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Sunday, August 30, 2026

Emerge Commerce ($ECOM.V) FINS Review

Emerge Commerce's $44 million COVID-era acquisitions produced losses and impairments, while modestly improved Q2 liquidity leaves its balance sheet and capital needs under scrutiny.

EMCMF $9.7M
Wolf's Substack 11 clicks

From X

@marginofdanger 2 clicks

marginofdanger on X

I pasted two screenshots from $PS's 424B4. If you look at fee paying AUM, it's $16 bn excl HHH which has a de minimis mgmt fee/carry. Add in $PSUS and you are at $21 bn of fee paying AUM. $PS discloses pro forma mgmt fees of $238 mm but that is net of $91 mm of non-cash amort related to the IPO. So I'm going to give them credit for $329 mm of mgmt fees. Assuming a 65% operating margin and a 20% tax rate, that gives me effective fee paying earnings of $171 mm. $PSH.LN has a 16% incentive fee and $PS is entitled to the performance fees on the first 5% (the team gets beyond that). On $15 bn, this is $15 bn * 5% * 16% = $120 mm or $96 mm after tax. Add up the mgmt fee and performance fee share, and I get $267 mm of expected earnings or $0.67/share. Implies $PS is trading at around ~50x EPS vs. $KKR at 17x, $ARES at 20x, $BX at 21x. Of course you can layer in some minor $HHH economics and it takes down the multiple a couple of turns. But you could also layer in a few years of sub 5% returns and that takes away the performance fee too. Certainly a 50x EPS valuation is pretty common for a fast growing higher ROIC biz. But it's by no means cheap. The question is, how will Ackman raise any money from here? $PSH.LN is at a discount to NAV, $PSUS is at a discount to NAV and $HHH is at a discount to NAV. One thing that will allow $PS to grow into its valuation is great results as that will 1) scale up the earnings (as it's based on % of AUM) and 2) facilitate new investors. Another way to contextualize the valuation is to simply look at fee paying AUM of $21 bn and compare that to the equity value of $13 bn. That is pretty unprecedented in the land of asset managers but reflects in part the permanent capital and the limited float (I think its just the 20mm shares given in the IPO). Could easily see a lot of price pressure once the 380mm non-IPO related investors are free to sell.

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Microsoft ($MSFT) - Deep Dive

Microsoft’s AI data-center buildout lifted annual CapEx from $5.5 billion in FY2014 to $115.9 billion in FY2026, resetting free-cash-flow…

MSFT $3.8T
Bearhold Research 7 clicks

The Verra Sneerer (NASDAQ:VRRM)

Verra Mobility renewed Hertz tolling management for five years. AutoKinex lets rental customers buy tolling, fuel and protection products…

VRRM $647M
The Oak Bloke 11 clicks

The Junk (Mail) Merger Arb

Star Equity’s $5 per-share Harte-Hanks acquisition offers $2.50 cash plus 0.25 STRRP per share after proration, against a $2 break price.

STRR $38MHHS $32M
Triple S Special Situations Investing 11 clicks

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