6. Christian Ryther of Curreen Capital

Yeah, I do try to look at all of them.

Um, and I think over the years, it's like some of the ones that I think are going to be cheap, aren't cheap.

And some of the ones I think won't be cheap end up getting cheap for whatever reason.

So I'm not like, I can't tell which ones are going to be the most attractive.

Like I can, I can have some guesses sometimes.

Um, But like last year, I thought that Solventum would be super popular and GE Vernova would not be popular.

And it was completely the opposite is how it came out.

So what I take from that is like, look at them, try to value them all.

Because like, I feel like I got to put out my fishing lines and I don't know which ones are going to get hits, which ones the fish are going to bite.

So you just do the work and value them, even if you think they might be super popular or not.

I like to look at the ones that are good businesses.

So I go in and I look at the business.

I read enough of the description to be like, what the heck is this thing? Is this something that I can figure out? Is it something that sounds interesting or not interesting? And then I look at the financials and just like, what's the return on tangible capital? What's the return on total invested capital? Are they doing a lot of M&A? Does it matter for total invested capital? Or is it tangible capital that matters? Because sometimes they've got a balance sheet that isn't really reflecting how they're going to act going forward.

But the return on tangible capital is like, how good is the business? And if it's not above 20% after tax, I'm not that interested.

So that's like a quick filter.

Like the quick filters are, is this a business that I understand and sort of like? And do they have high returns on intangible capital? And then I can like do the work and actually do the valuation.

So I'm trying to look at those for all of them.

I'd say one of the biggest lessons- That's

like a green light approach.

Is it a good business? You know, what's the return on capital? And what's the valuation? Is it cheap? So that's a good way to screen them.

Yeah, I didn't invent that, but it's working for me.

And I'd say- something that's coming to me lately is like, if I look back over the, like the last 15 years or whatever, when I've looked at spinoffs and been like, this is a good business.

Um, I can see why it's a good business.

I can see why this continued like, um, like Veralta last year, I was like, this is a good business.

Um, and, or Epiroc or like, there's some of these where I'm like, this is a good business.