Latest news with #Engler
CNBC
14-05-2025
- Business
- CNBC
Rising hedge fund stars at Sohn give their top investment ideas, including one that can rally nearly 50%
A handful of hedge fund founders took the stage Wednesday at the 2024 Sohn Investment Conference in New York to share their best investment ideas. The conference — one of the most anticipated hedge fund events of the year — kicked off with "Next Wave Sohn," a session that features ideas from leaders in the hedge fund industry. Here are their picks: Alexandra Engler, managing partner of Arene Capital, pitched Celanese as a top pick primed for sharp gains ahead. Celanese is the world's largest producer of acetic acid and the most vertically integrated large Western producer of the compound, which drives a "durable cost advantage" for the company, according to Engler. Her fund focuses on what she called "idiosyncratic dislocations," or situations where securities experience sudden sell-offs due to secular disruptions. Celanese shares have suffered a nearly 24% decline this year as the price of methanol — a substantial input cost in acetic acid prices — has been spiking for about 18 months due to global supply shortages. Engler sees the stock rising to $79 per share, implying 45.9% upside from Tuesday's close. The hedge fund founder is betting on a global deficit of methanol to increase over the next three years, requiring the U.S. to increase production and drive higher methanol prices. That, in turn, should lead to a 30% price increase in U.S. acetic prices by 2028 from current levels, according to Engler's forecast. "We believe acetic acid capacity utilization in the U.S. has bottomed," Engler said. "With capacity stabilized, we believe higher methanol will drive higher acetic acid prices." Robinhood is what Kristov Paulus calls a "hypercompetitor," a company that builds products fast, has a strong vision and bold leaders that he believes are underestimated by Wall Street. Robinhood is Kultura Capital Management's largest position. "Even in a more negative macro situation, this is quite reasonably priced," said Paulus, the fund's founder and CIO. "Underwriting this business is a hypercompetitor. This is betting on the organizations that are more likely to surprise us on the upside with products that not even we are thinking of." Robinhood has plenty of growth catalysts and "considerable room to grow as they close the gap with incumbents," Paulus said. "This organization is executing better than they ever have before, and we see many different ways that they can be successful." Paulus said Robinhood's product velocity has picked up in the last 18 months after stalling in 2021 and 2022, and that the company also has seen its customer retention rate rise since the GameStop mania in 2021. Another durable tailwind for Robinhood is the expected wealth transfer from "baby boomers" to millennial and Gen Z individuals. Paulus said the company is the the most popular brokerage among millennial and Gen Z investors in the U.S.. Robinhood also stands to grow from its highly accretive crypto offerings and expansion into retirement and international verticals, he said. Robinhood shares have jumped more than 65% this year, rallying 25% just this month. Fintech company nCino, which provides cloud-based software used by banks and financial institutions, is at a unique growth inflection point, according to Felis Advantage founder Connie Lee. Lee said nCino shares are attractively valued, trading at a 50% discount to vertical software peers due to challenges she views as being temporary. For example, nCino is currently changing its pricing to be based on a bank's asset size, rather than loan officers employed. This, she said, should help accelerate the business given that the company has a significant market share of U.S. banks with $1 billion or more in assets. "nCino is a high quality business with a dominant position in a large underpenetrated market, yet it trades at a steep discount compared to peers due to a confluence of one-time events," Lee said, adding that the company "presents a particularly asymmetric risk-reward." "For nCino customers, nCino is one of the most important pieces of software within the technology stack. It literally drives their revenue engine. So as you can imagine, nCino is very sticky, deeply embedded and mission-critical for those customers," Lee said. What's more, Lee views nCino as a tariff and recession-proof stock and named the stock an "AI winner" in a world of dynamic complex banking regulations. Shares of nCino are down 28% this year. VictoryArc Holdings founder and CIO Joseph Talia believes Tel-Aviv Stock Exchange, or TASE, is an under-the-radar play that can triple over the next five years. "TASE is a monopoly financial infrastructure asset that we think can compound intrinsic value in the mid-20s for many years to come, aided in part by a margin expansion opportunity," Talia said. "TASE' products are still priced at a massive discount to global peers." "In many ways, it is a supermarket for the capital markets of Israel — except it is the only game in town," he added, noting that Israel's real GDP has compounded 4% over the last 35 years and is home to underdeveloped capital markets. Talia believes that TASE offers a diversified and durable revenue stream, and said that exchanges, such as TASE, act as essential infrastructure assets with earnings streams that are generally uncorrelated to the market and broader economy.
Middle East Eye
25-02-2025
- Politics
- Middle East Eye
Canadian pro-Palestinian activist released from jail says free speech under threat
A Canadian activist and author was released after five days in prison following accusations by an anti-Palestinian media personality that he had harassed her, and his refusal to stay quiet about his case. Yves Engler was taken into custody on the morning of 20 February in Montreal and spent five days in Bordeaux prison in Montreal before being released Monday after a court appearance. Thousands of people signed letters asking for the charges to be dropped, and more than 100 people turned out to support the author - who has been a long-term critic of Canadian foreign policy and its military-industrial complex – at court. Speaking to Middle East Eye on Tuesday from his home in Canada, Engler said he was 'feeling good'. 'Jail was unpleasant, but it wasn't traumatic for me, although I appreciate it's traumatic for others. It's a dehumanising place. New MEE newsletter: Jerusalem Dispatch Sign up to get the latest insights and analysis on Israel-Palestine, alongside Turkey Unpacked and other MEE newsletters 'I think the key issue is I had to go to jail for five days to win the right to (publicly) criticise charges brought against me. The police, and then the crown, wanted to restrict my right to write about my case. When I wrote about it, they claimed I was harassing the police. I was in jail for five days over a technical condition. When I went on Thursday morning, they could have processed and let me go.' Engler's detainment is part of a larger crackdown on free speech in Canada, he says. 'Less than two weeks ago, I spoke on a webinar with a lawyer from the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association, and it was titled, The New McCarthyism in Canada,' he said. 'It was all about the targeting of those opposing Canadian complicity in Israel's apartheid and genocide. We went through a whole bunch of examples of people who've been targeted. Canada has, for more than a century, provided all kinds of support for Zionism and for Palestinian dispossession. The targeting of those opposing Israel's crimes is just one of the innumerable ways that Canada has assisted in Palestinian dispossession.' 'Double standard' Engler said there had never been as much of a popular uprising against Canada's involvement in international crimes as there has been over the past 16 months. He says law enforcement's tactics were partly a response to the scope of the activism. 'It's disturbing. Obviously, the battle against genocide and the battle for free speech are quite interconnected.' He says that the key aim was to chill activism. 'I am concerned this sends a chill. I think there are lots of people who are scared. I sometimes think it's healthy. But then sometimes people go beyond a healthy fear to a paranoia that's beyond the reality of our dynamics, and that can restrict their activism." Engler says that his five days in jail are inconsequential compared to what thousands of Palestinian prisoners endure, sometimes for decades on end. John Philpot, Engler's lawyer, said he was pleased with the result. 'The right thing happened. He got out last night, which was very heartwarming. Free speech prevailed, which is a burning issue. 'We see a double standard in the legal process and the political process," Philpot said. US-Canada jointly target pro-Palestinian Samidoun, labelling it a 'sham charity' Read More » Speaking about the case, Philpot said that Dahlia Kurtz had lodged an initial complaint against Engler last summer, which the police dismissed. However, further to Neil Oberman, a lawyer and Conservative Party candidate, picking up the case in December, police brought charges against Engler. Philpot said that Oberman has been involved in making injunctions against pro-Palestinian protestors in Montreal. Philpot said that in a minor case such as Engler's, police would normally ask the person being charged not to contact the person filing charges again, but police imposed additional conditions on Engler. 'In her (Kurtz's) case, the police wanted to impose conditions not to talk, not to discuss the case on social media, and not to discuss the name of the person on social media,' Philpot added. He said Engler refused these conditions and was penalised accordingly. While Engler has been released from jail, he will still appear in court for a hearing on 25 April. 'I'm happy he won. I'm happy that we had support, and I'm happy we had a judge who understood the issues, 'Philpot said. 'We insist the charges be dropped against him and that he'll be reimbursed for five days in prison. So that's where we are at right now.'
Middle East Eye
20-02-2025
- Politics
- Middle East Eye
Prominent Canadian activist and author arrested for pro-Palestinian activism
A Canadian activist and author, who has been likened to Noam Chomsky, was arrested by police in Montreal, Canada, on Thursday for criticising Israel and accusations of harassment from a pro-Israeli influencer. Yves Engler has been a voracious critic of Israel and the Canadian military complex for over two decades. After Montreal Police reached out to him about their plans to arrest Engler because of a complaint lodged against him by Zionist influencer Dahlia Kurtz, he took to social media to highlight the issue. While he admitted he had responded to Kurtz's "racist, violent, anti-Palestinian posts" on X, he said he had not harassed her. 'I've never met Kurtz. Nor have I messaged or emailed her. Nor have I threatened her. I don't even follow her on X (Twitter's algorithm puts her posts in my feed).' After Engler posted about his arrest and the allegations made against him, the Canadian Foreign Policy Institute organised an action campaign, and almost 3,200 people, by the time of publishing, had written to the Montreal police asking them to drop charges against Engler. New MEE newsletter: Jerusalem Dispatch Sign up to get the latest insights and analysis on Israel-Palestine, alongside Turkey Unpacked and other MEE newsletters This appeared to result in further disciplinary charges for Engler. He wrote in another post yesterday that the police reached out to him with further charges for 'harassing [them] for writing about the charges levelled against me' and asking him not to speak about his case. The father of two was taken into custody at 9:30am local time and appeared before a judge on Thursday afternoon. He will spend the night in jail, and a bail hearing has been set for Friday. 'Attack' on free expression Alex Tyrrell, party leader of the Green Party of Quebec, who accompanied Engler to the police station on Thursday, spoke to the Middle East Eye about Engler's arrest. 'I think it's a shocking attack on free expression and democratic rights and criticism of Israel in Canada - a country that's supposed to be a free, democratic society. We're supposed to speak out about a genocide," Tyrrel told MEE. Tyrell says that Engler is one of the most outspoken people in Canada on the Israel-Palestine issue, and Kurtz's accusations formed the basis of his arrest. Tyrrell expressed concern that Engler was being taken away from his advocacy work and was being forced to use his personal and professional time to defend himself. The party leader said he had known Engler for more than a decade and had gotten to know him through his criticisms of Israel and his work with the Boycott, Divest and Sanctions campaign targeting Israel. Both men had appeared on each other's podcasts, and Tyrrell said he would see Engler at protests. Engler has written 12 books, mainly focusing on Canada's foreign policy with countries such as Haiti, Africa and Israel. 'Yves has a very tough personality and is used to confronting some of the most important people in the country. He was in good spirits and is defiant and intends to bring publicity to his case,' Tyrrell told MEE. Neither Montreal Police nor the law firm representing Kurtz responded to MEE's request for comment by the time of publication. Repression in Canada Activists have said that there has been an institutional culture of repression against the pro-Palestine movement in Canada. Both politicians and the police have been instrumental in cracking down on the pro-Palestinian movement. For example, the Calgary Police Service arrested protest organiser and Palestinian-Canadian activist Wesam Khaled in November 2023, charging him with disturbing the peace for using the phrase, 'From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free." Nobel Peace Prize nominee Jeff Halper has said that close ties between Canadian Police and Israel, as well as Israeli military research, have resulted in a crackdown on civil liberties in the country. During a talk at Concordia University in Montreal a decade ago, the Israeli-American anthropologist said, 'Israel is involved in your prison systems. It's involved in training the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. It's involved in your airport security.' Canadian healthcare professionals have also faced backlash for speaking out. In December 2023, University of Ottawa medical resident and doctor Yipeng Ge faced criticism after posting pro-Palestinian content on social media and was suspended from his residency. He resigned from the Canadian Medical Association board of directors, citing "bullying, harassment, and intimidation".
