Technology
Forensic Alpha identifies several new red flags from AUTO’s annual report - their main concern is a change in accounting policy related to revenue recognition. It suggests the company may be recognising revenue from components at an earlier point in time - when the products are shipped rather than when they are delivered. This change may have inflated revenues in 2023 and resulted in an artificially high growth rate. You might expect earlier recognition of a sale to result in a reduction of inventory as it shifts from the balance sheet faster. However, they also identified a new flag related to increased DSI in 1Q24 (up 51% Y/Y to 225 days; represents over 7 months of sales).
European & US short ideas
Since Vision pitched their short thesis on Vidrala, Verallia and O-I Glass at our Equity Shorting Conference in mid-Mar the stocks have underperformed the Stoxx600 by ~8%. In the last couple of months they have also initiated 3 new European shorts, 3 new US shorts, and has readied a new $7bn+ European short (trades ~$20m/day and has short interest of <1%) for initiation next week. Please join Vision for a meeting while members of their team are in Paris (Jun 5th-6th), Zurich (Jun 7th) and London (Jun 8th-12th).
In the last 24 months, Vision has closed several shorts including: Allegro, AutoStore, Boohoo, Burlington, Colruyt, De'Longhi, Electrolux, Gerresheimer, H&M, Hargreaves Lansdown, Inditex, New Relic, Nokian Tyres, Peloton, Similarweb, Thule, Trex, TSMC, UiPath and Whirlpool.
