Case studies are the Institute’s answer to “does the library actually work on a live situation, or just on tidy hypotheticals?” Each one takes a real public event — an S-1 filing, a board fight, a corporate restructuring, a regulatory shift — and walks the math, the structure, and the moves a practitioner with the Institute library on his shelf would make. Every case study ships with a Library Crosswalk that names which chapters taught which move.
The case study and the crosswalk are free. The full work package is the buy.
The reader is the analyst. The Institute supplies the tools.
The Baratelli Institute publishes the practitioner case memo — the memo, the financial model, the boardroom deck, the combined print edition, the hub — every layer built to boardroom-defensible standard, free to read.
We call the format the practitioner case memo. It sits in a category of one.
“In 2006 I met one of the founding partners of what’s now one of the most respected boutique investment banks in the country — when the firm was just a few people in a room. This is the practitioner-shelf version of the bet they were making.”
On 14 August 2026 Fenway Sports Group entered a definitive agreement to sell roughly a third of Liverpool to 1892 Holdings, a consortium managed by Amit Bhatia in which Jeff Bezos participates through K5, alongside the Saverin family office EE Capital and Mittal family trusts. FSG keeps majority ownership and operational control. The number the coverage buried is the interesting one: CNBC reported an option for the incoming investors to take majority ownership at about $8 billion inside twelve months, against a minority block that cleared at about $7.1 billion — a ~13% control premium struck and dated on the same day, which is the rarest observation in private sports finance. Sky Sports News characterised the same provision as a framework rather than a guarantee, and the case states both and asserts neither. Set against the club's filed statutory accounts to 31 May 2025: £703m of turnover, administrative costs consuming 93.5% of it, staff costs alone 60.9%, and £8m of profit after tax — roughly seven hundred times earnings at the transaction price. Documents the six different valuations six reputable outlets published for one deal on one day, the paired comparison against Ratcliffe's 27.7% of Manchester United (less of the club, more of the control), FSG's £300m October 2010 entry and why the answer changes by 200–300bp depending on the currency you measure it in, and why Premier League PSR means a multi-billion-dollar minority injection buys no transfer budget at all. Cross-references the §197 reference for the American tax shelter that has no counterpart in an English share purchase. Not investment advice.
Read alongside the Packers case (the only other audited club in the library) and the Bucks case (the American minority-transaction mirror image). Opens the Premier League vertical inside the Sports Division.
A practitioner case on Mari Group's £4.5 billion including debt (~$6 billion) acquisition of ATG Entertainment from Providence Equity Partners, announced August 11, 2026. ATG owns Broadway’s Lyric Theatre (home of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child), West End houses staging Wicked and The Lion King, and dozens of additional playhouses across the US, continental Europe, and the UK. FY2025 operating profit rose ~13% to a record £160.9 million (~$217 million). The implied ~28x operating-profit multiple (~20-22x EBITDA) is trophy-asset pricing consistent with sports-franchise scarcity ranges rather than standard operating-business ranges. Providence has held ATG since 2013 (13-year PE hold); Blackstone acquired a minority stake in 2024 and exits at partial upside. Mari Group was founded 2025 with capital from RedBird Capital, Apollo Global Management, and the Qatar Investment Authority. The Institute walks Emanuel's WME / Endeavor / TKO operator profile as the specific value-add, the Mari portfolio buildout as a durable roll-up thesis, and the ATG acquisition as the specific pivot point where Mari transitions from platform assembly to platform scale. Case cross-references the Institute's Field Note No. 2 on the Kushner / Iger $12B Lakers deal, the Alex Cooper / Unwell / Whitesell $500M investment (same-week companion), and the UWMC Oaktree recap. Not investment advice.
Read alongside the Institute's Field Note No. 2 on the Kushner / Iger $12B Lakers deal for the parallel operator-CEO trophy-asset pattern from the following day, and the Alex Cooper / Unwell / Whitesell $500M reference for the third same-week Hollywood-agent private-capital-into-media transaction. Not investment advice.
A practitioner case study on the reported Trian take-private bid for The Wendy's Company (NASDAQ: WEN) built from the Q2 2026 10-Q, the August 7 earnings presentation, the August 7 press release, and public reporting from CNBC and the Financial Times. Walks the Kahn v. M&F Worldwide (MFW) governance framework that Trian's insider position triggers, the take-private math with pre-bid EV of $3.85B and the three-methodology fair-value test that puts the Institute base case at $14/share (11.0x on the Institute's conservative $460M full-year Adj EBITDA estimate, 85% premium over $7.55, matching Burger King 2010 and below every other QSR take-private multiple in the modern era), the whole-business securitization (WBS) structure with $2.75B outstanding at 3.79% weighted-average and the "roll the WBS" Option B that preserves ~$62M/year of below-market financing vs. full-refinance, the 5-bucket sources & uses at the $14 base case (equity, working capital, debt costs, Trian side, special committee) with the $10M MFW increment identified and the $2,064M total equity check the consortium must assemble, and the competing-bidder analysis including Roark Capital as the highest-probability alternative. Live-market case: will be updated as the transaction develops. Author does not own WEN stock.
Reporting attribution: Based on public reporting from CNBC (Aug 12, 2026) and Oliver Barnes at the Financial Times (Aug 12-13, 2026), plus prior 13D filings and Wendy's Q2 2026 SEC disclosures. All Institute analysis is interpretive practitioner commentary on publicly reported facts. Author does not own WEN stock and has no commercial or advisory relationship with any party. Not investment advice.
A practitioner case study on UWM Holdings Corporation (NYSE: UWMC) built from the Q2 2026 10-Q, the August 5 press release, and the August 2026 investor deck. Walks the $603M Q2 hedging loss officially framed as Two Harbors deal-related hedge exposure, the 10% cash / 13% PIK Series A-1 Preferred Oaktree structure with 165M warrants each at $2 and $6 strikes and a redemption premium schedule ratcheting from 10% Year 1 to 60% Year 6 plus 10% per subsequent year, the $400M rights offering backstopped by Oaktree and Ishbia at a $2.00 floor (above the current $1.51 market), the concurrent suspension of the $641M annual dividend and Holdings LLC distribution stream, the Ishbia family cash-extraction pattern that made the distribution suspension so material, pre-and-post capital structure tables with intermediate adjustment columns, twelve enumerated downside risks, five probability-weighted scenarios, and the Institute's Merton-based perpetual call option framing for entry at these levels. Author ownership disclosed: Philip A. Baratelli purchased UWMC common at $1.54 on August 12, 2026 and is a long holder. Not investment advice.
Ownership disclosure: The author of this case, Philip A. Baratelli, purchased UWMC common stock at $1.54 per share on August 12, 2026, and is a long holder. Case reflects publicly available filings only. Not investment advice. Read alongside the US Vacant & Abandoned Housing by City reference for the broader residential mortgage market context.
A practitioner analysis of the August 7, 2026 agreement by Dream Finders Homes (NYSE: DFH) to acquire Beazer Homes USA (NYSE: BZH) for $33.50 in cash per BZH share, an aggregate $915 million equity purchase price, and an enterprise value of $2.2 billion including assumed debt. The offer sequence walks Feb private approach → May 12 public $25.75 (BZH unaffected at $18.77) → July 8 bump to $32.00 → Aug 7 agreement at $33.50 — a 78% premium to the disclosed baseline but only ~4.7% over the July 8 bump. Beazer CEO Allan Merrill’s tell: “a significant and certain cash return in an uncertain market.” Founder-CEO Patrick Zalupski — who separately leads the ownership group that agreed to acquire the MLB Tampa Bay Rays — is deploying the balance sheet at what he reads as the cyclical low. Combined company operates ~520 active communities across 26 markets in the Southeast, Mid-Atlantic, Texas, West, and Midwest. Stated aspiration: top-5 national homebuilder. This deal-live landing page publishes on announcement day. The full memo (~40 pp), three-statement Excel model (pro-forma leverage, PPA walk, synergies), and practitioner deck (~22 slides) land at this same URL Friday. Not investment advice.
Read alongside the MLB team valuation hub for the Rays context, and The 32 NFL Families for the same operating-business-to-sports-franchise archetype documented across all 32 NFL owners — available on Amazon in Kindle ($9.99) and paperback ($24.99).
The Paramount Skydance / Warner Bros. Discovery deal is the most consequential media M&A of the era. Federal antitrust cleared. Twelve state AGs filed complaint July 13, 2026 in ND Cal. On July 31, David Ellison pivoted to a straight-to-trial strategy and added Beth Wilkinson to the legal bench. This Institute reference is a 33-slide practitioner deck, tied to the filed 8-K Ex 99.2 pro forma. GAAP filed numbers appear side-by-side with the company's non-GAAP forward guidance from the Paramount IR investor deck (2026E $69B revenue, $18B EBITDA incl. $6B+ synergies, 4.3x net leverage at close, ~3x within three years). Independent SOTP walk confirms the reasonableness of the announced valuation at the Institute base case.
On June 29, 2026, Comcast announced a tax-free spin-off of NBCUniversal under IRC §355. We walked the sum-of-the-parts overnight. Five distinct businesses — Residential Connectivity, Business Services Connectivity, Media, Studios, Theme Parks — carrying five different multiples that the consolidated tape does not credit. Base-case intrinsic value $46.47/share against $36.00 trading: a 29% premium and roughly $37 billion of equity unlock. Bear $33.37 / Bull $60.00 brackets the range. The case develops two strategic-buyer paths in detail: a Blackstone-led PE consortium for Universal Theme Parks (2.48x MoM / 20% IRR base case, with a sovereign-wealth anchor), and the whole-company scenarios for Berkshire and Apple. The Institute's editorial position appears in If We Ran Berkshire — Acquire NBCU.
See also the practitioner landing page indexing the full Comcast case-study PDF library: the Comcast SOTP case study.
A practitioner analysis of Comstock Resources (NYSE: CRK) as the natural-gas leg of Jerry Jones' family-office portfolio. Jones took majority control of the Frisco, Texas Haynesville Shale producer in 2018 with a ~$620M convertible preferred investment through Arkoma Drilling and Williston Basin Drilling; backstopped the $2.2B all-stock Covey Park acquisition in 2019 that doubled Haynesville acreage to ~278,000+ net acres; oversaw the 2021-2022 divestitures of Marcellus, Bakken, and Bossier positions to become a Haynesville pure-play; and closed the 2024 Pinnacle midstream sale to Quantum Capital Solutions for ~$210M. The case walks the structural Haynesville-to-Gulf-Coast-LNG demand thesis (U.S. LNG export capacity roughly doubling 2024-2030), the balance-sheet deleveraging arc, the family-office lens (Comstock as the liquid public-market energy leg alongside the illiquid Cowboys trophy asset), Jones' unusual identity as a sports-owner-who-actually-runs-a-real-business, and the corporate-finance analytical spine (production trajectory, gas-price sensitivity, leverage trajectory, reserve life). The case ties directly to the Cowboys case as its family-office companion. Not investment advice.
Read alongside the Dallas Cowboys case as the sports-and-entertainment leg of the same family office. Cross-references Danaher (public-company M&A roll-up treatment), Belron (sponsor-controlled operating vehicle), and Dell (founder-principal-takes-control-at-cyclical-trough pattern).
A practitioner case on the Los Angeles Clippers as the anchor of the Institute's new NBA vertical. Steve Ballmer's August 2014 $2B purchase from the Sterling Family Trust set the NBA transaction record of its era at roughly 160x the 1981 acquisition base. The August 2024 opening of the Intuit Dome — a purpose-built, ~$2B, 100% Ballmer-financed arena in Inglewood adjacent to Kroenke's SoFi Stadium — makes Ballmer the NBA analog to Kroenke: a principal owner willing to self-underwrite the venue rather than share economics with a public authority or co-tenant. This case extends the Institute's Stadium Anatomy framework beyond the NFL and introduces the Microsoft-stock-based family-office archetype — a technology-founder principal whose non-team wealth compounds independently of the trophy asset, in structural contrast to Jerry Jones' Cowboys-concentrated balance sheet and Kroenke's real-estate-and-multi-team KSE portfolio. Cross-references the Rams case as the direct comparable (100% private venue financing at similar scale) and the Cowboys case as the principal-owner trophy-asset template. Not investment advice.
Read alongside the Rams case (SoFi Stadium direct comparable at the NFL level) and the Cowboys case (principal-owner trophy-asset template). Anchors the Sports Division NBA vertical.
A practitioner case on the Milwaukee Bucks as the PE-founder-pair template for mid-2010s NBA ownership. Wes Edens (Fortress) and Marc Lasry (Avenue Capital) bought the franchise from US Senator Herb Kohl in April 2014 at a then-NBA-record ~$550M. Ten years later Sportico's 2024 mark places the franchise at roughly ~$4B. Marc Lasry sold his stake to the Haslam Family (Pilot Corp / Cleveland Browns / Columbus Crew) in April 2023 at a reported ~$3.5B implied enterprise value, with the Haslam family's dry powder sourced from the 2017-2023 Berkshire Hathaway Pilot Corp transaction. The 2018 opening of Fiserv Forum on a 25-year, ~$6M/year, ~$150M-committed naming-rights deal with Fiserv Inc. is the case's cross-vertical differentiator — one transaction that shows up on both the Institute's Fiserv case (opex, brand spend) and the Bucks case (near-100%-margin revenue plus enterprise-value uplift). Cross-references the Clippers case at the NBA vertical, the Packers case at the Wisconsin 7.65% state-tax level, and the Yankees case for the family-office parallel. Not investment advice.
Read alongside the Clippers case (NBA flagship), the Fiserv case (naming-rights cross-vertical), the Packers case (WI state-tax parallel), and the Yankees case (family-office parallel). Sits inside the Sports Division NBA vertical.
A practitioner walk through the funding stack for the proposed Tampa ballpark announced August 21, 2026: a $2.361B total budget with $1.37B from the Patrick Zalupski ownership group (plus all cost overruns), $796M from Hillsborough County, and $80M from the City of Tampa — a $876M public contribution, roughly 37.1% of budget, down from the $976M in the memorandum of understanding. The case walks each instrument in plain English: the voter-approved Community Investment Tax, the bondable Tourist Development Tax, federal CDBG-DR dollars, the Community Development District tax increment that recoups the City’s advance, and the Community Redevelopment Area carve-out serviced by a $100M private placement. It also shows, rather than smooths over, the $115M that does not reconcile between the announced budget and the announced sources. No recommendation, no scorecard — the mechanics, and what to watch at the August 27 and 28 votes. Cross-references the Jaguars stadium case (the renovate-not-relocate comparable) and the MLB valuation hub. Not investment advice.
Read alongside the Jaguars stadium case (public-private split at a comparable scale) and Stadium Anatomy (the framework this applies). Sits inside the Sports Division MLB vertical.
A practitioner case on the New York Yankees as the anchor of the Institute's new MLB vertical. George Steinbrenner's January 1973 $8.7M purchase from CBS (with a reported ~$168K personal check) compounded to Sportico's ~$7.9B 2024 mark at a ~13.5% CAGR over 51 years — the MLB analog to the Jones-Cowboys 1989-to-2024 arc. The family holds through Yankee Global Enterprises (YGE), one of the longest-tenured US sports family offices, which controls the team, a ~26% stake in the YES Network, and a materially-diluted stake in Legends Hospitality (the Steinbrenner/Jones co-venture with Goldman Sachs since 2008). The YES Network transaction record (2014 Fox valuation ~$4B; 2019 Disney divestiture consortium buyback ~$3.5B with implied ~$220M EBITDA) is the closest MLB has to an audited window into team-adjacent economics. Extends the Institute's Stadium Anatomy framework to the ~$2.3B 2009 Yankee Stadium build (~$1.2B NYC IDA bonds + ~$1.1B private, never-sold naming rights costing ~$25M+/year in foregone revenue). Applies the state-tax framework (NY state 10.9% + NYC 3.876% = ~14.8% for city-domiciled residents; highest structural MLB burden). Documents the July 2010 estate-tax-lapse that transferred George Steinbrenner's ~$1B+ estate at $0 federal estate tax. Cross-references the Packers case (structural parallel, at partial rather than full observability) and the Cowboys case (Legends Hospitality co-founder companion). Not investment advice.
Read alongside the Packers case (NFL audited-anchor structural parallel) and the Cowboys case (Legends Hospitality co-venture companion). Anchors the Sports Division MLB vertical.
This is a practitioner primer, not a valuation call. An informational overview of Danaher's structure (three segments, ~$185B mkt cap, ~$24B FY25 revenue), operating system (DBS — the Danaher Business System, with printable practitioner templates), leadership arc (Steve and Mitchell Rales founding 1984, Larry Culp scaling 2001-2014, Culp at GE 2018-present as the largest-scale DBS test), and place in the compounder taxonomy. Danaher is the exemplar of one specific archetype — the codified operating-system compounder — among four legitimate archetypes: Berkshire (owner-discretion), Constellation (permanent-capital VMS), LVMH (brand-portfolio), Danaher (operating-system). The 11-section memo walks Danaher today, the Rales origin, the Rales philosophy, DBS with seven printable practitioner checklists (VVC, PIT, Kaizen, Gemba, 5 Whys, X-matrix, GM readiness), DBS vs Six Sigma vs Toyota Production System, Larry Culp at Danaher, Larry Culp at GE (the three-way split), the three Danaher spinoffs (Fortive 2016, Envista 2019, Veralto 2023), the Rales family-office estate architecture, and the four-archetype compounder taxonomy. Free case memo, 20-tab financial model, 8-tab DBS practitioner toolkit, deck, and combined print edition. Not investment advice.
Companion living reference: Danaher Acquisitions Record (87-row four-decade history, DBS-tagged) and Danaher Subsidiaries Ledger. Compounder taxonomy companions: Berkshire · Constellation · LVMH.
A practitioner analysis of Penske Automotive Group. Berkshire Hathaway owns approximately 19% of PAG, built patiently over more than a decade, and has received approximately $400 million in cumulative dividends since 2015. Roger Penske is 89. The memo works across three entities — PAG (public consolidator), Penske Corporation (private family control block), and PTS (the Mitsui joint venture housing truck leasing and logistics) — and four succession outcomes. The post-Mitsui sum-of-the-parts equity value builds to approximately $12.6 billion; a strategic sale to Berkshire would require ~$10.2 billion of fresh capital, net of the 19% already held at cost. The 106-page combined edition includes the 59-page case memo, the 26-slide practitioner deck, and the 18-tab financial model. Section 8 — the estate framework — works through seven distinct planning mechanisms with IRC citations (§6166 installment election, §303 partial redemption, IDGT sales, GRATs, charitable lead trusts, life-insurance-funded liquidity, and Pennsylvania-domicile considerations). Section 10 walks the Berkshire-declines counter-case in the same voice as the primary thesis. Not investment advice.
Read alongside the Berkshire acquisition record (1965–today) for the counterparty history and the Berkshire Automotive Ecosystem for the platform bridge into which a PAG acquisition would slot.
A practitioner analysis of the 10 July 2026 Rule 2.4 possible offer from Apollo Management X, L.P. for easyJet plc at £7.15 per share, valuing the fully diluted ordinary share capital at approximately £5.7 billion. The Apollo proposal displaces a Castlelake, L.P. proposal at £6.90 submitted six days earlier. The Board is "no longer minded to recommend" Castlelake and "would be minded to recommend" Apollo subject to firm Rule 2.7. Consideration includes a Stub Equity Alternative with voting rights. Committed equity from Apollo Funds; Barclays "highly confident letter" for debt. Apollo has until 5:00 PM on 7 August 2026 to firm up or walk. This memo walks the fully diluted share count (794.8M), premium analysis (81% headline / 22% to 4-yr high / 3.6% topper), balance-sheet bridge to enterprise value on both traditional and lease-adjusted bases, latest financials across three data layers (FY25 audited peak £665M PBT, H1 FY26 £164M YoY deterioration, Q3 FY26 £286M in-line), Apollo\'s four strategic levers, illustrative sources and uses, sponsor return sensitivities (2.5x MOIC / 20% IRR base at 75% ambition landing and 5.0x exit), EU regulatory path including the unaddressed EU airline ownership rule (Reg. 1008/2008), Stub Equity Alternative structural analysis, comparable European airline take-privates, six downside risks, and the Baratelli view. Companion Excel model (12 tabs) and 21-slide practitioner deck download from the memo page. Not investment advice.
Apollo\'s third major aviation transaction after Sun Country (Fund IX, IPO 2021) and PK AirFinance / Merx Aviation. See the Baratelli LBO Reference for methodology, and the Apollo acquisition ledger for the full deal record.
A practitioner analysis of the September 2024 Belron / Safelite dividend recapitalization — the largest sponsor-controlled dividend recap on record. The consortium (D'Ieteren ~50%, CD&R ~15%, Hellman & Friedman ~15%, GIC ~10%, BlackRock ~10%) raised approximately €8.1 billion of new leveraged loans and high-yield bonds, distributed roughly €4.4 billion as an extraordinary dividend strictly pro-rata by ownership, and used the ~€3.7 billion balance to refinance existing debt. Post-recap net leverage moved from ~2.5-3.0x to ~5.5-5.8x. S&P and Moody's retained single-B family ratings on negative outlook. The memo walks the transaction across seven questions with 15+ tables: mechanics on one page, the balance-sheet walk (Part A) and income-statement walk (Part B) line by line, the tax characterization for each sponsor category (including the D'Ieteren Belgian participation-exemption architecture, an E&P worked example with Rev. Rul. 74-164 tier ordering, and the sponsor basis buildup), the debt-stack maturity ladder and the 2031-2032 refi wall, the modern recap-canon comparables set (Domino's, Getty, Clarios, First Data), and the first full year of post-recap operating results — FY2025 sales up 7.1% CFX, adjusted EBITDA €1.85B, pro-forma leverage compressed to ~4.1x on the full year and ~3.7-3.9x on the Q4 exit run-rate. The recap thesis is now validated by operating data inside the same document that argues the thesis. Not investment advice.
D'Ieteren is to Belron what Financière Agache is to LVMH — the intermediate family-controlled holding entity through which the family exercises voting control across generational transfers. Read the two cases together for the European family-office architecture treatment. See also the Institute's Fiserv case for the acquirer-side analysis of the First Data combination referenced in the Belron comparables set.
A practitioner analysis of Samsung Electronics and the Lee family. FY2025 revenue KRW 333.6 trillion (~$255 billion), operating profit KRW 43.6 trillion, Q4 2025 all-time-high consolidated quarterly records driven by the Device Solutions memory business (HBM3E and DDR5 pricing into hyperscaler AI workloads). Samsung Electronics is ~40% of the KOSPI and Samsung Group is ~30% of Korean exports — systemically important in a way no Western company approaches. In parallel, the Lee family completed payment of the KRW 12 trillion (~$8-11 billion) inheritance-tax settlement on Lee Kun-hee's KRW 26 trillion estate in May 2026 — the largest inheritance tax event in world history — and Chairman Lee Jae-yong's stakes in Samsung Electronics, Samsung C&T, and Samsung Life Insurance all increased during the six-year payment period. Case walks the KRW 12T event, the six-year installment plan, the KRW 3 trillion art collection donation to the Korean state under Article 88-2, the 2015 Samsung C&T + Cheil Industries merger, the chaebol cross-shareholding structure, Samsung Life Insurance as the structural keystone (the Korean parallel to Financière Agache in the LVMH architecture), Chairman Lee's 2016-2022 legal history and the August 2022 presidential pardon (neutral factual record), the Samsung Foundations, and the bear cases. Not investment advice.
See the Samsung Read for the editorial home and the Institute’s ongoing Samsung franchise, alongside LVMH Read, Berkshire Read, and Disney Read.
A practitioner analysis of LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton. Six operating groups, seventy-five maisons, roughly EUR 87B revenue 2024, with Fashion & Leather Goods (~54%) dominant. But the case’s central practitioner argument is that the real estate is buried — the prime-street retail footprint (Champs-Elysees to 5th Avenue to Ginza to Nanjing Road), the Cheval Blanc + Belmond + Bulgari hospitality portfolio, and the DFS airport concessions all sit at book cost inside the operating segments. Illustrative real-estate uplift ~EUR 15-25B above book. Bernard Arnault (77) controls the empire through Financiere Agache in Belgium; the 2022 shareholder vote raised the CEO mandatory retirement age from 75 to 80. Five children from two marriages already seated at Christian Dior (Delphine), Berluti + Christian Dior SE Chairman (Antoine), Tiffany EVP (Alexandre), LVMH Watches CEO (Frederic), and Louis Vuitton Watches (Jean). Includes full Tiffany transaction history (Nov 2019 announcement, Delaware Chancery litigation, Oct 2020 re-cut at $131.50, Jan 2021 close, December 2024 fire at 727 Fifth Avenue), the Nicolas Puech shares scandal at Hermes with the LVMH stealth-accumulation thread, and detailed acquisition record 1984-2024. Not investment advice.
See the LVMH Read for the editorial home and the Institute’s ongoing LVMH franchise, alongside Berkshire Read and Disney Read.
A practitioner analysis of a hypothetical Berkshire acquisition of Copart, Inc. Owner earnings capitalized at 20× produce a ~$30B intrinsic anchor; the sum-of-the-parts (owner earnings + real estate at market + cash and Treasuries) produces a ~$38B central against a $27.8B market cap. Zero long-term debt; 18.6× TTM P/E on $1.61 EPS. Duopoly scarcity — Moody's / S&P and Coca-Cola / Pepsi are the moat analogs. BNSF (2010, ~$44B) and Precision Castparts (2016, ~$37B) are the acquirer precedents. Founder Willis Johnson (79) and returning CEO Jay Adair (son-in-law) supply the family-succession configuration Berkshire has repeatedly paid up for. Two drivers: GEICO integration margin capture (~$135M/year) and international consolidation at Berkshire capital cost (~$110M/year mature) — +$245M annual value creation vs. baseline. Recommended Scenario B at 1.15× (~$32B EV). Not a rumor. Not investment advice.
See the Berkshire Read for the editorial home and the Institute's ongoing Berkshire franchise.
In 2013, Michael Dell took his company private alongside Silver Lake with a personal equity check of about $4.6 billion. Thirteen years later — through the 2016 EMC/VMware deal, the 2018 re-listing, the 2021 VMware spin, and the 2023 Broadcom transaction — that stake is worth roughly $202 billion to him, a ~44x multiple of money at roughly a 34% IRR. We cross-check against Bloomberg's independent ~$212 billion mark and use the journey to teach LBO structure, control, and why the hardest discipline in the deal was simply not selling.
Fox Corporation agreed to acquire Roku for $160.00 per share — an equity price of ~$24.2B and an enterprise value of ~$21.8B, about 85% of Fox's own market value. The price is a strategic multiple (~4.6x revenue, ~$218 per household, ~45x free cash flow) on a breakeven-EBITDA business, funded with ~$12B of new debt that takes leverage from under 1x to ~3.3x. The right asset, at a full price — and it carries a second lesson next door in what it implies Disney's media is worth.
Berkshire Hathaway’s May 31, 2026 acquisition of Taylor Morrison Home Corporation (NYSE: TMHC) walked at flagship depth. 80pp combined package, 36pp standalone case study, 12pp Library Crosswalk, 10-tab Excel deal model, 16-slide IC deck. Modest 1.08x book, 6.6x trailing Adj. EBITDA, all-cash from the ~$397B war chest, owner-CEO (Sheryl Palmer) stays. The Berkshire-discipline deal in unfamiliar clothing — production homebuilding is new for Berkshire; the price discipline is textbook. Greg Abel is signaling a Clayton-Homes-plus-TMHC site-built housing platform, not a one-off buy. Press kit, briefs, and story-angle hooks for journalists at baratelliinstitute.com/berkshire-read.html.
Berkshire’s first-ever Google position surfaced quietly — ~17.85M shares (~$4.3B) in the Q3 2025 13F — then, in Greg Abel’s debut quarter as CEO, Berkshire roughly tripled it to ~58M shares for a ~$15.4B cost basis (~$16.6B market value), funded in the same window it was trimming Apple. Pro forma for the separate $10B June 2026 placement, total committed capital is ~$25.4B — a top-five-caliber holding. The read: a fair, middle-of-the-pack valuation (~29x earnings, below Apple/Amazon/Nvidia despite faster growth) — not distress, not euphoria. The break from pattern is the sector; the discipline is textbook. Full package — case study, IC memo, 3-statement model, and deck — free below.
In April 2020 Buffett sold Berkshire’s entire airline book — Delta, United, American, Southwest — at a loss and called it “a mistake.” In Greg Abel’s first quarter as CEO, Berkshire bought back in: a brand-new ~$2.65B, 6.1% stake in Delta, its 14th-largest holding, filed as a passive 13G. The read: a consolidated airline sector now throws off real free cash flow, and Delta — its best operator — is deleveraging while it does. The Q1 net loss that might scare you is a non-operating accounting artifact; read the financials, not the headline. Full package — case study, IC memo, 3-statement model, and deck — free below.
Berkshire has owned Coca-Cola since 1988 and has not sold a share in 37 years; a fixed 400M-share stake has drifted to ~9.3% of the company purely through buybacks, and the ~$1.3B cost basis throws off ~$816M a year in dividends — a yield-on-cost north of 60%. The read: a wide-moat permanent holding fairly priced at ~26x, where the right action is to hold, not add. The teaching core is the IRS transfer-pricing dispute buried in the filings — a ~$14B exposure across 2010–2025, a $520M reserve, an effective-tax-rate effect of ~3.5 points, and a 3M v. Commissioner appeal that swings the odds. We quantify it as a managed tail risk and use it to teach how to read a tax footnote. Full package — case study, IC memo, 3-statement model, and deck — free below.
The Institute’s original Read franchise. Flagship Case 1 walks the May 31, 2026 $8.5B Taylor Morrison Home Corporation (TMHC) acquisition — 1.08x book, 6.6x EBITDA, owner-CEO retained. Beyond the flagship, the Berkshire Read houses the ongoing “If We Ran Berkshire” series — practitioner reads on companies Berkshire could buy at the same discipline (Penske Automotive, Copart, Comcast NBCU) plus reads on existing Berkshire equity positions (Alphabet, Delta, Coca-Cola) with combined PDFs, Excel models, and decks. Cases ship when they stand up to the depth every Berkshire Read holds to — late and right, not fast and shallow. Editorial framing: Berkshire Hathaway is a widely followed public filer; the Read is an independent editorial franchise, not a Berkshire-branded product. Free editorial franchise — the Institute’s product is the library, not a Berkshire-branded product.
Josh D'Amaro succeeded Bob Iger as CEO of the Walt Disney Company in mid-March 2026. The Disney Case franchise launches with the Business Map — parks, movies, streaming, ESPN, cruise ships, international, merchandising/licensing, hotels, food service, logistics, supply chain, HR, M&A history, IP as intangible asset, capital allocation, family succession, brand ubiquity, AI — each mapped to the Institute guide that teaches the underlying discipline. The flagship case “D'Amaro Decoded” walks the three pillars across all eighteen businesses; target publication June–July 2026. Editorial framing: The Walt Disney Company is a widely recognized public filer, which makes it a productive teaching subject for an independent editorial study. Free editorial franchise — the Institute’s product is the library, not a Disney-branded product.
SpaceX priced at $135.00 on June 12, 2026 — about $1.78 trillion — ran to $2.97 trillion inside four sessions, and round-tripped in ten weeks. The Institute’s S-1 reading, published 24 hours after filing, is left standing unedited and graded against the first Form 10-Q. The price-band framework held; the $1.55T base case was roughly 13% low; and the call that Space would grow as a sum-of-the-parts segment was flatly wrong — Space revenue declined while the company grew 54%. The scorecard publishes the misses alongside the hits.
A practitioner read of Lyft at $13.90: $1.12B TTM FCF vs. $5.28B market cap. Buybacks reduced FY2025 share count ~18M despite the $322M GAAP SBC charge. EV/FCF ~4.1x. Probability-weighted central estimate $25.83 / share. The Founder's View walks through why the AV bull narrative — Lyft owns the fleet — likely inverts the value thesis into a Hertz / Avis fleet-operator multiple. Three engines (DCF + comps + SOTP + NOL), every number traced to a 10-K page.
A practitioner read of CLF at $11.23 at the cycle trough. Trough FY2025 Adj. EBITDA of $37M makes EV/EBITDA mathematically meaningless — the real floor comes from ~$25-35B replacement value for the integrated BF/BOF + iron ore + DRI footprint vs. $14.8B EV, plus the $4.827B federal NOL ($1.10/sh PV), plus strategic-buyer + asset-sales math, plus through-cycle EBITDA of $1.5-2.0B (not $37M). The Founder's View: CLF reads less like a steel producer at trough EBITDA and more like an irreplaceable strategic asset on the US reshoring trade.
A practitioner read of Fiserv (FI): the acquiring economics, the ISO/agent channel, the Clover platform, the cross-sell into the core-processing bank base, the FCF conversion, and the capital return posture. Every number traced to the 10-K.
A practitioner read of Herbalife: the Ackman short thesis, the Icahn long thesis, the FTC settlement, the distributor economics, the capital structure, and the walk of what changed and what didn’t. Presented as an activist-history case study, not a rating.