Yet Another Value Podcast

Cove Street Capital on Viasat $VSAT

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March 23, 2021 8:00am

1h 25m

Eugene Robin and Ben Claremon from Cove Street Capital discuss the battleground stock Viasat (VSAT). They discuss the biggest misperception among bears, why they think VSAT's government business is a hidden gem, and how the risk from Elon Musk's SpaceX (and other burgeoning competitors) is overblown.

Some relevant links:
Cove Street's March 2020 Viasat deck: http://covestreetcapital.com/eugene-robin-discusses-viasat-on-the-valuewalk-podcast/
Kerrisdale's short report: https://www.kerrisdalecap.com/investments/viasat-inc-vsat/
Cove Street's Kerrisdale rebuttal: http://covestreetcapital.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Satellite-Potshots-ViaSat.pdf 

Chapters
0:00 Intro
2:50 Viasat overview
8:15 Residential Broadband: the biggest VSAT misperception
15:45 Is Cove Street too close to VSAT?
25:00 Could a big increase in capacity create issues?
31:00 VSAT's all-in cost advantage and the SpaceX risk
36:45 VSAT's hidden jewel: the Government business
43:50 "Stock price bro" and capital allocation bear case
52:50 Why GEO can compete with LEO
1:06:00 Ben's quick run through of lingering points
1:17:00 Quantifying a reasonable bull case