, chairman and
Speaker 3: CEO of Koya Therapeutic, joining us from Boston. That's stock,
Speaker 3: by the way, up close twenty percent so far this year.
Speaker 2: Howard, nice to have you with us.
Speaker 3: Tell us a little bit about your company, because you're
Speaker 3: working on some really serious stuff that impacts the brain
Speaker 3: that I think, unfortunately pretty much everyone who's listening or
Speaker 3: watching right now has dealt with in terms of their
Speaker 3: family or somebody close to them.
Speaker 2: Lay it all out for us, if.
Speaker 3: You could, what you're working on and how you think
Speaker 3: you're able to pull it off.
Speaker 6: Right, well, thank you. It's a pleasure to be here today,
Speaker 6: and just to say that I am one of those
Speaker 6: people who it's affected directly. My own father, unfortunately, a
Speaker 6: brilliant clinician, he himself had dementia and unfortunately passed away.
Speaker 6: So this is very personal to me that we're developing
Speaker 6: therapeutics for neurodegenerative diseases, including dementias as well as Lukeerrig's disease,
Speaker 6: which is as people know, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. And what
Speaker 6: we're doing is we have therapeutics that target multiple pathways
Speaker 6: that are involved in inflammation inflammatory pathways. The goal here
Speaker 6: is to dampen the inflammation, which we've discovered plays a
Speaker 6: central role in the path of physiology of these diseases.
Speaker 5: I think it's interesting that and Howard, great to have
Speaker 5: you here with us. I do feel like we are
Speaker 5: learning more and more about the body overall and the
Speaker 5: importance of inflammation right and how do we either prevent
Speaker 5: that to begin with, but that it is often the
Speaker 5: cause of so many things that ail us. When it
Speaker 5: comes to ALS specifically, it is ALS Awareness Month, also
Speaker 5: known as lou Gerrigg's disease, the famous New York Yankees
Speaker 5: baseball player who had to retire because he was diagnosed
Speaker 5: with it and had come down with that. It is
Speaker 5: at this point, if you get that diagnosis, the outlook
Speaker 5: is not good.
Speaker 6: The outlook is terrible. Patients typically die within two to
Speaker 6: three years on average, so the disease is incessant. The
Speaker 6: patients decline month upon month, and the problem has been
Speaker 6: is that the drugs that have been used so far
Speaker 6: the mechanism have not been well defined and not well understood.
Speaker 6: But again, inflammation is the central component in ALS, but
Speaker 6: the problem was as you cannot target one pathway, one
Speaker 6: has to target multiple inflammatory pathways. Which is why I
Speaker 6: believe that the Olzheimer Drug Discovery Foundation, who we just
Speaker 6: received this investment, liked what we were doing because they
Speaker 6: too believe that targeting multiple cascades and pathways are the
Speaker 6: future of treatment.
Speaker 5: So what does this investment do for you? And you're right,
Speaker 5: your stock really popped initially on the news, up as
Speaker 5: much as eleven percent, as Tip mentioned earlier. I think
Speaker 5: it's a little changed on the day as we speak,
Speaker 5: but we're talking about about a five million dollar investment.
Speaker 5: What does this do for you, guys, specifically in your work.
Speaker 6: While we are focused entirely, at least initially on ALS,
Speaker 6: we have expanded our pipeline. We're now moving into fronto
Speaker 6: temporal dementia, which is the second most common type of
Speaker 6: dementia after Alzheimer's disease, And so this money allows us
Speaker 6: to pursue a trial, a phase two trial to be
Speaker 6: filed this year and I in D filed this year
Speaker 6: and unfortunately an FTD fronder temporal dementia. There are no
Speaker 6: approved treatments for that condition. So we will work alongside
Speaker 6: the ADDF to pursue this indication and we're going to
Speaker 6: run a rigorous trial that answers a number of questions
Speaker 6: and we hope that this therapy may make a meaningful
Speaker 6: difference in patients.
Speaker 3: Hey, Howard, how does your approach here differ from the
Speaker 3: approach of other companies that are working on.
Speaker 6: This So, as I mentioned, inflammation is a central pathway
Speaker 6: and mechanism in these diseases. Many other companies target one
Speaker 6: pathway where they target a cytokind, but that we believe
Speaker 6: is not sufficient. So what we do is we enhance
Speaker 6: the regulatory t cells the t rex we call them,
Speaker 6: which are anti inflammatory cells. But that is not all
Speaker 6: that we do. We also block other pro inflammatory pathways
Speaker 6: with another drug called CTLA four, and that reduces or
Speaker 6: inhibits the other cascades that are responsible for the disease
Speaker 6: path of physiology. So by doing both the upregating the
Speaker 6: regulatory T cells down regulating the pro inflammatory cascades, you're
Speaker 6: able to slow the inflammation or block the inflammatory process
Speaker 6: and an ameliorate or relieve these the disease conditions and
Speaker 6: part of the pathways that are responsible for a progression.
Speaker 5: All Right, it sounds logical. I'm not going to say
Speaker 5: it sounds simplistic because it doesn't. But I'm listening to
Speaker 5: your train of thought, and I'm like, I kind of
Speaker 5: get this, But I'm assuming none of this is ever
Speaker 5: ever easy. What's the most complicated part of this? And
Speaker 5: is this only for patients and at a certain stage
Speaker 5: of the disease, is there a point where the inflammation
Speaker 5: or the ailment is so severe that it's just it's
Speaker 5: not going to work.
Speaker 6: We don't have an answer to that, but we've tested
Speaker 6: this combination already in Olzheimer's disease, and we were very
Speaker 6: surprised in the early studies in mild to moderate patients,
Speaker 6: which are more advanced patients, those patients actually responded. Those
Speaker 6: patients their cognition was enhanced, and in als, in patients
Speaker 6: who weren't doing very well, the ALS progression was stopped,
Speaker 6: so we believe that you can that this therapy or
Speaker 6: this regimen may have an impact in more advanced stages. However,
Speaker 6: we do want to start testing this initially in patients
Speaker 6: who are less progressed, to give the therapy the best
Speaker 6: chance of success, at least initially.
Speaker 3: I'm curious about competitors out there. There's an FDA advisory
Speaker 3: committee meeting on the ELI Lilly Alzheimer's drug coming up
Speaker 3: in early June, though has been delayed amid concerns about
Speaker 3: its unusual trial design. I'm wondering how important you think
Speaker 3: this advisory committee is going to be.
Speaker 6: Yeah, well, advisory committees are important because they involve thought
Speaker 6: leaders and experts in certainly, the FDA uses them to
Speaker 6: help guide their decisions. Let me tell you about the
Speaker 6: approach that's typically taken at this point in Olzheimer's disease.
Speaker 6: They the targeting of beta amyloid, which is this protein,
Speaker 6: this misfolded protein, the sticky protein, if you will, that's
Speaker 6: responsible or partly responsible for Alzheimer's disease. It's a complex
Speaker 6: story and while the existing therapistes have shown slowing of progression,
Speaker 6: there are lots of side effects and there is toxicities
Speaker 6: associated with it, and it's only a mild slowing of
Speaker 6: progression over a period of time. The advisory committee will
Speaker 6: do their best. They know that there is a huge
Speaker 6: unmet need and patients are in desperate need and their
Speaker 6: families are in desperate need. So they're doing the right thing,
Speaker 6: and the FDA advisory committees are also doing the right thing.
Speaker 6: Everyone is trying to come together to protect patients, but
Speaker 6: also to make sure that the treatments that they do
Speaker 6: approve and that they keep on the market are safe
Speaker 6: and efficacious as well.
Speaker 5: Hey, I do wonder, and I'm sure you've seen it
Speaker 5: sixty minutes doctor oli Razai and basically using ultrasound to
Speaker 5: help in the penetration of drugs for whether it's Alzheimer's
Speaker 5: also addiction, and I do wonder whether that is something
Speaker 5: that might need to be paired with what you are doing.
Speaker 6: Sure, so, people in the past have looked at the
Speaker 6: mechanisms of trying to enhance the penetration of drugs into
Speaker 6: the brain. What you typically find in Alzheimer's disease is
Speaker 6: that the blood brain barrier is somewhat leaky, which means
Speaker 6: that drugs that normally would not have crossed or in
Speaker 6: a normal healthy individual, make cross in patients with Allzheimer's disease.
Speaker 6: But I think the most central thing to understand is
Speaker 6: we target inflammation, and if you can modify inflammation in
Speaker 6: the periphery in your blood, that actively involves manipulating the
Speaker 6: cells in the central nervous system in the brain, because
Speaker 6: the immune cells can move back and forth from the
Speaker 6: periphery to the brain. So in our case we don't
Speaker 6: need to manipulate the blood brain barrier, but there are
Speaker 6: also issues or possible toxic effects by trying to make
Speaker 6: the blood brain barrier more penetrant for drugs in the periphery.
Speaker 5: Well, I just you know, was something the top of
Speaker 5: mind from me. I spent some time talking to doctor
Speaker 5: Rozzia at Milkin and one of the speakers.
Speaker 4: So I hope you.
Speaker 5: Will come back, I know, phase two trials once you
Speaker 5: guys know a little bit more. I hope you will
Speaker 5: touch base again because this is obviously something on the
Speaker 5: mind of a lot of us, and as you said,
Speaker 5: you've had personal experience, and we certainly all have personal
Speaker 5: experience with that as well, So I hope you will
Speaker 5: come again. Howard Berman chairman Cefkoya Therapeutic joining us right there,
Speaker 5: I'm brother Mack.
Speaker 2: Journal.
Speaker 5: How about you let me drive?
Speaker 4: Oh no, no, no, no, alright please, I'll do the riding gravels.
Speaker 7: Elease, mate, I want to drive.
Speaker 3: It's a good question time.
Speaker 2: This is the drive to the Globe dot com for me.
Speaker 7: Think well, brun Young.
Speaker 2: Don on Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 5: All right, everybody, just about eighteen minutes left in today's
Speaker 5: trading session, getting ready to wrap up this Monday trade.
Speaker 5: And as you said to him, anything in the green
Speaker 5: on the S and P five hundred would be another record.
Speaker 5: It would be the twenty fourth record on the S
Speaker 5: and P five hundred this year.
Speaker 3: The S and B five hundred up one tenth of
Speaker 3: one percent right now, the NASDAK up seven tenths of one.
Speaker 3: But that's the numbers enough so far this year, Carol, Yeah,
Speaker 3: twelve percent up on the Nasdaq. Can posit eleven point
Speaker 3: three percent.
Speaker 2: On the S and P five hundred. Yeah, I'm looking
Speaker 2: at the SMA.
Speaker 5: It's not about sell and may go away. Oh wait
Speaker 5: does that happen?
Speaker 4: Could it?
Speaker 2: It depends on the year.
Speaker 5: All right, let's get to at our clothes, our drive
Speaker 5: to the close.
Speaker 4: Guest is with us. Back with us.
Speaker 5: Lamar Villary, portfolio manager at Villary and Company. They have
Speaker 5: about one point six billion in assets under management. He
Speaker 5: joins us from New Orleans. By the way, the Villary
Speaker 5: equity fund up nearly five percent year to date, underperforming
Speaker 5: most of its peers, according to Bloomberg Data. Lamar, great
Speaker 5: to have you back with Tim and myself. What's fun
Speaker 5: about talking with you guys is that you get into names.
Speaker 5: But let's talk about performance because you know that that
Speaker 5: is certainly a benchmark. What is it about this year
Speaker 5: that maybe is more difficult for you guys and kind
Speaker 5: of figure out where you want to be with your portfolio?
Speaker 7: Sure?
Speaker 8: So, I mean basically we tend to be a little
Speaker 8: bit smaller cap in size, so our focus is on
Speaker 8: the smaller companies, which we think have a better chance
Speaker 8: to perform the long run. Unfortunately, you know, the stories
Speaker 8: you know over the recent times has been you know,
Speaker 8: big tech, big tech, big tech X. So that's that's
Speaker 8: been a challenge for us. But we're sticking super guns.
Speaker 2: M Why are you so? Why do you have so
Speaker 2: much conviction?
Speaker 8: Well, you know, we think some of those the big
Speaker 8: you know, the Netflixes and Googles of the world.
Speaker 7: They're attractive companies that are performing well.
Speaker 8: But unfortunately there those are very crowded trades, and and
Speaker 8: to heighten that, we think that a lot of people
Speaker 8: are just sort of plunking money into the s and
Speaker 8: p blindly. So you're resulting in a situation where you
Speaker 8: have a huge exposure to one small area and it
Speaker 8: tends to be pretty expensive. So we it's our view
Speaker 8: that that that trade is going to unwind and it's
Speaker 8: going to be a much better outcome for guys like
Speaker 8: us who are really more focused on the smaller companies.
Speaker 3: I mean, there's no other way to put. It's kind
Speaker 3: of a lonely trade right now.
Speaker 8: I would imagine, Yeah, there's definitely it's more fun to
Speaker 8: be with the crowds, for sure. But we've learned over
Speaker 8: you know, over one hundred years we've been around, and
Speaker 8: that tends to end badly.
Speaker 7: So we're sticking with our guns.
Speaker 5: What's the catalyst? Is it a lower rate environment as
Speaker 5: long as we don't run into a recession. How do
Speaker 5: you see it?
Speaker 8: I can't tell you what the catalyst is going to be,
Speaker 8: but you know, eventually, when you have everybody piled into
Speaker 8: the same trade, it tends to end badly for people
Speaker 8: who are on that board. So we just kind of
Speaker 8: keep our heads down and focus on what we're doing
Speaker 8: and finding the best companies at a reasonable price, and
Speaker 8: that's that's worked out for us and the longer.
Speaker 5: Well, talk to us about a name that you like.
Speaker 5: Atlas Energy. I mean, it's up forty two percent this year.
Speaker 5: It's about a two and a half almost actually two
Speaker 5: point seven billion dollar market cap company. So what is
Speaker 5: it specifically that you're liking about this. I mean, we've
Speaker 5: been watching the energy sector and that's certainly been very
Speaker 5: interesting this year, that's for sure.
Speaker 8: Yeah, So Atlas specifically, even with the fact that it's
Speaker 8: traded well in recent months, you're still talking about a
Speaker 8: company that's training it below ten times next year's earnings. Furthermore,
Speaker 8: they've got the pipeline, are their Kermit Express, which is
Speaker 8: going to deliver you know, forty six miles of conveyor
Speaker 8: belt delivering the sands throughout the Permian basin. So they're
Speaker 8: gonna have a significant pricing advantage over their competitors. So
Speaker 8: we think now's a great time that's going to come online. Sorry,
Speaker 8: to do an express and out of Kerman that's going
Speaker 8: to come online in the fourth quarter, and we think
Speaker 8: it's going to contribute meaningfully and we think numbers are.
Speaker 7: Going to come up on that.
Speaker 5: How long have you guys owned this one?
Speaker 8: We've been in it. Well, it's only been public for
Speaker 8: about a year. We haven't been in quite that long,
Speaker 8: but we've been.
Speaker 7: In it for a while.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and adding to the position.
Speaker 8: We have, Yeah, it's one we're we're excited about.
Speaker 5: The other one we want to get to is on holding.
Speaker 5: And I'm going to be full disclosure. I own the sneaks.
Speaker 3: I think you bought them after you interviewed the CEO.
Speaker 3: One of the CEOs, Carol is right, yeah.
Speaker 2: Here for the marathon.
Speaker 5: It's actually the CEO.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I did. I picked his brain.
Speaker 5: I was like, okay, so tell me here's what I need.
Speaker 5: I'm really my feet are a little sensitive, and I'm like,
Speaker 5: tell me where what I need to do. I bought
Speaker 5: the sneakers. I paid for them. They are, you know,
Speaker 5: mindful and fair, Swiss, some Swiss shoes, yes, indeed, So what.
Speaker 8: Is it that you like about on So it's exciting
Speaker 8: that you know there's not a lot of shoe companies.
Speaker 5: Also an now performer this year. They're up about forty
Speaker 5: two percent this year.
Speaker 8: Right, So specifically what happened with this one is the
Speaker 8: growth has been great. The growth and the margins are great.
Speaker 8: What was holding it back was that they had some
Speaker 8: inventory issues and I think a lot of a love
Speaker 8: investors were pretty scared off by the inventory problems. They
Speaker 8: seem to have that under control, so things were sailing
Speaker 8: along pretty well. We think it's going to grow about
Speaker 8: twenty five percent a year for the next three years.
Speaker 8: In addition to growing the core footwear, we think there's
Speaker 8: you know, and growing.
Speaker 7: That all over the world.
Speaker 8: They're just getting going at China and showing some success there. Also,
Speaker 8: we think there's an opportunit you get some growth in
Speaker 8: a parel that's a very low basis of revenue right now,
Speaker 8: so we think, you know, it's it's sustainable. You've also
Speaker 8: got the Olympics this year, which you know, highlight or
Speaker 8: shine a light on a lot of their athletic companies.
Speaker 8: So we think on is an interesting place to be
Speaker 8: in an area where you really don't it's hard to
Speaker 8: find growth.
Speaker 5: All right, I got to ask you, I mean Palmer
Speaker 5: is another one. You like, it's way up this year.
Speaker 5: I mean, know you so help me out here, because
Speaker 5: these are all really top performers, and yet, as we said,
Speaker 5: you're the fund overall is underperforming. You know, give us
Speaker 5: a name that's been a little bit more challenging, if
Speaker 5: you would.
Speaker 7: Well. Over the last year, these have performed well, but
Speaker 7: it's just in the last couple of months that these
Speaker 7: have really picked up.
Speaker 8: So you know, these are the names that we've been
Speaker 8: growing and focused on.
Speaker 3: Some other ones in the in your in Hillary equity
Speaker 3: include JB Hunt among the largest holdings. Yeah, and to Palamar,
Speaker 3: talk to us about JB Hunt and what you like
Speaker 3: about JB Hunt.
Speaker 7: Sure, so, we actually purchased JB.
Speaker 8: Hunt during the COVID downturn, and it's just kind of
Speaker 8: a high quality company that we were able to take
Speaker 8: advantage of the difficult marketing market environment and.
Speaker 7: Take on a position there. It's performed very well.
Speaker 8: We tend to believe that the US economy is holding
Speaker 8: up well and we think the outlook is still bright.
Speaker 7: You know, rumors of a recession seem to be.
Speaker 8: Not really materializing, so we think the economy is holding
Speaker 8: up well and JB Hunt obviously is a great way to.
Speaker 5: Play that, so holding on to it and not looking
Speaker 5: to get out of it.
Speaker 7: Correct.
Speaker 8: Yeah, do you know we focused on smaller cap companies,
Speaker 8: but we're not restricted to it where we have an
Speaker 8: all cap approach that when we are able to find
Speaker 8: larger companies with interesting valuations, we're able to participate.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and that's about almost seventeen billion dollar market cap company.
Speaker 5: Hey listen, I'm Lamar. Thank you so much, and thanks
Speaker 5: for going kind of in and around your portfolio. We
Speaker 5: appreciate being able to talk some names with you. Lamar Villary.
Speaker 5: He's portfolio manager at Villary and Company. As we said,
Speaker 5: about one point six billion in assets under management joining
Speaker 5: us there.
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