The meeting started at 9:10 p.m
Kathy did a quick market update. Twitter finally set its IPO price at $26 with 70 million of its shares sold. On the other hand Blackberry’s plan to sell its business to Fairfax has failed. Instead the firm will receive $1 billion convertible-bond investment from Fairfax. Tesla also had bad news as its shares dropped by 16%. Dell, on the other hand, became private.
Then, Bryce did a quick market update. We sold McDonalds and Proto labs from our portfolio. Mcdonalds, although a solid blue chip company, was not showing growth for three years while Proto labs took a dip.
After the market update Yaxuan, one of the members of Portfolio Management team, presented a stock pitch about Valeant Pharmaceuticals in health sector. It is a publicly traded multinational pharmaceuticals company which falls in defensive sector. It has diversified product portfolio which presents it with a diverse revenue system. There is potential of growth because of their innovations in their field. Moreover, because they have low beta score their stocks are stable. The entire portfolio management team will look further into the stock pitch and make a decision.
Following the stock pitch, Dingwei provided everyone with a brain teaser, with the question being “how many golf balls were manufactured in USA per year?” Since such questions are actually used in job interviews, this was a fun yet rewarding activity for OIG members to do. The answer to this question, along with its methodology can be found in this website: http://brainteaserbible.com/interview-brainteaser-market-sizing-golf-balls-sold
The meeting ended at 10:00 pm. See you all next Wednesday at 9:00 pm in Taylor G.