Bullpen.News From Edwin Dorsey
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Monday, September 21, 2026

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@KEDM_COM

KEDM.com on X

ADW Capital continues to increase its stake in Compass Diversified $CODI, now already reflecting 14%. It's also good to see insiders buying shares on the open market. We flagged CODI a few weeks ago. ADW is pushing for a liquidation, stating that a wind‑down could unlock over $26 p/s, well above the current price. As a reminder, CODI’s share price collapsed last year on the accounting mess at its sub Lugano, forcing CODI to declare its 2022-24 financials unreliable. Lugano had hidden financing arrangements and misstated sales, inventory, and receivables. The fallout pushed CODI into forbearance, dividend suspension, reduced borrowing capacity, and eventually covenant breaches. The company has already questioned its ability to continue as a going concern; i.e., there is a good chance they'll liquidate.
@DOMOCAPITAL

DOMO Capital Management, LLC on X

$MNRO must buy all lubricants, non-lubes and service chemicals from Valvoline and can't market competing products. This is an in-depth partnership. Could there be a price increase? Sure, prices have already gone up this year quite a bit, but it won't be the price gouging type of supply that shops with no vendor will be facing. Two main points here. $MNRO is not in danger of running out of supply and if the price does increase, it won't be to the level of competitors without this type of relationship. I had a discussion with a manager at TiresPlus that points to exactly this. Prices so far this year have increased, but he said that the pricing he is getting from vendors he doesn't have a relationship with is multiples higher and he's going to have to pull the trigger with one of them within weeks.

GameStop Is Extreme Deep Value

GameStop's collectibles mix rose to 45% of sales as gross margin reached 44%, supporting a deep-value case built on cash and store…

GME $11B
The Value Road 2 clicks
@leevalueroach

Lee Roach on X

GameStop $GME is one of the most misunderstood companies in the entire market. Wall Street has left the company for dead. Every sell side firm has dropped coverage and zero hedge funds will own this because of the former meme stock hair. Now the stock trades dirt cheap with $5 billion of cash, $5 billion of ebay stock (10% of the entire company), $300 million of bitcoin and $2.8 billion of zero percent convertible debt. You are buying the core business for $4.1 billion. The core business that has completely transformed itself into a highly cash generative card store. Management has turned around the entire company and it is not a dying retailer anymore. It is a cash generative cash machine flipping Pokemon, Magic The Gathering and One Piece cards. Cards are one of the hottest markets in the entire world right now and Wall Street is asleep at the wheel. Unit economics are stunning. There are 1,600 stores in the U.S. $1.9 million sales per store. 45% gross margins at the store level. Four wall EBITDA per store of $580k. This is a four wall margin of 30.6%. There is very little capex and inventory is mostly financed by vendors and there is a float business with the trade-ins with in-store credit zero percent debt. Management is guiding to $650 million of EBITDA for the full year. They are sandbagging the number HARD. I am pulling data from ebay and GemRate and total Pokemon sales in August were up 30% m/m. The highest monthly sales ever recorded. In addition, the 30th anniversary for Pokemon occurred on September 16th. It was the biggest coordinated Pokemon event in history. I went to a dozen of GameStop's and local card shops and they were all sold out. Lines out the door. The phone ringing off the hook. Wall Street is completely unaware that GameStop is flipping cards in size and has transformed their business model. Finally, Q4 is the company's biggest quarter and there are more events for the 30th anniversary landing in the quarter. For the full year, I am modeling in excess of $850 million of EBITDA, $200 million ahead of management's sandbagged guide. Management likely knows this. Ryan Cohen bought $20 million in the open market, and other C-Suite executives followed along with numerous buys, just days ago. And then the company announced they will be reopening stores, for the first time in many years. The payback on reopens should be less than a year. I see the company trading at 4.7x EV/EBITDA, and over 90% of that EBITDA should convert into free cash flow, or a 20% free cash flow yield on the enterprise value. Wall Street is completely missing the story and asleep at the wheel with drool running down their big fat bellies. There will likely be push back on the ebay acquisition, but I encourage everyone to actually dig into the deal. It could be transformative and there are many synergies that Wall Street idiots are missing. Wall Street suits have no idea how the card market has been gamified and turned into a lottery ticket system that has become extremely addicting on apps like Whatnot. In addition, Ryan Cohen is an All Star capital allocator and operator, an extremely rare combination, and a platform like eBay is right up his wheel house. I built a website below that has a 34-deck slide, highlighting the thesis. Have fun and check out my analysis and website. I am long $GME and find the thesis asymmetric. https://t.co/Re7vRQ6uHG
@DOMOCAPITAL

DOMO Capital Management, LLC on X

Nice call - 100% agree! Having an exclusive retail partnership with Valvoline may make them even more attractive to a potential buyer now. Did you listen to the CEO speak last week? He know his stuff and they are already winning market share... What also makes this interesting is that not only does a sale to Mavis (who bought Pep Boys) make sense, but so does a piecemeal sale since $MNRO has very distinctive brands in different geographical locations.
@DOMOCAPITAL

DOMO Capital Management, LLC on X

Local oil change companies using vendors like Halron which get their supply from Shell are running out of OW-20 (includes Walmart / CostCo). Huge benefit to $MNRO who sources directly from Valvoline through an exclusive retail partnership. Soon places like TiresPlus, etc will have to implement massive price hikes that will drive market share for $MNRO. Really interesting situation especially since Ichan has economic interest of 33% in the company (16% share ownership / 16% swap agreement) and recently sold the inferior Pep Boys for a valuation that would price $MNRO at $25+. Now that Pep Boys has closed - wouldn't be surprised to see $MNRO get an offer very soon especially given their prime opportunity to take advantage of coming motor oil shortage.
@negligible_cap

Negligible Capital on X

$TMUS, $VZ, $T, teleco's continuing underperformance today after getting sold hard last week. GS last week blamed Instinct and Muse for the selloff given their ability to negotiate and cancel bills: "While US telcos traded down (TMUS -5.5%; AT&T-2% & VZ -3%) on concerns on X chatter around Meta’s Muse and rival AI agent Instinct has focused on their new ability to make outbound calls to U.S. businesses, including negotiating phone and cable bills on behalf of users. This could become a risk for telcos because AI agents can wait on hold, escalate with support teams, switch users to cheaper plans, remove add-ons and claim credits at scale—potentially increasing pressure on ARPU, retention economics and customer-service costs. The same risk applies to European names as these AI assistant role out. But its NOT just telcos as other industries could also face pressure -industries most at risk are those with recurring bills, negotiable pricing, confusing add-ons, high churn incentives and customer-service friction—including cable/broadband, insurance, utilities, banks/credit cards, subscriptions, travel, healthcare billing, retail returns, auto leasing and gyms. If AI agents can persistently call, wait on hold, compare offers, cancel services, claim credits and renegotiate terms on behalf of customers, companies that rely on inertia or under-claimed discounts could face higher retention discounts, lower add-on revenue, more support volume and weaker pricing power. PS – have been using Instinct for a week of so – its pretty impressive once you get past the hesitance of giving access to parts of your life (not brave enough on a bank account) – book restaurants, tennis courts, highlight must read emails – its also picks up inaccuracies of emails and sources what is inaccurate." - GS Sean Johnstone

“Going Through Some Pain”

Dick’s Sporting Goods’ $2.4 billion Foot Locker acquisition nearly quadruples its store count and adds international exposure, risking a…

DKS $11B
TSOH Investment Research

The Monday Morning Briefing

Latticework’s weekly briefing spotlights discounted European assets including Barco, Bolloré, Brookfield and D’Ieteren, with catalysts…

BN $83B
Latticework by MOI Global 1 click