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Wednesday, November 4, 2026

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The Buyback Shows Up (ESRT Q3 2026)

Empire State Realty Trust repurchased $85.8 million of shares at $4.56 each, using 1359 Broadway sale proceeds to fund buybacks and debt reduction.

ESRT $1.3B
Orphan REITs 6 clicks

From X

@calvinblissett 1 click

Calvin Blissett on X

@MBoquard Thanks Michel. My take on $ANGI Q3: The quarter was better than the stock implies. • Revenue $242M, -9% YoY (improved from -11% in Q2), in line with consensus • Adj. EBITDA $42.2M vs ~$29M expected, 17.4% margin • Proprietary service requests flat at 3.8M, revenue per lead +10%, Large Pro revenue +20%+ • EPS missed ($0.03 vs $0.11), but that's non-cash accelerated depreciation from retiring the legacy platform The balance sheet isn't the problem I made it out to be: • $202.5M cash vs $398.7M of 3.875% notes due Aug 2028, not within a year • $175M revolver undrawn to 2030 • Bought back ~$100M of bonds below par YTD ($8.4M gain) • ~$196M net debt, roughly 1.5x EBITDA • At $5.99: ~$246M mkt cap, ~$440M EV, ~2.6x Q3 run-rate EBITDA, ~3.4x trailing The real problem is supply, not demand: • Avg monthly active pros 101K, -14% • Monthly pro churn 6.7% vs 5.9% a year ago • Leads -18%, network service requests -33% (partly deliberate cuts to low-quality traffic) • 9M FCF -$7M vs +$34M last year. Operating cash flow $38M vs $93M of adj. EBITDA, with $45M of capex during the platform migration • The 300-role cut ($50-60M run-rate savings) comes with $18-30M of restructuring charges through 1H27 What the AlphaSense expert calls say: • Former Angi VP (Oct 12): recent declines are "primarily due to a shrinking base of service providers, not a loss of homeowner demand or LLM-driven disruption." • Former Angi GM (Sep 22): believes the business "has already hit its lowest point" and sees "limited downside risk from current levels." Blames a poorly executed rebrand for the lost organic traffic. • Former Angi Director of Product (Sep 21): bearish. Sees conversational AI as "an existential threat" that could bypass marketplaces entirely. • Nextdoor marketing lead (Oct 14): Google AI Overviews pose "a significant threat to Angi's organic traffic," and Thumbtack is outspending Angi on brand. • Former Angi VP of Finance (Oct 12): skeptical the international margins can be replicated in the US; integration and cost work is "far from complete." How I see it: If pros stabilize, capex drops now that the migration is done, and they keep retiring notes below par, I get to roughly $60-80M of FCF in 2027 on a ~$246M market cap. That's my estimate, not guidance. If churn keeps rising and AI starts showing up in proprietary service requests, the 17% margin is just cost cuts on a shrinking business. What I'm watching: tomorrow's call (new CEO Mike Steib, ~45 days in) and the Nov 17 investor day for 2027 targets, pro count, capex and what they do with the cash. Not investment advice.
@StableBread

Fajasy on X

Fuel Tech's $FTEK new CEO used his first earnings release to make acquisitions part of the plan, with $27.8M of cash and investments against a $44M market cap. Ramesh Nuggihalli, a former COO of competitor CECO Environmental $CECO, took over the power plant pollution-control company in August. He's pursuing organic growth in core markets, data center power, and water treatment, plus "select M&A" to add products and sales channels. Its cash and investments come to $0.89/share, ~63% of the $1.42 stock price. So I read the new plan as a choice for the cash: (1) Either it stays the floor under the stock, or (2) it becomes the budget for deals. Q3 revenue rose 16% to $8.7M, and the $267K net loss was its smallest this year (vs. a $303K profit a year ago). But air pollution control (APC) gross margin fell to 40% from 47% a year ago on project mix. APC backlog reached ~$20M with October's $3.3M of awards, but none of this year's awards is a data center order. Q3 also had the year's biggest drop in cash and investments, $1.8M, but receivables rose ~$2.0M as APC projects ramped, so the drop is mostly money customers owe, not money lost. At $1.42/share, $FTEK trades ~19% above its $1.19/share book value and below the $1.72-2.17 sum-of-the-parts in my August 27 deep dive. Would you rather $FTEK spend its cash on a deal or keep it as the floor? I'd rather hear three answers on the November 4 call before giving the new plan credit: 1) M&A: How much of the $27.8M the board would spend, and whether it would pay in cash or in stock trading near book value. 2) Data center: Whether the August talks with a data center customer about paying to reserve $FTEK's capacity are still going. 3) Margins: Whether the ~$20M backlog carries the 40% APC margin from Q3 or the 47% from a year ago.
@ACapitalLP

A Capital on X

The 13% puke today is the market questioning whether $CVI is using peak-cycle earnings to justify a transformative acquisition (nearly doubling nameplate capacity). The $MPC assets may be attractive, but shareholders are absorbing dilution, additional debt, and the risk that refining margins normalize before the company can meaningfully delever… $CVI was always sub-scale, so there’s a legitimate strategic rationale here. The irony is that the best time to buy cyclical assets is usually when you can least afford to finance them…

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Site Centers (NYSE:SITC)

Site Centers' $3 per-share return-of-capital distribution and December delisting leave a discounted liquidation stub, with two properties…

SITC $192MCURB $3.6B
Real Assets, Real Value 4 clicks

Stevanato down 30%. Yikes.

Stevanato fell 30% after forecasting low-single-digit 2027 growth as lower Nexa syringe volumes from a GLP-1 customer offset solid Q3…

STVN $3.6B
Best Anchor Stocks 3 clicks
PRIM · long

Primoris Services CORP

Primoris Services, a $5 billion EPC contractor, has fallen about 60% from its peak.

PRIM $3.9B
Value Investors Club

When the liquidity does not add up

Arbor Realty Trust’s dividend suspension is presented as creating $60 million of liquidity, raising questions about its ability to meet…

ABR $2.2B
John Hempton's Newsletter 4 clicks

Verra veerer

Verra Mobility’s Avis termination threatens 2027 earnings, while Government Solutions profit rose 25% and implied fourth-quarter guidance…

VRRM $333M
The Oak Bloke 3 clicks

OSS Q3 FY12/26 Earnings Analysis

One Stop Systems grew Q3 continuing-operations revenue 36% to $12.6 million, raised FY2026 revenue guidance to $45 million, and used $11.8…

OSS $117M
Cestrian Capital Research 1 click

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