The Acquirers Podcast · Oct 17, 2026 · 27m · 18m saved
With Tobias Carlisle, Founder of Acquirers Funds · Tim Travis, Co-Author of the Value Options Letter
VICI Properties, the casino landlord whose tenants include Caesars Palace and MGM, trades at 10 times cash flow with an 8% dividend, Tim Travis, co-author of the Value Options Letter, told Tobias Carlisle, founder of Acquirers Funds, on The Acquirers Podcast.
Las Vegas stocks sold off after MGM Resorts' buyout collapsed in September. Most of the market read that as a reason to stay away. Tim and Tobias read it as the kind of gap between price and value that a sell-off leaves behind.
"Business values I feel like are very detached from stock prices right now, and I think we could go over some fun examples of that." — Tim Travis
Tim had owned MGM before and sold it into the original acquisition price. Tobias is the author of Deep Value and The Acquirer's Multiple, and his firm, Acquirers Funds, invests in deep-value stocks. The two publish the Value Options Letter together, a weekly list of options trades on businesses they would want to own.
The full episode is covered here so you can skip it. 27 minutes of audio, 9 minutes of reading.
Here are the 10 calls that matter.
Key Takeaways
VICI owns fully leased casinos on roughly 40-year leases and trades at 10 times cash flow with an 8% dividend
MGM's sell-off after its failed buyout is overdone, in Tim's view, because the company still generates a lot of free cash flow
A lender trading at about 67 cents on the dollar is priced for losses worse than 2009, Tim argues
Its non-performing loans are about 1.8% of fair value, against a 1% average since 2004
Highly profitable stocks now trade at 11 times book value, against a peak of 7 times in 2000
AI spending is hitting free cash flow far harder than earnings, because depreciation runs at a fifth or a sixth of the spend
Market cycles are turning faster than ever, so Tobias thinks 18 months is now a long time to wait
1. Prices Detached From Value
Tim opened by comparing today's mood to the 2011 European financial crisis. Big banks then traded at fractions of their tangible book value, and good news barely moved them.
Tim Travis says even Buffett's buying could not lift Bank of America in 2011
"I remember Buffett bought into Bank of America and it barely even moved the stock." — Tim Travis
The turn came suddenly, when a policymaker pledged to do whatever it takes, the line usually credited to Mario Draghi, then president of the European Central Bank. Tim drew a second parallel with the 2021 meme-stock run and the crash that followed it in 2022.
