One that moved stocks, if not the markets themselves. Theres one stock on the move today, apple, another all time high. You know, josh, this is becoming a recuring theme. Market opens, apple hits a new high. Qs hit a new high. Heres whats interesting about apple that i dont think a lot of people have proseccoed. Apple made a market cap all time high in february 2015. And then even though price continued higher eventually, its not until friday that apple repeated and made a new market. Thats because of all the buybacks, so it really took two years for apple to become worth more than it was in february 2015 and now were through that level, 790 billion, the most astonishing thing i could point out, this was a stock that is now up 31 year to date. Far outpacing year to date anything going on with the dow, s p, people thought this was a consensus. It will do what the market does. Very, very far from it, my friends. Wyche, this is becoming get in the way of this at your pe l peril. You came to that realization six, eight weeks ago. Youfr added. Theres no trade ever, but as you go through the risk, the whole spectrum, this comes close, so what can happen . The next quarter, throw away quarter, because new iphone wont be out then, so the only question you have to request ask yourself is how much upside will be left. How much has been brought forward . I dont think much because i think the market is going to the market 50 years ago, now, the nifty five to ten. Apple being one, alphabet, netflix, amazon being the other, so you have to bring those to perform. Well see the street, just increase their price target to stay involved. The numbers to wyches point, but they better be good for the new impb iphone. Tim cook said he thinks people are delaying their puchs, so that is increasing the anticipation, so when the numbers come out, the numbers are going to be massive and they sure better be with everybody and their brother coming out. For that quarter, i think were looking at 85 million con secensus on iphone. Anything above 90, thats going to be fantastic and propel the stock higher. I think steve and josh bring out good points. Its almost as if these five stocks are becoming their own index. I read a note from Goldman Sachs suggesting evaluations a bit high right now. I dont know if thats a strategy you want to align yourself with now because clearly, the Services Business is accelerating. Youre an miss tating whats Going Forward in the iphone. Going back to joshs thoughts on the market cap, the price of the stock was around 133 at this point. That gives you a great point of reference to stay in this name, stay long and thats the move i think. This name and the other at a 790 billion market cap, 250 in cash give or take and i understand theres debt there. Just arguably, its like a third of the market cap is cash they can do things with. If not. Continue to repurchase, maybe raise the dividend. In the meanwhile sh you have buffett this weekend talking about apple and google. Hes referring to these as capital light investments. Meaning they deserve a higher multiple because they are not as cash intensive as the types of businesses that berkshire has e invested in, where you need enormous amounts of capital just to an rate. Hes b poining o these new businesses operating in a very different way. I know in its crazy expensive. Should we be scrutinizing the market maore than we are in ter of the leadership . It was to narrow before and here we are again, we talk about apple, facebook, netflix, consolidates just below record highs. Its a function frankly of how the market trades. On irrelevant value. We look at where the value cheap versus where its expensive. I was reading numbers today. This is the best revenue, best quarter of revenue and earnings beats that weve seen in 13 years. Can you imagine if we get something out of washington, we go into hyper drive. We are so starved for Revenue Growth. The earnings were beating left and right for the last several since 2011, Revenue Growth up 9 and you get a company like apple that we heard about china, china was a little bit weak. Petes done an excellent job talking about india, up 20 . And lock at where we are. You want to sell the market with a vix below ten now . Below ten. Thats a cop ver sags in and of itself. Lets stick with apple. Drexel hamilton raising its price target to 22 a share. Its not the highest target on the street. Brian white is the analyst behind the call. Brian, welcome back to the Halftime Report. Hi, scott. Youre being bullish is not a new story, but thousand, more so, why . I think what were starting to see her are the dark clouds around this valuation on apple, which has been with this company for several years start tog part wiis, so sentiment is starting to change and we have four pi pillars Going Forward. Iphone 8. Valuation 11 times x cash ch capital return. We heard about it last week, but its not done and new innovations on the horizon. So i think the market is starting to get it. But its still early stages. I think theres plenty of upside left. Is that one of the most underrated stories here, the capital urn, the dividend is big. The buybacks are bigger than people even realize. Theyre going to return 300 million by march 19. But i think if repatriation policies go through, i think they could do a little bit more and that would most lickly be around the dividend, so i dont think the capital return story is over. Remember, apple generates 50 to 60 billion in Free Cash Flow a year. Yeah, you got to hope that the eight is really big, right . Tim cook speaking on the most recent earning call saying weve seen a delay. We think its because of all these rumors about when were going to launch a 8. They better live up to the hype, right . It should be a great launch. Now, you know, we were just in taiwan and china a couple of weeks ago. And i can tell you, the buzz around there, whether its a supplier, whether its a competitor, whether its customers buying iphone 8 is is very, very high. And the last time i saw it this big was with the 6 in the fall of 2014. Now, whats interesting, were only modeling about 14 iphone growth. For physical 17. And if you remember the iphone 6 drove about 37 unit growth. So our numbers are pretty conservative going into what i think will be a big cycle here. Yeah, what if estimates and expectations are too big relative to china . I think chinas starting to turn the corner, i really do. They grew over 80 in china in fiscal 15, then fell off in 16. This year, theyre still going to decline, but fiscal 18 will pick up. I think the demand for iphone 8 is going to be very, very strong and remember, weve got this massive tail wind. Not just from china, but its coming from elsewhere in asia and eventually, india, the rise of the middle class. 80 of these people entering this class are coming from asia. Sxwl apples carrying a lot of weight today. 152 a share. Up two and a third percent. Thanks for coming b on. Talk to you soon. Over the next several hours, this conference will be packed with attendees. Leslie picker will be following all the money here today at sohn. Theyve already started. The ideas are rolling. Theyre already moving mashlgts. We saw the next wave presenter, emerging managers look to be part of the bigger presentation in the future. We had some interesting picks so far. One zylinks. It has a 70 upside in the future and another one that moving, gigamon, which does network trafficking. Thats up quite significantly, not just because david thomas recommended it, but because elliot management happened to disclose a 15 stake this morning. One of the most exciting things, bill ackman taking the stage later. David einhorn as well. Ackman said hes got a couple of new investments, can can only wonder if this is going to be the stage where he unveils them. One would hope that would be the case. Whether he discloses one or both picks, thats something well be watching and this is the perfect platform for him to do Something Like that. Well wait and see. Going to be an exciting day. I know youll be following the money. Well hear from you in a little bit. We have a lolt more ahead from the Halftime Report. Next on live from the sohn Investment Conference. Brad is one of the biggest in s investors in united airlines. Get his thoughts on the problems, the solutions, the ceo and the stock. Hes also a major investor in another company with trouble, uber. And later, Keith Meister fresh off revealing his big surprise stock pick. The Halftime Report, live from the Investment Conference is back in two minutes. Trz i count on my dell Small Business advisor for tech advice. With one phone call, i get products that suit my needs and i get back to business. But weve got the get tdigital tools to help. Now with xfinitys my account, you can figure things out easily, so you wont even have to call us. Change your wifi password to something you can actually remember, instantly. Add that premium channel, and watch the show everyones talking about, tonight. And the bill you need to pay . Do it in seconds. Because we should fit into your life, not the other way around. Go to xfinity. Com myaccount. Welcome back live Halftime Report from the sohn conference in new york city today. Were joined by brad, his firm focuses on travel opportunities investing in public and private companies. Well talk about both today. Welcome back. Good to see you. Our annual right of passage here. Lets talk about united, because thats the company youre most closely identified with, at least in our eyes. What do you make of whats going on there . The events have been b frustra frustrating. But i think the company has done the right things now. Theyve got arpd to the right apology, too late, but they got it right. Theyve moved forward. By raisinge ining the limits to 10,000, were moving beyond the situation that happened with dr. Dao and frankly, i think its accelerating the trends at the company to put the consumer first. Was there a time when you were questioning whether oscar moou munos should remain ceo . I think hes the most disappointed with how this was hannmanaged. We have confidence in oscar, but more importantly, we built an Incredible Team you know, at the board level. Scott kirby. Andrew levi, et cetera, so the its not just one person running united. Immediately after this happened, you did not sound as though you were 100 in munos corner. You talk ed to the company, tol them how upset you were. You tweeted im disgusted how police treated a united passenger last night in chicago. I have no doubt the Company Shares these views. Thats the important point. I had talked to the company. I thought they did share my views. I thought they were clumsy in how they responded to this, but oscar made it clear, how he, too, was disgusted but now, hes made the right steps to put p customer first. When we look back, there may be a silver lining, which is a company that wasnt doing the right things by customers in every instance is really reexamining all the things theyre doing, whether the fees theyre charging customers or whether its denied boardings. I think it will all improve. He wont be chairman now. Is that the right move . Oscar raised his own hand and said i want to voluntarily leave it up to the board. They get to decide whos chairman. Weve been on record from the beginning. I dont think its a good idea to have the same person as ceo and chairman of united, so i was happy to see him take that step. Are you still all in on the Airline Business . We had buffett on for three atlee hours. A brutal business. He was being positive because he said it used to be suicidal. Ipg charlie monger said itd well. It well. This was a business that for 80 years was a really bad business and now, due to the consolidation, charlie said it looks more like the railroad business. It trades at less than half the multiple of the railroad business. For an industry with 20 ebitda margins. Theyre going to have to prove over the next three years they have durability of earnings and they can eliminate the volatility of the industry. We think they will, but the jury is out. And not to add too much, but in fairness, buffett mongers first exposure was u. S. Air, they thought long and hard an came back to it. No matter what theyre saying is tremendous. Let me ask you a question. So, ive looked at your phone quite a bit. Track records phenfphenomenal. You invest in Software Solution and in trouble. Or bits, et set rachlt youve got a unique advantage point. What do you see whats going on . I see these big trends around electronics, the shift of the cloud. All these trends are accelerating. We have 2 billion supercomputers in our product. The thing thats hard is to model out reaccelerating growth. Everybody on wall street models out deaccelerating growth and so, if you get the edge and you can model out growth at amazon reaccelerating, at google, maintaining growth over 20 for a longer period of time than everybody else, then you can make an Investment Case they missed. We see those trends reaccelerating. Take offline to online. Over the last 12 month, amazon has added 40 wl of retail sales. Tas more than the next 50 companies combined. You said in a tweet Proof Positive that online retailers are in full on panic mode. Is that code for im short a lot of names as im long amazon . We dont talk about our shorts, but im glad you follow me on twirt. Thats where you come on. Your best new se s comes out wi twitter. Anybody observing whats going on in the world today, weve had nine retail bankruptcies this year. The malls are under pressure. This is not linear, right . The reacceleration is changing the game. The largest commerce category in the world is travel. Its a trillion dollar commerce category. Alibaba is not in it. Amazons not in it. We have a global duopoly between expedia and price line. I think 10 of the way there. 10 of the shift has occurred today, so long runways for these companies. Wide runways and now, we have competitive motes. Is it a positive for stock investors in general for the economy for Corporate America that every one of these industries seemed to want to end up in a winner take all mode. How does a Smaller Company up . I believe were also happy for investors, invest in the category, right . If you believe its going to be a big category where investors in price line, expedia, in air bnb, i think the category will more than double over the next three to four years. Lets talk tech. It is as we said, you identified with the airlines, most exposed sector is technology. What do you make of whats happened with the nasdaq. Is this justified . Is is it, does it feel good for the market . We did an analysis of 2011, 71 of all internet value was in the top five companies. That was the same as it was in 2005. By 2016, it was 91 of all the value in internet was in five global companies. It makesceps to me. And honestly, i think its going to continue in that direction because the only people on the planet who can do Machine Learning and ai scale are these large platforms. We were investors in dynamic, twilio. Theyre built on top of the cloud. Looking at them as utilities, theyre renting the data, the capability for other businesses to be built. As a follower of the u. S. Economy, i think the productivity gains of the next ten to 20 years on the back of the cloud as every Industrial Company moves to the cloud, i think this means hundreds of millions of dollars for incremental airlines as an example. They havent even begun to transition. Is there a danger as we saw with the bells with the last utility, they break them up. Under the trump administration, which is very business friendly, probably doesnt happen with amazon and google, have such motes around their businesses. We know whats happened in europe. Will that happen here . As a country, weve looked unfavorably on unnatural monopolies and favorable on natural monopolies. Theyre getting there through innovation. I hope they dont break these companies up. As you said, compute and storage utilities, i think this is going to enable massive not the least of which are the Industrial Companies that can lever and take advantages of the massive investments that googles made, akso amazon. What do you make of mark cuban jumping in on twitter, saying theyre finally sort of getting Machine Learning and all the trends where technology is going. That first. And then snap. I always follow mark cuban, whatever he invests in. The interesting news to me, the bloomberg deal. Ive always thought of twitter more like bloomberg. I think it would make sense for those two business to be together as an xal pm, but im not chasing after. Youre not in twitter. Were not. What was the second question. Snap. Its an interesting one. The basic investment these es on the buy side in snap is that montization will increase on all these users. It will follow a Facebook Like trend line and if it does, its goirng to be worth tens of billions more than it is today. So youre not an investor. Were not. Is is social media exciting to you as a place to invest . Sure. A few years ago, facebook, were multiple year investors in facebook. One of our biggest, biggest returns after a firm. I view social as an integral part of the fabric of all these companies. Ultimately, its about do we have the data that allows us to provide an intelligent assistant many your pocket, in your home before you ask it. There are only five companies that can do that. Only five that have the data. Elon would say its google first. Jeff bezos says there will be multiple assistance. Lets bring it full circle in a sense. Unit ed at the top of our conversation, being scrutinizeded like never before. As is uriber, which you are an investor in. Obviously, you have a high threshold for pain. Youve been an investor for a long time. Weve been investing in Technology Companies like uber for 15 years and when i look over that history, theres always volatility. In high growth companies. And its hard for management to scale these companies without hiccup hiccups. We bill bild our firm on the back of longterm views about technology trends. The endowments and family offices. They get the concentration, they accept the volatility, in return for what we think are meaningful outsized returns. Uber, not with standing all the noise. Tens of billions of dollars of revenue growing fast, not with standing this. If im on the short side of anything, im on b the short side of all the Global Transportation industry like taxis who are trying to compete. Will have a real time ticker. Thats the best part of the investment. I want to ask you about that. Lets go there. Are they ever going to go public . Oh, absolutely. I think this idea that uber and air bnb wont go public. If they see autonomous driving as the future, but not have to pay for the cars maintain them. How do they get over this thing where they dont have a fleet if you see the actual auto manufacture manufacturers. There is going to be a lot of dislocation, there will probably be consolidation and partnerships that come together. Theyre a come nant global brand in Global Transportation. Im betting on. So, i dont see apple in your holding. We look at apple, they have gained dominant share among the user base, its not dwroeing that quickly today. And so, i think its like buffett said this morning, when you have a Company Worth over a half a trillion dollar, its hard to see the type of investment returns that weve come to expect. Back to ub er for a moment. To they need nor adults in the room . Should traffic continue with this company . Companies face issues. These are hard businesses. You have hurricandreds of millif passengers. I think travis raised his hand. Said ive missed the mark on culture. And again, i think sooner than later, youre going to see Team Adjustments at uber that are going to add to the mix, but i have all the confidence in the world that this brand is going to continue. Most important thing, because its an app with zero switching costs. I could use uber or lyft. Cost me nothing to go back and forth. Most of the people who track this data will tell you, lyft gained some share. By april, all shares had shifted back to uber. I spend my time trying to tune out the noise and find signal. So we gather massive amount of data. We ach you guys. Before you got here, what are you most excited about right now . Thats not out there . Snow flake. Its in the Data Warehousing architecture of the cloud, so Companies Moving t. O. Cloud are putting their data in this data warehouse. The offline analog. Run by bob, who ran microsoft for 20 years. The guys who built the oracle colonel are the guys who built this technology. Only been in market for 12 months and is growing tens of millions of dollars of revenue very quickly. Would you put new money to work in the market a theet lefls . How often are you buying stocks . First, i dont put money into the market. I put it into individual companies. Just a few weeks ago, there was a shake in united. Every panicked over the situation. It was unfortunate. We bought more united. We tend to add more to our hold, occasionally, over the course of the year, we hope to find five to eight on the public, private side. Were not trading things every day. Were really putting big bets behand. Zpl one of the things you hear and you hear it more about the airlines probably than any other industry is that because now 40 of the market is indexed, looks like its headed to 50. It almost dont matter specifically what each airline does say to their customers because the speed with which united was brought back, people say well vanguards buying them all any way and every dollar coming into the market of net new money is vanguard or i shares. Where do you stand on that . Is that perverting capitalism . On the margin its still people betting on companies. The fact that united went down is a bit irrational. The company has talked and released updated numbers since then. The numbers are incredibly strong. Ipg anybody who looks add the situation would say weve seen instances like this in the past. Theyre unfortunate, we dont like them, but they rare ly hav a lasting impact. They said theyll be fine, ill buy it. I would be surprised. Theyve had a tough time managing share holler, reporters. Stocks literally cut in half, a little bit of an uptrend now. We think thats a ridiculous valuation for this company. We think it should be closer to 100 today and if you look at threeyear price target, its north of that. Ry thai recruited am dam, he built aws. He chose to go to this company. Ooumplt im sure he had other ceo opportunities. You look at the recently announced numbers and how theyre making the transition to the cloud. Are more dogs eating the dog food and are they willing to pay more from it . Adobe is the poster child. Goes from selling a product to selling a service and the stock doubles. Literally. Only mistake i made is not buying more. Well leave it there. Got to run. Keith meister is presenting his best idea as we speak. Were going to talk to him about it. Once hes done. Well get his latest moves and his take on passive investing as well. Big conversation on that topic. Lots more ahead from the sohn conference here in new york city. Dear predictable, theres no other way to say this. Its over. Ive found a permanent escape from monotony. Together, we are perfectly balanced, our senses awake, our hearts racing as one. I know this is sudden, but they say if you love something. Set it free. See you around, giulia welcome to holiday inn whether for big meetings or little getaways, there are always smiles ahead at holiday inn. Apparently, i kept her up all night. She said the future freaks her out. How come no one likes me, jim . Intel does just think of everything intels doing right now with artificial intelligence. And pretty soon ai is going to help executives like her see trends to stay ahead of her competition. No more sleepless nights. Were going to be friends im sorry about this. Dont be embarrassed of me, jim. Im getting excited about this we know the future. Were going to be friends because were building it. Apple, amazon, Warren Buffett weighing in on all three. Were going to go hunting for value. Plurks well take you back live to the sohn conference. Bill ackman gearing up to speak and the french stock market, new highs today as the election there, given the green light for a rally if europe. The euro higher. Halftime report is back after this. Welcome to holiday inn thank you wait, i have something for you making every stay a special stay. Holiday inn, smiles ahead. Whether for big meetings or little getaways, member always save more at holidayinn. Com but we should be seeing more range of motion. K good, im fine. Okay, well lets see you get up from the couch. Im sorry, what . Grandpa come. At cognizant, were uniting doctors, insurers and patients on a collaborative care platform, making it easier to do whats best for everyones health, every step of the way. You may need more physical therapy. Ugh. Am i covered for that . Yep. Look. Grandpa catch grandpa duck woah ha there you go grandpa. Keep doing that. Get ready, because were helping leading Companies Lead with digital. Hello, everyone, im sue herera. Former barack obama warned donald trump against hiring Michael Flynn as his National Security adviser according to three Obama Administration officials. The warning came less than 48 hours after the november election when the two sat down for a 90 minute conversation in the oval office. A day after the french president ial elections, demonstrators took to the streets of paris protesting labor reforms in that country. Police in riot gear had to form lines to keep the crowd u under control. Nigh jeerias president meth the 82 schoolgirls freed sunday from extremists. The girls had been held captive for three years. Five commanders were released in exchange for the girls freedom. According to the Research Firm e marketer, amazon is dominate iing the market for vo controlled speakers. Echo and dot devices, which feature alexa, have about 70 of the u. S. Market. The number of users is expected to double to more than 35. 5 Million People this year. Thats the news update. Halftime report has Keith Meister live from the sohn conference coming up. Think again. This is the new new york. We are building new airports all across the state. New roads and bridges. New mass transit. New business friendly environment. New lower taxes. And new University Partnerships to grow the businesses of tomorrow today. Learn more at esd. Ny. Gov excuse me, are you aware of whats happening right now . Were facing 20 billion security events every day. Ddos campaigns, ransomware, malware attacks. Actually, we just handled all the priority threats. You did that . We did that. Really. We analyzed millions of articles and reports. We can identify threats 50 faster. You can do that . We can do that. Then do that. Can we do that . We can do that. All right, we are back at the sohn Investment Conference waiting for the best and brightest investors to pitch their new ideas. Keith meister on stage. Lets talk about the market. The message were getting from the market. S p, nasdaq hit new highs today. The vix is is under ten. Lowest level in ten years. What in the world is is the vix telling us if anything . I think what the vix is telling us is everyone is running a long volatility strategy and thats why its so important to be here today and le listen to what these gentlemen are doing. How are they navigating in this world, it seems as though most managers are shrelected to a select few stocks. The finding other opportunities is very difficult when you have a vix under ten. Is there a negative to be drawn, complacency and just shockingly high levels at this point or no . I think there is some complacency, clearly. We hear people come on all day long and say im concerned, im concerned. Whats your cash level, a lot hasnt changed much. The real question and real deba debate, does the vix mean what it used to, with so much going on and the volatility being as i said earlier, beneath, whats the vix telling you . Not sure if its a reliable independe indicator. I like brads approach. Which is you invest in stock markets and sell off opportunity, so that way, you dont worry b about the vix. You stay on this Broader Market theme, wasnt that long ago, couple of months ago, when teper was on squawk and talked about his long er term view of the market, that once you get past the french election, its sort of smooth sailing, like wake me up when the tenyear gets to a level i start to get scared about. France is in the year view and yields are still low. When he was talking, he was also talking about how the Global Economy doing much better. Particularly europe. And draghi now, that france is behind him, how much long er ca he stay in full qe mode the answer is, he cant. Hes got to come off that. That will drive our rates higher. Because now, youll be able to invest over in europe there. Youll take the chains off those bank, where they dont have to buy negative yeel. The biggest story of this year so far, if you bought into the trump trade narrative, you are underper foming in a major way. If you bought almost everything else, you are doing spectacul spectacularly well. Health care and tech stocks up. Youre talking about the infrastructure plays and reflati reflation. Theyre terrible. Materials. As a sector. Is down 6 over the last three months. Im going to show you, we popped up centurylink on the screen because thats the stock that keith is pitching in the room behind us, hes going to come out here and sit with us in an exclusive interview once hes done on the stage, which should be in a matter of moments and talk about why he likes that stock. You can see the action in centurylink. A stock you know pretty well. Ive been working on this sector. The issue is and i dont know what hes pitch, but i can guess hes going to say lets divide the company out between the legacy business, which is the old copper line hard line telephone consumer business and we saw that youve got people homes without hard lines at a record level now. Those numbers just came out and the data business in preparation for 5g and you continue to see these massive amounts of data going over and thats what theyve done. They bought lefl three, which is more of a data which he on the stage called game changing. It does raise an interesting question though. Typically, you can see an activist take a position and then urge for a deal. Well, theyre already doing the deal, so whats the activism left. Thats sort of your, to break thats what you think. And thats what i think. Well find out. But i can guarantee you this, that the company has thought about it. Were going to take a quick break. Stay with us. The activist investor, Keith Meister is the founder of corvex. Well talk to him first coming up on the Halftime Report. I count on my dell Small Business advisor for tech advice. With one phone call, i get products that suit my needs and i get back to business. Predictable. The comfort in knowing where things are headed. Because as we live longer. And markets continue to rise and fall. Predictable is one thing you need in retirement to help protect what youve earned and ensure it lasts. Introducing brighthouse financial. A new company established by metlife to specialize in annuities life insurance. Talk to your advisor about a brighter financial future. Im dr. Kelsey mcneely and some day you might be calling me an energy farmer. Energy lives here. Whoa,i just had to push one button to join. Its like im in the office with you, even though im here. Its almost like the Virtual Reality of business communications. No, its reality. Intuitive one touch Video Conferencing is a reality. And now its included at no additional cost with vonage business. Call now and see why 3,000 companies a month are switching to vonage. Business grade. People friendly. I count on my dell small for tech advice. With one phone call, i get products that suit my needs and i get back to business. Welcome back. Its important to remember we are here at the sohn Investment Conference this is a charity event. On that front six new york city area scientists have been awarded the sohn prize for young investigators in cancer research. Bill ackman made the announcement this morning. Two from sloan kettering, one from the icon school of medicine, and the other is from cold spring harbor. Great work by all involved in this conference and certainly what bill ackman is doing, the amount of money that he has put towards this noble cause. Another activist investor, Keith Meister of Corvex Management just stepping in where he pitched his latest big idea. Welcome. Its good to see you again. Secentury link is the name. Why . So today were going to file a 13d in century link after the close, disclose we own about 13 million shares, representing about 5. 5 . Simply put we commend the century link board on doing a gamechanging, transformative deal in merging with and acquiring level three. We think it makes the dividends secure, creates massive Free Cash Flow, and allows the company to become a focused Enterprise TelecomNetwork Infrastructure company that grows. Now the key is to execute. One of the Hidden Assets inside of level three over the last four years has been a Great Management Team had who executed turnaround driven by profitable Revenue Growth and Free Cash Flow per share. That turnaround caused the market cap to go from 4. 5 billion to 24 billion. So now that this merger is done, the key is integrating. We need to get the best from both teams on the field, so we want the best of century link, the ceo, a four decade veteran, lots of knowledge in the history of the business and jeff story, the ceo of level three, together working as executives. The way the merger is anticipated jeff story will be on the board but not be an executive. You want him to be an executive. Thats the bottom line. Ill say it simply. If you bought the new England Patriots you would start tom brady. Century links done a great deal. They have a great team. Lets get our best athletes on the field. We think glenn and jeff working together, have glenn be ceo for a year, jeff president , then have glenn become chairman and jeff ceo, and then jeff chairman. That ensures the best chance of success on integration. If the integration is successful, you get paid a 9 dividend yield, the highest in the s p 500 to wait, while this irreplaceable network has growing data, growing scale, bridged by synergies that trades at a 9 dividend yield that if it traded at 7 yield would have 40 off set. Take the position and then push for the deal. The deal is already done, so its all about for you the next level in this story. So this is great. The deal is done. A deal that was better than the deal we could have dreamed up and we get to buy the stocks cheaper. Century link missed earnings this quarter. They revised down guidance. Frontier, doesnt have that much to do with century link, isnt performing well. All these things that will become irrelevant are driving down a share price when the deal they did they deserve lots of credit for. The company is more. This enterprise with 10 billion, and the deal creates about 1. 5 billion of extra cash flow between synergies and tax savings. If we can take the dna of profitable growth and the opportunity for this to become a mustown Telecom Stock is mass. Verizon and at t are doing other things. Their futures are getting less global. When century links future went from challenge with a dividend payout ratio that would have been over 100 to one pro forma for the deal stays in the mid70s through the decade, can be on the run and then can go acquire other assets, whatever it might be, and continue to be the place where scale maters in telecom. And if you have the best 21st century infrastructure asset it shouldnt be trading at 9 dividend yield. The key is not to get the integration wrong. So one of the reasons were h h highlighting this, we need all stakeholders, management, customers to get a snowball rolling. Wow, wouldnt this be better with jeff and glenn together . We think the board are good actors. We think jeff and glenn are good actors. If we can convince them how much we want them working together with a sensible Succession Plan that has some urgency to it, i think we can ensure that were the best recipe for success and create value. Are you and other big holders on the same page . We havent communicated with any other big holders, but i will say the Pro Forma Company will be 49 owned by level three shareholders. Jeff created 3x multiple on invested capital over the last few years. So im pretty confident that the big level three shareholders would love to see jeff there as, i think, would all century link shareholders. This is right in your whe wheelhouse. I didnt hear your thesis. I just heard were you going to talk about it. I thought you were going to talk about the play is lets combine all the fiber and data assets, get rid of those legacy hard line assets, which is whats been bringing down century link to declining businesses and then get a much higher multiple entity. I think youre exactly right. I think that happens on its own. So when you combine these businesses right now about 55 , 60 is Strategic Revenue that grows. This solves its own problem. If you fast forward to 2020, 2022, the growing revenue stream is 75 . The shrinking revenue stream is 25 . What bridges the gap is the synergies. So what happens is the company and the aggregate goes from shrinking at 1 top line, getting a low multiple, 6 mav and a half times to growing at 2 , having a higher multiple of hopefully seven or eight. You get a 40 premium. I think whats missing is people think of century link as a consumer telecom. It is not. It is the largest enterprise focused Telecom Company with more fiber, more beneficiaries from 5g. And the Revenue Growth from the increased popularity of touching more customers youre talking about now with level three. I would never have pitched century link prior to this deal. The deal is transformative because before the deal your point was correct. They were on a treadmill. A treadmill common for traditional businesses. High margin, not having moany to