Red Hand of Ulster

Investor seeking to integrate virtue, endurance, and transcendence in my profession and life. I believe in strategic sacrifice and bleeding for victory.

[Red Hand of Ulster @RedHandCapital]

@junkbondinvest Which report is this from? Can you share the link please?

[Reads with Ravi @readswithravi]

Shane Parrish on building an unconventional path to success:

[Red Hand of Ulster @RedHandCapital]

@seaborn7 @charliebilello Where are you sourcing your data vs. Charlie? Why do the delinquency rates differ?

[Michael Fritzell (Asian Century Stocks) @MikeFritzell]

P/E ratio by market

[Reads with Ravi @readswithravi]

Dan Koe said it right:

“You won’t find rare results in an average lifestyle.”

[Finding Compounders @F_Compounders]

Charlie Munger on Focus

“I think people who multi- task pay a huge price”

[Reads with Ravi @readswithravi]

A peak life advice from Ryan Holiday:

“To procrastinate is to be entitled. It is arrogant. It assumes there will be a later. It assumes you'll have the discipline to get to it later (despite not having the discipline now).”

[Jaynit @jaynitx]

Michael Jordan literally explained why winning has a price most people refuse to pay:

[Alcuin Press @AlcuinPress]

Leonardo da Vinci's greatest paragraph

[World of Statistics @stats_feed]

🏃‍♂️ Regular exercise reduces symptoms of depression by 30-40% on average - often as effectively as medication.

[Tim Siedell @badbanana]

Man was not meant to monitor this many situations.

[Rothmus 🏴 @Rothmus]

It’s so over.

[Reads with Ravi @readswithravi]

Learn to be resilient, persistent and optimistic.

[Kingdom Capital @kingdomcapadv]

One of the worst parts of FinTwit is the discontent. If you can make IB money and not think you’re rich you’ll never be happy.

We end up in insane conversations about if $15m is enough to quit your job and if $200k/year income is the new poverty line.

Greed can destroy you.

[Red Hand of Ulster @RedHandCapital]

@BrianFeroldi What’s that chart look like for other countries?

[Blessed with the 'tism @blessedtism]

@BarbellFi >job hop every ~5 years
>each 401k has a modest balance because it was only getting contributions for ~5 years

shocker

[Red Hand of Ulster @RedHandCapital]

@BarbellFi Does this account for the fact that people likely role the 401k from a prior job into an IRA?

[Boring_Business @BoringBiz_]

Reality of being a private equity associate

> Walk into the office at 9 AM. You are tired from consecutive set of 2 AM nights you had to pull for the entire week before on a deal that ultimately ended up nowhere

> Principal comes by your desk and hands you some analysis to run for an existing PortCo. You bought this thing at peak multiples back in 2021 and now the numbers dont justify anywhere close to the valuation you paid. LPs are asking for return of capital and MD has asked you to get "creative" on how this can be accomplished

> You run the analysis, putting together 7 different transaction scenarios, including a dividend recap, continuation vehicle, sale, IPO etc. You look at your list of public comps to see what valuation you think you can get on the business. Send it off to MD in the hopes that he will realize that you cant sell this business anytime soon

> Meanwhile, get staffed on a new deal. Staffer says this is just an initial screen, should be pretty light from an analysis perspective. Get added to the banker VDR and VP on the deal team immediately hands you a list of analysis to run on the banker materials, including KPIs and a simple model with various scenarios to estimate levered free cash flow and IRR / MOIC

> You look at the clock. Its now 5 PM. Only 9 more hours to go, you tell yourself. Reading the CIM, you realize this is a ShitCo masked as a "recurring revenue company with multiple abating headwinds" and "190 years of cumulative mgmt experience". You smile, thinking back to your banking days, and realizing how stupid these bankers are

> As you finish smiling, get a follow up email from your MD. He has sent you 7 pages worth of comments, including one titled "why is our base case not showing 20% IRR?" As the smile wanes off your face, you come to the conclusion that you are just in banking 2.0, but somehow even worse

> You go back into your model and start plugging assumptions that helps you show a 20% IRR. Should I show revenue growth for a business that has declining topline for the last 5 years? Sure, why not. Should I show margins improving for a business where raw material prices and labor trends have only been trending up? Sure, why not. It doesnt need to make any sense. Your MD will just need to find a way to spin it to your IC in the name of "operational value add" and "low hanging fruit for driving topline growth"

> Send the model outputs back to your deal team. Continue to read the CIM and go through VDR materials for your new deal. VP comes by and asks you to explain what the business even does. He has clearly not even opened the VDR. You have no idea either, but rattle off some buzzwords that you read in the CIM. It is a provider of "mission critical software" with high gross retention (customers hate them but cant move from it). Your VP loves it. He asks you to jam on some more analysis so you can discuss with your MD in the morning

> You spend the next 6 hours putting together a bunch of nice looking charts and pages. Most of these are coming directly from the CIM, but you wonder why you need to recreate these anyway. Your VP is against snipping CIM charts. Wants everything in your "firm format"

> Come 1 AM, you send it off to your VP. VP quickly reviews, gives you a bunch of comments and goes to sleep. You turn them overnight and take an Uber back to your shoebox appartment. You are somehow earning $300K, in the top 5% of earners at your age, but still feel poor. You can barely afford an apartment without roommates. "This career path is just not what it used to be", you tell yourself

> Wake up in the morning and sit down to discuss analysis with MD. Your MD goes through the first 3 pages out of the 20 pages of work you put together. He says "wow, this is prone to AI risk. Just dont think we will get there on valuation" and kills the deal. You go back to your desk, upset at yourself for thinking private equity was the "promise land" for bankers