Resetting Value Situations

Changes to the newsletter for 2025.

Disclaimer

Value Situations is NOT investment advice and the author is not an investment advisor.

All content on this website and in the newsletter, and all other communication and correspondence from its author, is for informational and educational purposes only and should not in any circumstances, whether express or implied, be considered to be advice of an investment, legal or any other nature. Please carry out your own research and due diligence.

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A belated Happy New Year to readers, as I am publishing this first issue of the newsletter for 2025 later than originally intended.

The delay in returning to your inboxes is attributable to personal circumstances recently - my father passed away over the Christmas/New Year holidays and so I’ve taken my time returning to my desk. This month may be a little quiet and/or irregular in terms of my publishing schedule but paying subscribers should rest assured that I have an exciting pipeline of new ideas for publication in the year ahead.

Towards the end of last year and over the holidays I took some time to reflect on this newsletter venture and how I could improve it, in part prompted by some feedback from readers last year (as I alluded to in my Closing Out 2024 post). As a result, I’m repositioning the newsletter for 2025 with a change in format that I think will result in a superior value proposition for subscribers going forward.

In following up with previous subscribers who unsubscribed last year, by far the leading reason for cancelling their subscription was “Time.” The resounding feedback has been that while they valued my work and found it to be of high quality, they just didn’t have the time to read it regularly due to work and other commitments.

The second most common reason was “Price” with some subscribers indicating that they found the price high relative to the frequency of new ideas being published. My response to this is that the newsletter is entirely supported by paying subscribers, and the pricing reflects the quality and depth of work, rather than volume of ideas. Furthermore, I believe the pricing is reasonable in the sense that readers are getting access to professional, buy-side quality ideas for a relatively low price compared to conventional, institutional-level research.

That said, there is always room for improvement and I’ve taken this feedback on board, and believe I can achieve a better balance of idea generation relative to pricing going forward under what I hope is a “new and improved” format, with the following changes:

• “Less Is More” - Firstly, in solving for readers’ time constraints, I will no longer publish long-form / deep dive analysis (e.g. formats for SigmaRoc, Mosaic, Chord Energy) - these write-ups have typically been ~25+ printed pages long with an average reading time of ~30 minutes. Since subscribers are telling me they don’t have the time to digest this, my intention going forward is to publish my ideas in a more concise format that will allow readers understand the thesis, valuation, risks etc., without getting bogged down in extensive supporting analysis. After all, the purpose of this newsletter is to share interesting ideas that supplement readers’ own idea generation process, rather than provide exhaustive deep dive research.

• Frequency - shorter-form write-ups will allow me to publish more original ideas than my previous target output of ~10 deep dive ideas a year; this greater frequency will be balanced with maintaining the quality of ideas and analysis, and should result in a better value proposition (i.e. more ideas per $) for paying subscribers.

• Model Portfolio Coverage - another area of feedback from readers has been the relevance/usefulness of the Model Portfolio to their own idea generation and investing processes, with some indicating they are less interested in ongoing coverage of Portfolio names in favour of new ideas. Originally I established the Model Portfolio for readers to follow what I regarded as my best / highest conviction ideas. However I’ve found that covering Model Portfolio names has taken up a disproportionate amount of time at the expense of publishing new ideas for subscribers (this was particularly true last year, with continual events unfolding at names such as OCI, MRL, WG). As a result, the newsletter has at times veered into maintenance coverage of previous ideas, rather than being a regular source of new ideas for subscribers. As such, going forward I will no longer publish lengthy update notes on Model Portfolio names or formal end-of-quarter Portfolio Reviews, since these seem to be less interesting and of less value to readers than publishing new ideas. Instead I will provide very brief updates on Portfolio names and changes where appropriate via the Substack Chat channel. The only exception to this might be where there are major developments for a given name that merit a standalone write-up or fresh analysis (e.g. a full liquidation of OCI or a final sale of MRL being possible examples in this regard).

That said, I will provide one final Q4 / end of year Portfolio Review to close out last year’s performance in the coming week or so, before fully moving to the new format. As part of this, I’ll also include my thoughts on the outlook for equities for the year ahead.

With regard to pricing, I am considering raising my subscription pricing later this year. As I’ve stated before, this newsletter is a full-time endeavour for me, and I haven’t raised prices in the ~2.5 years since launching the paid offering. Aside from the value proposition outlined above, given how my own research costs have increased over time, I don’t think its unreasonable to raise pricing. I will hold current pricing ($500/year or $50/month) for now, but this will likely increase at some point in the near future.

So to recap, what paid subscribers can now expect going forward is as follows:

1. Ideas - Approx. 10 - 20 ideas per year, across three category types:

• Quick Sits - brief write-ups of actionable ideas that I regard as opportunistic, value trades.

• Watchlist Ideas - short-form write-ups of equity ideas that are potential conviction ideas that are not yet actionable but worth monitoring.

• Conviction Ideas - short-form write-ups on actionable, conviction ideas.

2. Value Situations Model Portfolio updates: via the Substack Chat channel, including position updates, details of new additions or other updates to my Model Portfolio as I make them.

3. Comments Section access to all articles.

Again, I believe the value proposition for paid subscribers is compelling, as I am a former private equity/special sits investor that has worked with one of the largest alternative investment firms in the world, and so subscribers will receive thoughtful, buy-side quality ideas and analysis for a very small fraction of the cost of employing a professional analyst full-time.

Hopefully this new format appeals to subscribers, and most importantly leads to greater value-add for paid subscribers over time.

To all paid subscribers, thank you again for your support and I look forward to sharing my pipeline of ideas with you this year.

To all free subscribers, thank you for your interest in the newsletter, and please consider signing up for the paid tier to get access to all my previous ideas and as well as my upcoming new ideas for 2025 (particularly before pricing increases later this year!)

Good investing,

Conor | Value Situations.

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