The Acquirers Podcast · Nov 7, 2026 · 43m · 34m saved
With Tim Travis, Founder, CEO and CIO of T&T Capital Management and Co-Author of the Value Options Letter
Uber trades at about 16 times earnings while its profits grow about 25% a year, the core of a thesis Bill Ackman's Pershing Square has been making in its letters. Tim Travis, founder and chief investment officer of T&T Capital Management, walked through that pitch on The Acquirers Podcast and said Ackman has won him over, at least as a writer.
"My respect for him has grown over time. I think he's a little less pompous, in my opinion, than he used to be, and he writes some really good stuff." — Tim Travis
Tim co-writes the Value Options Letter with the show's host, Tobias Carlisle, and he has owned one of Ackman's other ideas, Howard Hughes Holdings, himself. The two closed with their own cheap picks: Howard Hughes and Assured Guaranty, a bond insurer Tim has followed for more than a decade.
The full interview is covered here so you can skip it. 43 minutes of audio, 9 minutes of reading.
Here are the 11 takeaways that matter.
Key Takeaways
Uber trades at about 16 times earnings while growing profits about 25% a year, by Tim's reading of Ackman's thesis
Tesla's robotaxi in Austin has already passed Waymo's ride count, which is the competitive threat Tobias takes most seriously
Howard Hughes is building a small insurer to copy Berkshire Hathaway's float model, targeting a 20% return on equity
Ackman bought General Growth Properties' equity in bankruptcy "for pennies on the dollar," and Tim estimates the run to Howard Hughes was at least a 30-bagger
Assured Guaranty trades near its cheapest level outside the financial crisis and COVID
Its Brightline exposure is to the operating company's senior loans, not the bankrupt holding company
A $7 trillion AI build-out would need about $2 trillion of new revenue to pay off, by Tobias's math
Well-run retailers in managed decline, such as AutoZone and O'Reilly, buy back stock and generate cash, while famous investors keep losing money on retail turnarounds
1. Small Value's Strong October
Tobias Carlisle, founder of Acquirers Funds, who hosts The Acquirers Podcast, opened on the market. Small-cap and mid-cap value stocks had a strong October after a rough August and September, even as the broader market wobbled the day after the US election and the largest tech stocks rallied hard.
Tobias says markets hate uncertainty more than a bad outcome
His example was an old merger-arbitrage trade in two health insurers, where both stocks rallied even after the Department of Justice blocked the deal. Once the outcome was known, the uncertainty was gone, and that alone lifted the prices.
