2 Bulls, 1 Bear: Sohn Conference Takes On Facebook (FB), GrubHub (GRUB), Box (BOX)

Several of the most respected and successful hedge fund managers in the world descended on New York yesterday for the Sohn Conference, one of the premier global investment conferences, and Insider Monkey founder Ian Dogan was in attendance to share coverage from the event.

Speakers at the event, which supports pediatric cancer research and treatment, included David Einhorn of Greenlight Capital, Glen Kacher of Light Street Capital, and Chamath Palihapitiya of Social Capital. Three of the most prominent stocks pitched at the event were Box Inc (NYSE:BOX), GrubHub Inc (NYSE:GRUB), and Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB), two of which garnered praise from their respective pitchers, while the other…didn’t. We’ll look at those pitches and the investors behind them below.

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GrubHub Inc (NYSE:GRUB)

The online food ordering company was pitched by Li Ran, the CEO of Half Sky Capital, and represented one of several stocks pitched at the event that had strong ties to Millenials. Ran called one slide, which showed that restaurant sales growth is outpacing grocery store spending growth, the “Millenials can’t cook” chart. Ran expects GrubHub Inc (NYSE:GRUB) to achieve widespread growth based on her firm’s surveying of restaurant managers, with sales expected to rise in every city. GrubHub has achieved market penetration of just 5% thus far in the U.S, so there’s considerable room for growth.

On the other hand, Gabelli Research initiated coverage of GrubHub Inc (NYSE:GRUB) yesterday with a ‘Hold’ rating, stating that while they like the stock’s long-term growth potential, they believe its current valuation is maxed out after 200% gains since the middle of last April. Competition in the meal delivery space is also accelerating, with GrubHub’s share of the growing U.S market dropping from 60% to 50% during the seven-month period ended March.

On the next page we’ll look at look at the pitches made on Box Inc (NYSE:BOX) and Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB).

Box Inc (NYSE:BOX)

San Antonio’s game 4 win over the Golden State Warriors on Sunday night was probably the biggest shock that Warriors co-owner and board member Chamath Palihapitiya of Social Capital will have all year, as his investment predictions tend to be highly accurate. Palihapitiya pitched Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) during the 2016 Sohn Conference, which has doubled in value in the two years since.

At this year’s event he pitched Box Inc (NYSE:BOX) as a possible ten-bagger, which he believes the company’s stock could achieve over the next ten years, growing from a $3 billion company today to a $30 billion one. Palihapitiya loves the stock’s low churn and huge margin of safety and believes it’s one of the cheapest around given its rapid growth. He told attendees that if they believe in AI being the future, then they need to be long Box (as well as Amazon and Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ:GOOGL)). Box gained 11% yesterday thanks to his endorsement.

Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB)

Lastly is Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB), which was given a short recommendation by Jeffrey Gundlach of DoubleLine Capital, who believes Zuckerberg’s apologies over Facebook’s data missteps have been insincere and that the social media behemoth could get hit with a gargantuan fine and have its equity bubble popped by government regulations, as happened in the past with tobacco and biotech stocks.

On the other hand, both Bill Gurley of Benchmark and Palihapitiya offered some support for Facebook in comments made to CNBC after the event, with Gurley stating that Facebook has time to regain the trust of users, and Palihapitiya (a former Facebook executive) being of the belief that Facebook does want to support user privacy and that they’ll figure it out.

Disclosure: None