The IdeaHouse Value Investing Best Ideas Conference, held on May 4, 2025, in Omaha, Nebraska, brought together value investors to give a five minute pitch on their favorite stocks. Picks ranged from microcaps to megacaps and from locations such as the US and Kazakhstan. Below are notes of the 35 or so speakers from the event.
Please note this event was almost seven hours straight with dozens of different speakers. Some speakers did not provide their full names or firms and it was extremely fast paced. Therefore, some names and details are missing. We spent hours reviewing our transcripts and notes to ensure no mistakes but it was exceedingly difficult due to the factors mentioned above. We tried to note anything unclear in CAPS in parenthesis.
If any readers see any errors, has any questions or wants more context on this event please email me jacob (@) hedgefundalpha.com.
Check out our coverage of the 2025 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting and other exciting Omaha value investing events here.
Michael Buckley
Kaspi.kz AO (NASDAQ:KSPI)
Company performs really well with 40% growth.
Located in Kazakhstan. Population 20 million.
Acquired 65% of Tesla Europe (speaker identified this as Asian Law) in Turkey (population 80 million) for expansion.
Low end price on commodities.
Has an interesting Forbes article.
Might grow due to geography/expansion.
Super app with four bridges: marketplace, payments, FinTech. Recurring revenues at near utility level.
CEO since 2007, Harvard educated (class of 2002), described as a missionary not a mercenary, obsessed with customer NPS scores. Killed a product representing 1/3 of company revenue in 48 hours due to negative NPS.
Kazakhstan is resource-dependent, but currently at low end of commodity pricing cycle according to speaker's chart analysis.
Geopolitics: Kazakhstan maintains neutral terms with Russia, China, US. Ranked in second quartile in Fraser Institute for Economic Freedom.
Cascade ownership issue mentioned in a Forbes article involving an owner jailed after selling shares before IPO.
Credit risk from lending to customers, but appears managed.
40% net income growth over the last 10 years.
80%+ return on equity.
25% net income in the market in 2024.
17 billion USD enterprise value, 2 Billion dollars in earnings.
Initial yield around 10-11%, growing 20-25% a year.
If Turkey acquisition fails, it represents less than a year's worth of earnings.
Potential for multiple expansion, compared to Mercado Libre which has similar earnings but 5x value.
Kazakhstan remains neutral with Russia, China, US
Speaker 2
Ferrari NV (NYSE:RACE)
Headquartered in Italy, family-owned business.
Stock price is going up, exclusive invite-only access to purchase.
Operates on scarcity premium, attracts rich customer base and collectors. No discounting, high pricing power.
It'll always be expensive, but could be even more valuable in 5 years due to increasing revenue and ROIC.
Market cap 84.5 Billion USD.
Stock price approximately $450.
ROIC around 28% (value was blurry on slide but stated as 28% by speaker), very high for automobile space.
New Hypercar (referred to as "fav supercar for hypercarnation" by speaker) among 3-4 new launches in 2025.
Durable and predictable earner.
Surpassed earnings expectations in last 18 consecutive quarters.
No direct risks mentioned, but high valuation.
Thomas Joshi
AI Researcher, formerly in Private Equity working with tech clients like Google, Nvidia
Clearwater Analytics Holdings Inc (NYSE:CWAN)
Former client of his. Has multiple catalysts including infusion and expansion.
SaaS for investment accounting: booking trades, risk analytics, outputs across assets, economy operations. Speaker believes it is building an AI system for financial firms.
Multi-tenant architecture, easy to integrate new solutions and acquisitions. AI embedded across the stack, including NLP and processing.
Acquired Fusion recently. Acquired Datasite's investment software assets.
TAM: $23B, Current ARR: 680M.
Valuation: 9x revenue multiple, 27x EV/Revenue. Speaker considers this 'cheap' for the space compared to HashiCorp IPO at 37x EV/Revenue.
Strong A.I. growth with Clearwater Intelligence Console. Risk because of cost. Possesses unique AI models and proprietary data from 8.8 trillion in assets processed daily.
Targeting asset managers, insurance companies, corporate treasury, pensions. International expansion planned.
Current price target $18. Speaker estimates potential to reach $30/share in 12-18 months due to product revenues and monetization.
Guillermo
Amplitude Inc (NASDAQ:AMPL)
Microstock with Market cap approximately 1.24 Billion USD. SaaS analytics platform. Offers analytics and subscription-based model, flexibility with new initiatives. Freemium model contributes to sticky subscription.
Used by Microsoft, Walmart, Shopify, YSheets.
