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Wednesday, October 7, 2026

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What I’ve Been Up To

Cogent Communications and AI data-center bottlenecks feature in a newsletter update on recruiting, financial media and conference takeaways.

CCOI $515M
Stock Thoughts 2 clicks

From X

@calvinblissett 1 click

Calvin Blissett on X

$PAHC: 9x cash flow. 26% ROE Animals have to be healthy whether the economy is good or bad, and livestock producers have an economic incentive to spend money on products that reduce mortality, improve feed conversion, increase yield or prevent disease. 22% Adj EBITDA margin. JPM $55 PT. The company operates through the following business divisions: Animal Health division manufactures and sells animal health products such as antibacterial, anticoccidials, nutritional specialty products and vaccines used in the animal health industry to treat or to prevent bacterial diseases to improve the animal’s health. Mineral Nutrition division manufactures and markets formulations and concentrations of trace minerals, such as zinc, manganese, copper, iron, and other compounds. Performance Products division manufactures and markets various specialty ingredients for use in the personal care, industrial chemical and chemical catalyst industries. The most tangible new initiative is the planned closure of Chicago Heights, Illinois. Phibro acquired the facility as part of the Zoetis deal, reviewed its manufacturing network and decided it no longer made economic sense to keep the facility open. Production is expected to cease in summer 2027, affecting roughly 100 employees. Production will be shifted to other Phibro facilities and selected third-party manufacturers. Phibro Animal Health Corporation Management says the point is straightforward: align manufacturing capacity with future needs, improve efficiency and strengthen competitiveness. Phibro Animal Health Corporation The company expects approximately $10m of one-time cash costs and about $10m of capex, with eventual annual EBITDA benefit estimated around $15–20m, largely from FY2028 onward Regulatory optionality: Brazil virginiamycin One of the most interesting hidden catalysts is virginiamycin in Brazil. FY2027 guidance assumes only minimal sales because Phibro has not yet obtained the required therapeutic indications. FY2026 virginiamycin sales in Brazil were roughly $27m. Management explicitly said a favorable regulatory result could therefore provide modest upside to guidance.
@calvinblissett 1 click

Calvin Blissett on X

$FSBW: Bought Pacific West Bank in August for 30m. Exp +7.5% EPS growth in 2027 due to this. PWBK has a 92% deposit mix NOT CDs. (attractive b/c lower cost). First Bancorp a bit cyclical due to home lending, consistent double digit ROE, conservative way to play eventual housing rebound. The problem was not that Pacific West had no franchise. It had a recognizable Portland commercial-banking niche, a relatively attractive deposit base, and specialized relationships with SMBs, nonprofits, professional-services businesses and digital partners. The problem was scale. Management acknowledged that Pacific West's size and market position made both organic and strategic growth difficult, while the cost and complexity of running a regulated community bank had risen materially after 2008 and 2020.
@calvinblissett 3 clicks

Calvin Blissett on X

$RENT Unique business model Being investigated for fraud 98% of customers rent a brand never owned, this is valuable marketing to the brands Lot of consumer data for past 18 years New CEO (Sept 14) focusing on core competencies Near 100% retention of brands since 2009 Acquisition target? The concise thesis RENT has spent years proving that women will rent clothes and almost as long proving that customer enthusiasm doesn't automatically produce shareholder cash. The turnaround is now more credible than it has been historically: revenue is growing rapidly, Q2 gross margins expanded 600+ bps, add-ons are booming, inventory sourcing is becoming less capital-intensive, debt was materially restructured, management is eliminating side projects, and AI-driven discovery is producing measurable engagement improvements. Rent The Runway, Inc RENT has never yet produced positive full-year owner earnings on this conservative cash definition. Rent The Runway, Inc So the thesis isn't “this is already a great business.” It is much narrower: If RENT can retain the revenue and customer improvements created by last year's inventory rebuild while reducing annual inventory investment toward ~$54m, shifting more merchandise onto brand-funded/revenue-share structures, and maintaining pricing/add-on gains, the company may finally cross from Adjusted-EBITDA profitability into genuine owner earnings.
@calvinblissett 1 click

Calvin Blissett on X

$ARTNA: microcap water utility at lowest P/E ever, 4% dividend. 9x cashflow. Family run for 115 years. Sussex county development expands regulated customer base. Wastewater growth engine. Its principal subsidiary, Artesian Water, is the oldest and largest regulated water utility on the Delmarva Peninsula. The company generates stable, recurring revenue by distributing and selling water and wastewater services to residential, commercial, industrial, and municipal customers under regulatory frameworks. In addition to its core regulated utility operations, Artesian Resources earns supplementary income from non-regulated activities including contract operations, infrastructure development, and service line protection plans, creating a business model that combines predictable utility income with service-based revenue streams.
@StableBread

Fajasy on X

Bernstein expects copper to run short from 2027, and the IEA says a new copper mine takes ~17 years to go from discovery to production. So I found a miner restarting old ones, with a CEO who restarted its flagship once before and says it could produce 2-3x today’s output. Its restart study is due in the first half of October, and a much richer discovery at the same mine isn’t in the study yet. That company is Magna Mining $MGMNF (TSX: $NICU), a copper miner in Sudbury, Ontario. After more than a century of mining, Sudbury has plenty of past-producing mines to restart. Per Magna’s September deck, Brazil’s Vale $VALE and Switzerland’s Glencore $GLNCY are the only other companies with significant property holdings in the Sudbury Basin, and they run the district’s two mills and two smelters. Magna has agreements to sell its ore to both, so its next restarts don’t need a new mill. Magna’s stock trades at CAD$2.45/share, down 9% y/y and 38% below its CAD$3.94 intraday high on January 29, 2026. Counting its convertible notes, in-the-money options, and share units as shares, and netting out its cash plus the ~US$5.1M from exercising the options, enterprise value is ~US$454M. That buys you McCreedy West, the producing mine that carried Magna to its first quarter of positive free cash flow (FCF) in Q2 2026. You also get Levack and Crean Hill, two past-producing mines with a preliminary economic assessment (PEA) and a pre-feasibility study (PFS), respectively, due in the first half of October. Notably, Magna’s leaders have run McCreedy West and Levack before. Both mines belonged to FNX Mining, a Canadian miner, before they passed to KGHM $KGHPF, the Polish copper giant that sold them to Magna. CEO Jason Jessup led the FNX team that restarted Levack, and chair Vern Baker was FNX’s VP of Operations. Jessup also says Magna doesn’t plan any more financings after Alpayana, a Peruvian mining group, invested US$99M in August. So Magna could triple or quadruple its output (McCreedy West plus 2-3x from Levack) without raising more money, and R2, the high-grade zone it found at Levack, would come on top of whatever the PEA shows. The question is whether CAD$2.45 is an early price for a multi-mine Sudbury producer, or a price that already assumes Levack restarts well before its numbers are public.
@StableBread

Fajasy on X

Elmet $ELMT won a ~$36M U.S. defense stockpile contract for metal its plants already make, while deliveries under its $2B stockpile contract wait on new supply. On September 30, Elmet announced the award from the Defense Logistics Agency (DLA), which manages the U.S. National Defense Stockpile. It covers TZM (titanium-zirconium-molybdenum alloy) billets, bar stock, and ingots, plus molybdenum and tungsten wire, materials used to make jet engine components. Elmet's $2B stockpile contract, announced September 14, is separate and covers tungsten concentrate, the upgraded ore a mine ships. The $36M is 27.4% of Elmet's $131.5M total backlog at July 3 ($36M / $131.5M), and the release doesn't say when deliveries start or how long the contract runs. On the slide for the $2B contract, Elmet's October 1 deck says Elmet "does not intend to begin delivering material into the National Defense Stockpile until sufficient incremental new supply is available." Elmet's supply agreement with Tungsten West (AIM: TUN) puts concentrate from Hemerdon, its tungsten mine in Devon, England, first in line for Elmet's DLA deliveries until Elmet's Nevada refinery is commissioned (targeted for 1H 2029). Elmet expects >1,000 tonnes a year of Hemerdon concentrate, and the mine targets full production by the end of Q1 2027. In September I treated $1.85B of the $2B ceiling as an upper bound, not orders Elmet has in hand, and the $36M sits outside the $2B entirely. So the stockpile's newest award goes to metal from Elmet's existing U.S. plants, while the $2B contract still waits on a mine in England that isn't at full production yet.

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Solid Power Still Has Promise

Solid Power reported a $0.11 Q2 loss and $419.3 million of cash, with its electrolyte pilot line and BMW and SK On validation central to…

SLDP $528M
Quad 7 Capital 2 clicks
ABG · long

Asbury Automotive Group INC

Asbury Automotive Group's changed setup and underperformance versus other public dealers form the basis for a renewed long thesis.

ABG $3B
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