The remainder of this writeup will focus on the recent issues the business has faced, one qualitative factor that gives me hope, a section about valuation and financial red flags plus my closing comments.

Recent Issues

Growth at Fiserv had been on a downward trajectory since February of last year but shit really hit the fan when Q3 2025 earnings were made public. The lowlights of that earnings release are posted in the screencap below. You can find the full version here.

The big concerns besides revenue growth, which I will discuss more in the Valuation section of this writeup, were the revisions for organic revenue growth and adjusted EPS. Just one quarter before guidance for organic revenue growth was 10% and adjusted EPS was $10.15 - $10.30. You can find the Q2 2025 earnings release in its entirety here.

Unsurprisingly, Fiserv’s stock got crushed. Per Yahoo Finance, Fiserv’s stock price closed at $126.17/share on 10/28/2025. The following day when earnings were released the price closed at $70.60/share. You read that correctly. The stock plunged (44%) during one trading session.

The last line of the lowlights brought the leadership changes into view. The business already appointed Michael Lyons as CEO earlier in 2025. He replaced Frank Bisignano who left to join the Trump Administration as the first CEO of the IRS. Other leadership changes included the promotion of three executives to Co-Presidents of Fiserv, Paul Todd being appointed CFO, and the addition of three new members to the Board of Directors. The business has dealt with another CEO change in the interim as Mr. Lyons announced in June that he was leaving to join Truist in the same capacity after just thirteen months in charge. Takis Georgakopoulos, one of the Co-Presidents of Fiserv, has since been promoted to CEO. Three CEOs in a little over a year and a half don’t give a potential investor a lot of confidence that all is well inside the enterprise. I think it’s fair to label the amount of CEO turnover as a red flag.

That One Qualitative Feature…

The screencap below was taken from Slide 15 of Fiserv’s 2026 Investor Day Presentation. I know it’s one slide amongst almost 160, but I think it does a lot of the heavy lifting to show that Fiserv’s business remains resilient and quite embedded in the infrastructure of the US financial system. It counts for a lot. You wouldn’t expect a business whose stock has plummeted more than (76%) to be #1 or close to it in all its existing markets, right?

Valuation and Financial Red Flags

Revenue

Fiserv’s revenue growth from 2016 – 2025 is displayed in the screencap below.

Source: TIKR

It’s been kind of a wild ride over the last nine years. 2018 saw revenue growth almost screech to a halt. So, in 2019 management decided to rip it on a $22 billion merger with First Data. Revenue growth was steady until 2025 when it nosedived again. The slowdown in revenue growth in 2026 has been even worse. Per its Q2 2026 Earnings Release, linked here, revenues through the first half of the year were down (3%). Earnings were down (33%). Management guidance was for 2026 revenues to be flat or down about (1%). A triple threat for any management team to deal with and lends credence to the “Fiserv is a Shit Co” argument. This is Fiserv’s first red flag.

Real Free Cash Flow (RFCF)

Let’s take a look at RFCF from 2016 – 2025.

Source: TIKR

I went ahead and calculated RFCF two different ways. The first was the traditional route of subtracting Stock Based Compensation from reported Free Cash Flow. Honestly, RFCF growth has been pretty solid with a CAGR of 15.56% over the nine-year timeframe.

I also went ahead and calculated RFCF after including acquisitions and divestitures. Why? Because Fiserv is acquisitive. I wouldn’t call it a “Serial Acquirer”, but it has no problem splashing the cash. Fiserv’s growth between the end of 2016 and 2025 was the result of acquisitions, particularly from the previously mentioned merger with First Data. Making those acquisitions indicated that management thinks of them as essential to growth in revenues, profits, and free cash flow and therefore, in my opinion, should be subtracted from Operating Cash Flow like CapEx and Stock Based Comp. RFCF after Acquisitions and Divestitures CAGR’d at a slightly higher rate than regular RFCF at 16.20% over the nine-year period.

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The Bad

There are three major additions to what I call “the bad” surrounding Adobe. Let’s first review the concerns from my initial writeup. They were in order:

• A large percentage of users have gripes with the company in one form or another.

• Customers feel like their feedback isn’t considered.

• Adobe’s subscription is expensive.

• A quick search reveals that Adobe still adheres to its strict cancellation policy of 14 days after the initial purchase at no charge. If you try to cancel after 14 days, then you are charged a fee of 50% of the remaining value of your contract.

The first of the three current major concerns is that back in March the CEO of the last 18 years, Shantanu Narayen, announced he would be stepping down once the Board of Directors finds and appoints a new CEO. At that point Mr. Narayen will transition to Chair of the Board of Directors.

The second major concern is that Dan Durn, the former CFO, left Adobe earlier this month to pursue the same role at Marvell Technology. So, the business is without both a CEO and CFO.

The third concern, and this is more of a general observation, is that a plethora of publicly traded SaaS businesses have had their stock prices crushed over the last year due to concerns over AI software (or are they agents?) moving in on their turf and essentially replacing their main functionalities at a cheaper price. Since mid-June of last year HubSpot has been down more than 67%. Salesforce is down more than 40% over the same period. Duolingo is down 68%. Intuit is down 65%. Even Constellation Software, every Compounder Bro’s favorite SaaS serial acquirer, is still down 44%.

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The Good

It turns out that Adobe is still in business despite the precipitous fall in its stock price.

I’d like to be clear that the most important “good” factor affecting Adobe is that it is still the industry standard. Counts for a lot in my book.

FY2025 financial performance was rock solid. Revenues were up 10.5% to $23.77 billion. I’ll delve more into a specific piece of revenue growth in the final section of this writeup, but let’s move on. Gross margins remained above 89%. That’s not an error. You read that correctly. Net income popped 28% to $7.13 billion from $5.56 billion in FY2024. Operating cash flow was a little more than $10 billion, stock-based compensation was $1.94 billion, and CapEx was $179 million meaning Real Free Cash Flow (RFCF) was $7.91 billion. That figure was a ~31% jump over FY2024’s RFCF of $6.04 billion.

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I know. It’s been a while since my last post. I’ve been trying to figure out what to do with Possible Value Research. I’ve realized a couple of things over the past couple of months.

…

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This business popped up on my radar recently and hooked me due to the combination of how plain and vanilla its operations are combined with its impressive economics. The problem I had is that HomeMaid releases limited information in English. There’s a website that publishes its press releases which can be translated to English in Google Chrome, but what I was really looking for, its annual reports and investor presentations, were in Swedish. Running all that information through an AI translator was going to take weeks of my time.

I came across the “Analyst” section on HomeMaid’s IR site. The term “Analyst” is appropriate as there is one person covering this business. His name is Christoffer Jennel and he’s published a couple of reports on HomeMaid this year. He works for Inderes. I referenced another one of their analyst’s works in my writeup on InCap in August 2024. Christoffer’s original equity research report can be found here by scrolling down to the link titled “HomeMaid Initiation Report: A Well-Organzied Business with a Clean Price Tag”. I think he did a fantastic job. Quite frankly, I think it’s a better job than I could have done, so I will have an entire section of this writeup dedicated to my notes and takeaways from it.

I’m only going to paywall the Valuation and Conclusion sections of this writeup because of how much heavy lifting the equity research report did.

CEO

Stefan Högkvist is the CEO of HomeMaid and has acted in this capacity since early 2019. His description on the IR site reads, “Stefan Högkvist took on the role of CEO at HomeMaid in January 2019. He most recently joined Stadium where he held the role of Sales Director. Before that, he held similar roles at KappAhl, Hemtex and SATS. Stefan is a Mechanical Engineer with a degree from Skövde University and has a long background in customer- and personnel-intensive industries.”

CEO Incentives

Information on Mr. Högkvist’s compensation was missing in the equity research report, so I decided to reach out to the analyst about it. Wouldn’t ya know that he actually responded? He said the business reports this information in the annual report, but it’s only in Swedish. He did your boy a huge solid and mentioned a few things about the CEO’s Compensation which I have listed below:

• CEO compensation in 2024 amounted to 3.4 MSEK (MSEK means millions of Swedish Krona).

• The 3.4 MSEK consisted of a fixed part (2.4 MSEK) and a bonus of 1 MSEK.

• The company’s bylaws state that bonuses to the executive team and members of the board are tied to group-level results and measurable KPIs with fixed ceilings which cannot be exceeded regardless of performance.

• The company also highlights in the report that in addition to this renumeration structure, share-based or share price-related incentive programs may be decided from time to time, although nothing has been communicated around this yet.

That’s all I got. I know it’s not much, but at least it’s something.

What Does HomeMaid Do?

This business is about as straightforward as it gets. Services offered include home cleaning, general cleaning, moving cleaning, window cleaning, and display cleaning. Other services are holiday services, washing and ironing of clothes, and carpet cleaning. If you’d like in-depth descriptions of their services, then please click here.

A smaller and relatively new part of the business is its commercial cleaning services which are available to hotels, retailers, and offices. Industrial cleaning and decontamination services are also offered.

Notes and Takeaways from the Equity Research Report

Asset light –Like consulting businesses, another industry known for high returns on capital, most of the assets, and associated costs, for HomeMaid are its employees. Asset light businesses often, but not always, generate healthy amounts of free cash flow on top of their high ROIC.

High percentage of recurring revenue – HomeMaid shines brightly on this front as ~80% of total revenues are recurring.

Fragmented, growing industry – Given the almost non-existent barriers to entry, the report indicates there are thousands of competitors in Sweden alone. The Swedish cleaning industry has CAGR’d at 10% over the past decade versus low single digit growth in Sweden’s overall economy. A key factor spurring this growth is the RUT deduction. This deduction allows customers to receive a tax deduction of 50% of the cost of almost any kind of service deemed as “home care” which cleaning obviously falls under. Apparently, the Swedes love it, and home services thrive throughout the country with large support from the citizenry. This causes revenues to be stickier and the overall business to be less cyclical than you’d think.

Competitive advantages – Per p. 2 of the report, “As one of the largest providers, HomeMaid benefits from scale-driven advantages such as stronger brand recognition, credibility, and operational resources. We believe these are important differentiators in a highly fragmented market dominated by smaller players. Despite its size, HomeMaid maintains a strong local presence, high-touch onboarding (e.g., home visits), and a focus on workforce quality, factors we believe provide a modest competitive edge.” The report goes on to state in the next sentence that Inderes feels “… strong, long-term sustainable competitive advantages are difficult to achieve in this industry.”

Maintaining high staff utilization – This is an essential part of HomeMaid’s long-term success. Per pp. 5 – 6 of the equity research report, “The long-term success of the business model hinges on high customer retention, efficient workforce utilization, and tight cost control. In addition, in a labor-intensive business such as HomeMaid, maintaining high staff utilization is essential to protect margins, while inefficiencies such as idle time or “back-cleaning“, i.e. repeat visits caused by quality issues, can hurt profitability.

Therefore, ensuring each employee has the right skills, mindset, and support is critical, as operational excellence directly influences both customer satisfaction and margin protection. Ultimately, consistent service quality drives loyalty and referrals, which are vital in a commoditized, reputation-driven industry where organic growth depends as much on trust as on efficiency.”

Capital allocation – Per p. 9 of the equity research report, “HomeMaid primarily allocates its cash flows toward dividend distributions, organic growth initiatives, and selective acquisitions. The company typically targets smaller businesses at low valuations, often in the range of 3-5x EBIT, with the acquisition of StädhusetAB in 2023 standing out as an exception at a higher multiple of approximately 11x EBIT. With Städuset, HomeMaid expects to increase the EBIT margin to 10% (from 4% at the time of the acquisition) over time through the realization of operational synergies. At the targeted margin level, the implied multiple would fall within the historical range of past acquisitions.”

This might be a roll-up – HomeMaid has made eleven, count ‘em, eleven acquisitions since 2019 alone. It spun out Veteranpoolen, an interesting business in its own right, in early 2018. A screencap of those acquisitions and the multiples paid are displayed in the screencap below which was taken from p. 11 of the equity research report. The tenth and eleventh acquisitions, not shown below, transpired in 2025. Rimab Facility Service was acquired back in July for an initial outlay of SEK 15 million plus a still undetermined amount that ultimately works out to 5x EBIT based on 2025 results. The B:ME Solutions AB acquisition was announced on November 18^th. The price was an initial SEK 1.9 million outlay plus an additional price based on sales development. Links to articles about both acquisitions can be found here and here.

My research indicated that HomeMaid acquired several other businesses before 2019, but the ultimate number is unknown as the business has only reported its limited English news filings since 2015.

Competitors – Hemfried is considered the largest player and competitor in the Swedish home service/cleaning market with ~7% market share followed by HomeMaid at 3%. Two other competitors, Freska and Nytta, each have ~1% share.

Customer engagement – HomeMaid differentiates itself by offering home visits before the first cleaning to build a stronger relationship with the customer and ensure accurate pricing. It seeks customer engagement through its proactive sales efforts and marketing. The report states, “While these initiatives (home visits, proactive sales efforts) may add to customer acquisition costs, we believe they position the company as a more serious and committed provider.”

Unique asset – The report states that there are no other pure play cleaning businesses listed on the stock exchange. There are some other businesses which include cleaning as one of their line items, but not as their main focus.

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Valuation

All data in this section were taken from TIKR unless otherwise noted.

I would also like to mention that all my calculations besides ROIIC were measured from 2012 – 2024. The reason for this is due to it being a sufficient length of time to measure business performance combined with the constriction of being able to fit only so much data clearly into a screencap.

I measured ROIIC going back to 2007 because it’s the first year I could get data from TIKR and the calculation doesn’t take up nearly as much space in a screencap.

Revenue

HomeMaid’s revenues are displayed in the screencap below.

Revenues CAGR’d at 9.07% during the 12-year period. That doesn’t really jump off the page but is a consistent enough clip. While not shown, revenues during the Great Recession increased by 21.4%, 30%, and 26% from 2007 – 2009 which reinforces that revenues are pretty sticky.

From p. 19 of the equity research report, “However, while not explicitly communicated by the company, we estimate that the organic revenue CAGR has been around 4% during 2018-2024, meaning that the Group has been lagging overall market growth somewhat by organic measures. Nevertheless, when isolating the organic growth to the B2C segment, we estimate that the organic growth has been just slightly short of overall market growth. On this topic, we acknowledge that the steady flow of new registered cleaning companies (annually) naturally boosts overall market growth and does not always reflect the underlying growth of established players in the industry.”

Per the equity research report in the previous section, revenues are split about 70/30 between B2C and B2B services.

HomeMaid trades at ~1.4x 2024 revenues given its current market capitalization of ~SEK 700 million.

Real Free Cash Flow (RFCF)

HomeMaid’s RFCF is shown in the screencap below.

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Balance Sheet Ratios

Esquire’s balance sheet ratios are shown in the screencap below with its performance since 2022 highlighted in yellow.

Esquire has continued its mostly excellent performance since 2022. The only concern would be its liquidity ratio and it deserves to be addressed. The liquidity ratio is equal to cash and cash equivalents divided by total liabilities. That balance was $126 million as of 12/31/24 and $240 million through Q3 2025. In case of an emergency, the bank can access its vast off-balance sheet funds and sweep them on to the balance sheet for additional liquidity. The amount of these funds at the end of Q3 was $412 million. Regarding the deposits, a full 30+% of them are noninterest bearing and we learned earlier that the total cost of deposits is <1%. Overall, I don’t think there’s much to be worried about regarding Esquire’s liquidity ratio.

Income Statement Ratios

Esquire’s income statement ratios are shown in the screencap below with its performance since 2022 highlighted in yellow.

The bank has crushed it pretty much across the board. Its return on average assets, return on average equity, net interest margin, and efficiency ratio would make most bankers salivate. The only nitpick would be its relatively low non-interest income to average assets. Outstanding job here.

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Asset Quality Ratios

Esquire’s asset quality ratios are shown in the screencap below with its performance since 2022 highlighted in yellow.

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I thought three years was enough time to do a comprehensive review of the bank’s performance and see how things have worked out. So, let’s take a look.

Stock Price Performance

My favorite Warren Buffett quote is, “Price is what you pay. Value is what you get.” At the end of the day, you want outperformance versus the S&P 500 if you’re going to be a stock picker. Let’s take a gander at Esquire’s stock price performance since my original two-part writeup back in September of 2022.

The screencap below was taken from TIKR. For transparency, I had to use Vanguard’s S&P500 ETF as a proxy. It’s the best I could do because TIKR doesn’t track the pure S&P500 Index for some reason. Please note that Esquire’s performance is the orange line while the S&P500 ETF is the blue line.

The bank has really hit its stride, and its stock price has compounded at over 35% a year since my original writeup. Esquire has benefited from the two critical factors that every business needs to have its stock price outperform. The first is that earnings have increased greatly. The second is that the market now pays a higher multiple for those earnings. The earnings multiple on the stock three years ago was 10x or so. Now, it’s above 18x. Both factors have worked in tandem to produce outperformance versus the S&P 500.

The remainder of Part 1 of this writeup will focus on the CEO, his compensation, and what Esquire’s does to keep the lights on. Part 2, which will be a posted two days after Part 1, focuses on Ratio Analysis, Valuation, Risks, and Tailwinds.

CEO

Andrew Sagliocca was and still is the Chief Executive Officer of Esquire Financial Holdings.

CEO Compensation

In my original writeup I noted that Mr. Sagliocca’s compensation was comprised of a base salary, bonus, stock awards, and “other compensation” which I didn’t mention because it was immaterial to his overall compensation. There wasn’t much in terms of specifics given outside of his base salary. The Compensation Committee was able to use almost any kind of performance metric, both quantitative and qualitative, to issue bonuses and stock awards to the CEO.

Luckily, there have been more disclosures in the three years since my original writeup. I found something while reading the Proxy Statements that I hadn’t come across before. More on that in a bit.

Salary

The CEO’s compensation has changed a bit over the last three years. He still earns a base salary which increased from $672,000 in 2022 to $825,000 in 2025. In addition to this he’s now eligible for an Annual Incentive Plan and Long-Term Incentives.

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All data was taken from each company’s Q3 2025 Press Release which you can find here and here.

Chain Bridge Bancorp

Chain Bridge Bancorp is a bank that caters to political organizations and campaigns, specifically those affiliated with the Republican Party.

Part 1 of my original writeup can be found here: https://open.substack.com/pub/possiblevalue/p/chain-bridge-bancorp-inc-nyse-cbna?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web

Part 2 of my original writeup can be found here: https://open.substack.com/pub/possiblevalue/p/chain-bridge-bancorp-inc-nyse-cbna-e62?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web

Business Update

Net income – Net income for the quarter ended on 9/30/25 was $4.6 million compared to $7.5 million for the quarter ended on 9/30/24. Net income through the first three quarters was $14.9 million compared to $17.2 million during the same period in 2024. Per the Press Release, “The decrease was attributable to a $5 million reduction in noninterest income, driven be changes in One-Way Sell deposit activity and greater use of reciprocal ICS deposits, and a $2.9 million increase in noninterest expenses principally related to costs associated with operational growth and functioning as a public company.” Per the Press Release again, “Earnings per share for the first nine months of 2025 was $2.27, compared to $3.77 for the same period in 2024.”

ROE and ROAA – Return on average equity through Q3 2025 was 12.93% while the return on average assets was 1.33%.

Net interest income – Through Q3 2025 net interest income was $37.9 million and net interest margin was 3.44%. Through Q3 2024 net interest income was $33.0 million and net interest margin was 3.47%.

Per the Press Release, “The increase in interest income was primarily driven by higher average balances in, and yields on, taxable investment securities. Although the average balance of interest-bearing deposits at the Federal Reserve was higher during the nine months ended September 30, 2025 than in the same period in 2024, lower yields on those balances drove a $1.2 million net reduction in this segment’s interest income. Overall, growth in interest-earning assets outpaced the increase in net interest income, resulting in a decline in the net interest margin from 3.47% to 3.44%.”

Provision for loan losses – Chain Bridge actually recovered $69,000 in credit losses through Q3 2025 compared to $297,000 during the same period in 2024.

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*** All data were taken from TIKR unless otherwise noted. ***

Revenue

CMG’s revenues since FY 2002 are displayed in the screencaps below.

The revenue CAGR from FY 2002 through FY 2025 was 11.29%. Not white-hot growth, but still very respectable. Top line growth increased noticeably over the previous two fiscal years due to acquisitions. Using FY 2023 as the end of the measurement period would’ve dropped CMG’s revenue CAGR to 9.55%.

A worrying sign from the FY 2025 Annual Report was that organic revenues were down (1%) for the year. That trend continued through Q1 FY 2026 where organic revenues were down (8%). Total revenues decreased (3%) to CA$ 29.6 million in FY 2026 Q1.

Computer Modelling Group trades at <4x FY 2025 revenue given its current market capitalization of CA$ ~500 million.

Balance Sheet

CMG’s balance sheet since FY 2011 is displayed in the screencaps below. I started there because the amount of time between then and now is, in my opinion, a sufficient period to measure business performance. It also fits nicely into a screencap on my monitor. Before you ask, the answer is, “No. I didn’t find anything concerning on the balance sheet before FY 2011 that deserved further analysis.”

CMG has a pristine balance sheet. Its only real form of debt are the capital leases. Intangibles have popped over the last two fiscal years due to acquisitions. Moving on.

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Real Free Cash Flow (RFCF)

My RFCF calculations for Computer Modelling Group are shown in the screencaps below. I define RFCF as Operating Cash Flow minus Stock Based Compensation minus CapEx.

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CMG operates through two divisions: Reservoir and Production Solutions and Seismic Interpretation Solutions. I might’ve mentioned it before, but I never came around on businesses calling their products “solutions”. I don’t know. It’s just one of corporate actions that I find bizarre. We’re moving on.

My hunch is that most of you don’t know why CMG’s products are needed or what they do. I know I didn’t before I started my research. So, what are reservoir simulation and seismic interpretation software and what do they do?

The best way I can explain reservoir simulation without getting too deep into the weeds is to use an example. The two main sources, found via Google Gemini, for my definition can be found here and here. Let’s say an oil company thinks they’ve found a deposit, or reservoir as they’re also called. They can’t just take a picture of it. Instead, their engineers make a model of it. The model incorporates a lot of math and data analysis to predict the flow of fluids through rock formations. While not perfect, using reservoir simulation software aids companies greatly in helping them better understand what’s in the reservoir and how much oil can be extracted from it. It also reduces risk and time spent manually doing the previously mentioned math and data analysis.

This video does a great job of explaining reservoir simulation software. The software section starts at the 7:08 mark:

What does seismic interpretation software do for oil companies? It allows them to analyze and interpret seismic data to “see” subsurface (below ground) geology (rock formations). Images of the subsurface can be created by using soundwaves and recording their reflections. Ultimately, the software is used to better identify where oil and gas deposits are located. The benefits of seismic interpretation software are like those of reservoir simulation software. Again, I had to Google this information and verify the accuracy because there isn’t standard definition for what seismic interpretation software is. These five websites (1, 2, 3, 4, 5) were the sources of the definition that that I used.

Before moving on I’d like to inform you that the descriptions of CMG’s reservoir simulation and seismic interpretation software are very in-depth. It took me a long time to understand them, and I had to read and re-read them multiple times plus do plenty of searching to gain a basic understanding of them. If you want to rely on the previous general descriptions of each division and not learn about them further, then you can stop reading and move on to the next section which lists the unique features of Computer Modelling Group.

Reservoir Simulation Products

This segment offers 11 total products to customers which I have listed and described below. All data in this section came from CMG’s Software page and corresponding product information sheets unless otherwise noted.

CMOST – Acronym for Computer-Assisted History Matching, Optimization, Sensitivity, and Uncertainty Analysis Tool.

If you’d rather read about it then please skip to the paragraph below, but this video does an excellent job of explaining the full capabilities of CMOST:

To paraphrase from the video, the software enhances the traditional reservoir simulation workflow which includes geomodelling, reservoir simulation and history matching, a deterministic forecast, manual optimization, and economic analysis. The issues at play with the traditional workflow are that it’s a manual process, tedious, time consuming, and produces one result. That result is subject to several uncertainties in the data and doesn’t account for “what if” scenarios. CMOST does account for “what ifs” and uncertainties. It allows the user to see what happens when multiple variables, whether they are in the reservoir itself or operationally, interact with each other.

If you want to learn more about CMOST, then you can read through its information sheet linked here.

GEM – CMG states that it is the world’s leading reservoir simulation software for compositional, chemical, and unconventional reservoirs. Per a Google search, compositional reservoirs are those where the composition of the hydrocarbon liquids change between liquid and gas due to pressure and temperature variations in the reservoir. Unconventional reservoirs are those deemed difficult for oil to flow out of. Getting the oil out of these reservoirs often requires horizontal drilling or hydraulic fracturing. I couldn’t find out what chemical reservoirs are.

If you want to learn more about GEM, then you can read through its information sheet liked here.

IMEX – The world’s fastest black oil reservoir simulator, and is used to model primary, secondary, and tertiary oil recovery processes. “Black oil” has a more stable composition than the compositional oil I mentioned in the previous paragraph, and is typically heavier, darker, and has lower volatility. A key feature is that it is easier and less expensive to model than compositional oils. IMEX can also be used to model unconventional black oil reservoirs.

If you want to learn more about IMEX, then you can read through its information sheet linked here.

CoFlow – Per p. 11 of the FY 2025 Annual Report CoFlow is, “… the industry’s first fully implicit, multi-user and multi-disciplinary Integrated Reservoir and Production System Modelling (“IPSM”) software application. It provides a unified solution for integrated asset modelling by combining reservoir, production networks and geomechanics in one environment and allows reservoir and production engineers to make informed decisions on large, integrated oil and gas projects.” This video, which does a great job of explaining CoFlow’s capabilities, states that it is CMG’s platform to integrate surface and subsurface modeling. It can do everything from reservoir simulation to well engineering to facilities engineering, and end-to-end uncertainty and optimization.

If you want to learn more about CoFlow, then you can read through its information sheet linked here.

Focus CCS – Information and data for this piece of software were sparse. No information sheet or videos were provided. The CMG website claims that Focus CCS is “the easiest way to simulate and validate asset viability (without compromising accuracy), and de-risk your CCS project – getting us all to net zero faster.” CCS in this context means carbon capture storage. The website goes on to state that this software provides “step-by-step guided workflows allow you (and even newcomers) to quickly and easily build CCS models and view results in a single interface. Better preliminary analysis means the best site selection, and less risk for your project.” In layman’s terms, this software helps companies choose where to best inject carbon into the ground so that it won’t leak out.

CO2LINK – Here’s what CMG’s website states about CO2LINK, “Dynamic link between CCS simulator (CMG GEM) and the Transient wellbore simulator (KDI LedaFlow) for the modelling of complex CO2 phase transition systems.” There is no further mention of it on the website or in the annual reports, so I’m not going to mention it further.

STARS – Per its information sheet, “STARS™ is the undisputed industry standard for the advanced modelling of recovery processes involving the injection of steam, solvents, air and chemicals.”

If you want to learn more about STARS, then you can read through its information sheet linked here.

Results™ – There wasn’t an information sheet for this piece of software either, but you can guess a lot from its name. CMG’s Results™ produces the output from running its simulation software. Per the CMG website, “Results™ delivers state-of-the-art visualization and analysis capabilities to provide insight into reservoir characteristics, recovery processes, and reservoir performance.”

Builder – Interface that allows users to incorporate the data necessary to build a simulation model. Data can be integrated from IMEX, GEM, STARS, and external data sources.

If you want to learn more about Builder, then you can read through its information sheet linked here.

WinProp – Per its website, “WinProp™ creates tuned fluid property descriptions for CMG simulators and black oil fluid property data for third-party reservoir simulation software.” I was totally lost on what fluid property descriptions were. I mean I had no idea, so I went to Gemini. I asked, “What are tuned fluid descriptions?” Its answer was, “Tuned fluid descriptions are the final, validated models of a reservoir’s hydrocarbon fluids that have been optimized to accurately replicate experimental laboratory data. This process, also known as PVT (Pressure, Volume, Temperature) tuning, is a critical step in reservoir engineering to ensure that the fluid properties used in a reservoir simulation are as realistic as possible.” It went on to state that these descriptions are necessary because, “The behavior of reservoir fluids is complex, especially for volatile oils and gas condensates, because their composition and physical properties change significantly as pressure and temperature decline during production.”

ShaleIQ – This is CMG’s data analytics forecasting tool.

This short video does a great job of explaining how it works:

Seismic Interpretation Products

This segment is made up of three businesses: Bluware, Sharp Reflections, and Seisware which was acquired a couple of months ago.

Bluware – Per p. 11 of the FY 2025 Annual Report, “Bluware (BHV): InteractivAITM is a cutting-edge deep learning seismic interpretation tool that enables geoscientists to quickly analyze vast amounts of seismic data. InteractivAI leverages Bluware’s proprietary VDSTM (Volume Data Storage) data format which compresses raw and interpreted seismic data sets, making them adaptable and scalable depending on customer business needs, workflows and visualization requirements. VDSTM enables fast data access, cost-effective cloud storage, and compute-intensive workflows. FASTTM is a data streaming and transcoding tool, providing the ability to use VDSTM with existing interpretation applications to stream subsurface data from the cloud to legacy applications and workflows.”

Sharp Reflections – Per the same page, “Pre-Stack Pro (now known as Sharp Reflections software), is a leading high performance computing platform for seismic data processing and interpretation, with a specific expertise in large pre-stack seismic data sets. Sharp has recently expanded its offering to include 4D seismic analysis.” Pre-stack data sets, per a Google search, “… refers to raw, individual seismic traces collected from different source and receiver pairs before they have been combined or “stacked” into a single trace, a process that improves signal-to-noise ratio.”

SeisWare – Described as follows on p. 36 of the Q1 FY 2026 Financial Report, “On July 30, 2025, CMG Group completed the acquisition of 100% of the outstanding shares of SeisWare International Inc. (“SeisWare”), a Calgary-based software company specializing in geoscience interpretation and field development solutions to support subsurface exploration and development projects.”

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What Makes Computer Modelling Group Unique?

The first unique factor CMG possesses is its incentive structure. We already know it’s excellent and requires no further analysis.

The second unique factor is related to the first. It doesn’t relate directly to the CEO’s incentives, but to three people involved with the business at a high level who work or interact with Mr. Jain and were associated with a very well-known compounder business.

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History

CMG started as a research project by Professor Khalid Aziz at the University of Calgary in 1978. Quoting Mr. Aziz at the 27 second mark of this video, “So the proposal was to set up an institute to initiate research for these complex processes for the recovery of oil especially from tar sands and heavy oil reservoirs. So that was the objective.”

As you may have guessed, the initial focus was on heavy oil, but CMG has since expanded its technology and software offering to conventional oil, enhanced oil recovery, integrated production system modelling, entry transition, and data analytics products.

Fun fact per CMG’s Wikipedia page: The business was a non-profit for the first 19 years of its existence.

The business went public in 1997 on the TSX where it continues to be listed. It also trades Over the Counter here in the US under the ticker CMDXF.

Per its homesite, CMG’s customers include 100% of the Super Majors, 18 of the world’s top 25 largest oil companies, 9 of the top 10 National Oil Companies, and 70% of the top unconventional oil companies. Besides its headquarters in Calgary, CMG boasts offices in Bengaluru, Bogota, Dubai, Houston, Kuala Lumpur, Rio de Janeiro, Oslo, and Oxford.

CEO

Pramod Jain is the CEO of Computer Modelling Group and has acted in this capacity since 2022. Mr. Jain has a Bachelor of Technology, Electrical and Electronics Engineering Degree from Kurukshetra University in India, a diploma in Corporate Finance from INSEAD in France, and a master’s degree in industrial engineering from Mississippi State. Go Dawgs and Hail State.

CEO Compensation

Reading CMG’s most recent Management Information Circular, the Canadian equivalent of a Proxy Statement, was dare I say, enjoyable. I jumped to the Compensation section immediately and what did I see on p. 21? Well, I’ll let you read it. “The TMGN (Talent Management, Governance, and Nominations) Committee believes the attainment of these goals will provide a rewarding and challenging environment for executive management and employees and allow them to focus, along with other business metrics, on total revenue, profitability, and return on invested capital which in turn will provide attractive returns to Shareholders.” This is exactly what I want to read regarding compensation and incentives.

The CEO’s compensation in FY 2025 was comprised of a base salary, an Annual Incentive Plan, and Equity Awards. After these main pieces of his yearly compensation are discussed, I will also mention the performance stock options he received when he joined CMG.

Base Salary

Mr. Jain’s base salary for FY 2025 was CA$ 520,000.

Annual Incentive Plan

Information on the Annual Incentive Plan was provided on pp. 25 – 27 of the Information Circular. There were two elements of the plan: 40% of the total bonus was based on the Corporate Bonus Matrix while the remaining 60% was based on the CMG Bonus Matrix.

The Corporate Bonus Matrix was explained on p. 25 where it states, “The bonuses payable are calculated based on meeting a combination of targets for Acquired Total Revenue, Acquired Entities Total Revenue Growth, and ROIC. These three criteria represent key measures in assessing the Corporation’s performance related to acquisitions and effectiveness of capital deployed. The potential bonus payable was capped at 200% of target.”

The screencap below, taken from p. 26 of the Circular, provides the Corporate Bonus Matrix formula, hurdle rates, and actual results achieved by the CEO.

You’ll notice that the CEO achieved 0% for the ROIC Performance Rating which I found odd, but there was a paragraph below the screencap explaining why this happened. It was transparent in a way that I’ve rarely seen, so I thought it deserved further mention. It reads, “In fiscal 2024, ROIC performance was positively impacted by a tax deduction related to acquired intellectual property. In the current fiscal year, the ROIC performance metric did not meet the threshold required for payout under the variable compensation program, resulting in a 0% achievement level. The Corporation anticipates that there may be near-term underperformance against ROIC targets due to the current concentration of its portfolio and the early stage of its acquisition strategy. Until a more diversified base of acquired businesses is established and these entities have been fully integrated and matured under the Corporation’s ownership, ROIC is not expected to reflect the long-term value creation potential of the strategy. The Compensation Committee believes this context is critical in evaluating current performance outcomes and remains confident in the long-term alignment of the ROIC metric with shareholder value creation.”

Per p. 26 of the Circular, the CMG Bonus Matrix was “… calculated based on an equally weighted combination of Total Revenue Growth and Growth in Adjusted Operating Profit for Bonus targets. Targets for CMG, without acquired entities, were set at year-over year growth of 10% for each performance metric.”

The screencap below, taken from p. 27 of the Circular, provides the CMG Bonus Matrix formula, hurdle rates, and actual results achieved by the CEO.

Mr. Jain earned a total of CA$ 563,784 from the Annual Incentive Plan. Per p. 30 of the Circular, 60% of that amount was paid in cash while the remaining 40% of the after-tax bonus was used to purchase common shares of Computer Modelling Group.

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There is so much coverage on Adobe that I don’t think I can offer any value regarding its product offering or business model. I assume most of you have used it before in some capacity. The focus of this writeup will be CEO compensation, my own qualitative research on the business, and its valuation.

CEO Compensation

Reading Adobe’s 2025 Executive Compensation section was arduous. A full 42 pages of single-spaced small text. Yuck.

The main elements of CEO Shantanu Narayen’s compensation were his base salary, cash incentives, and equity incentives.

Note: All the information in this section was taken from the 2025 Proxy Statement unless otherwise noted.

Base Salary

Mr. Narayen’s base salary in 2024 was a cool $1,500,000.

Cash Incentives

These awards were paid out in cash as a percentage of the CEO’s base salary. It was comprised of three parts multiplied together: a Corporate Performance Result, an Individual Performance Result, and an Individual Target Cash Incentive.

A screencap of this formula is shown in the screencap below and was taken from p. 46.

The Corporate Performance Result was further subdivided into a Financial Performance Result and a Strategic Performance Result. The Financial Performance segment was based on achieving at least 90% of revenue targets and a non-GAAP diluted EPS, “set relative to the midpoint of the Initial Public Guidance.” Before you ask the answer is, “Yes, of course the Compensation Committee has changed the financial performance metrics over the years for one reason or another.”

The Strategic Performance Result was based on the Compensation Committee’s discretion to increase or decrease the Corporate Performance Result by 25% based on the achievement of “corporate priorities” and objectives for the performance period. It goes on to list a bunch of results which may or may not be considered as part of strategic performance such as asset-write downs, M&A, “unusual items”, etc.

The Individual Performance Result metrics were about the vaguest I’ve ever seen from a tech company. I’m not kidding when I tell you the three metrics were:

• To drive growth and innovation strategy.

• Focus on products, platforms, and ecosystem.

• Invest in customers and partnerships.

These metrics seem like table stakes for a CEO of any business, much less one valued over $100 billion. I wondered too how they could be measured and tested to prove the CEO actually performed well in these areas.

Individual Target Cash Incentive

This was set by the Compensation Committee and based on peer group data. The CEO’s target opportunity was 200% of his base salary.

The screencap below, taken from p. 54, shows the Cash Awards received by the CEO and other NEOs at the business.

Equity Incentives

The CEO’s equity incentives were comprised of a 70/30 split between Performance Share Awards and Time Based RSUs.

The Performance Share Awards in 2024 were based 50/50 on a Relative TSR Goal over a three-year performance period and a Net New Sales Goal which is measured and determined annually, but shares don’t vest until after the full three-year performance period. I wish the time frame was longer, maybe five years or more, but overall this didn’t sound too bad. Per p. 49, “Each performance goal is weighted 50% and achievement of each goal is determined independent of the other. Participants can earn between 0% and 200% of the total target number of performance shares granted to them under the 2024 PSP.”

The Relative TSR Goal was based on the TSR of Adobe’s stock during a three-year performance period. For example, the three-year performance starting in 2025 would go through 2027. Its TSR performance will be compared to what are called “Index Companies”. There was no information in the 2025 Proxy Statement, so I asked Google’s Gemini for some help, and it directed me to the 2024 Proxy Statement where “Index Companies” were mentioned. On p. 46 of that document, they were described as “the Nasdaq 100 Index as of January 1, 2023, excluding the second class of stock for any company with dual-classes of stock (the “Index Companies”).” Were those same companies still included in the definition of “Index Companies” in 2024 and 2025? Who knows? I didn’t find anything in 2025 Proxy Statement indicating whether there were changes to the definition.

The screencap below, taken from p. 50, displays the Relative TSR Goal performance criteria.

Per p. 50 again, the Net New Sales Goal was based on “(1) net new ARR in Digital Media and (2) subscription revenue growth in Digital Experience. Starting with fiscal year 2025, the Net New Sales Goal is based on (1) ending ARR growth in Digital Media and (2) subscription revenue growth in Digital Experience. The update from net new ARR to ending ARR growth in Digital Media aligns with the Company’s new guidance approach starting fiscal year 2025 of guiding to annual ending ARR growth instead of quarterly net new ARR in Digital Media.”

Also taken from the same page, “To earn any shares based on the fiscal year 2024 Net New Sales Goal, the Company must surpass 70% of the Initial Public Guidance in order to achieve any payout. Adjustments will automatically be made to the calculation of the achievement of the Net New Sales Goal to exclude the effect of material mergers and acquisitions and foreign currency fluctuations, whether the impact is positive or negative, that occur during an applicable fiscal year.” A screencap of its Net New Sales targets are shown in the screencap below and were taken from p. 51.

There was very little information provided about the Time-Based RSUs other than a blurb on p. 51 which states, “Recognizing that a substantial portion of our NEOs’ compensation is performance-based, the Committee grants time-based RSUs to our NEOs in order to satisfy our retention objectives and promote continuity in our business. The RSUs granted in fiscal year 2024 vest quarterly over four years. Accordingly, our RSU program provides our NEOs with strong incentives to remain employed by Adobe, while providing additional rewards for growth in our stock price with less dilution to the Company than time-based stock options, which were not granted by Adobe to any NEO in fiscal year 2024.”

The three screencaps below show the FY 2024 Equity Awards Granted by the Compensation Committee, the 2022 – 2024 TSR Goal Shares Earned, and the 2022 – 2024 Net New Sales Shares Earned. They were taken from pp. 54, 56, and 57.

One feather in Adobe’s cap is that the CEO is required to own a minimum of 20x his base salary throughout the year. Given how much the CEO makes, which is a ton as you’ll see in the next slide, I wish the threshold was higher, but what can ya do?

Adobe’s most recent Executive Compensation table is displayed below and was taken from p. 66.

There is a reference that I didn’t screencap that stated the amounts reflected in the table weren’t the actual economic value realized by the CEO and other listed officers. While that may be true, you can rest easy knowing that they’ve all made a ton of money over the last several years even if the results in the table aren’t 100% accurate.

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Qualitative Research

I used three avenues for my qualitative research. They were feedback via scuttlebutt, YouTube videos, and a couple of AI ChatBots.

It was remarkable how similar the answers were from each source. I divided them into two buckets: What People Don’t Like Adobe and What People Do Like About Adobe. I also touch upon where Adobe seems to be losing and winning customers.

What People Don’t Like About Adobe

The most common feedback I received, especially from people I talked to and YouTubers, was that a lot of their current and former users just don’t really like it anymore. The one’s who still use the software do it begrudgingly or because they have to. There was a big hoopla in 2024 about an update to the “Terms and Conditions” of Adobe’s software. The language in the update gave the company almost free reign to access their user’s data. The concern was that Adobe was going to use customer data to train its generative AI models. Users had to agree to the update, or they could not access their account. This caused a sudden backlash, and Adobe updated the language to not allow such access. I asked someone if it was accurate to describe this update as essentially paying Adobe to steal their work and they said, “Yes.” The business lost trust with a solid chunk of its user base after this fiasco.

Another constant complaint was that they feel like Adobe does not and has not listened to customer feedback for years. Tied to this is the feeling that their software updates don’t really move the needle in terms of adding value. Minor features are added here and there, but leave a lot to be desired.

Both the subscription model and its price point were another sore spot. Adobe, much like Microsoft Windows, used to be purchased one time and the user would receive updates until a completely new version of the software was released a couple of years later. Current and former users highlighted that the updates provided by Adobe are minor at best and do almost nothing to change the value of the software. Related to that is its price point. Adobe’s Creative Cloud Pro subscription which includes everything from Photoshop to Illustrator, Premier Pro, and Firefly comes in at $69.99 per month. That works out to just under $840 per year. That’s more money than users paid for the one-time purchase of Adobe’s suite before it changed over to its current subscription model. The most striking complaint I fielded regarding its price was from a professional artist who stated, “They’re like drug dealers. They offer you one app for $20 a month or you can get multiples of the product even if you won’t use it for $70 a month.” There is no way for users to bundle only a few apps together for a reasonable price.

The final complaint I’ll mention is Adobe’s cancellation policy. There is a dedicated page to it which you may find here. The current policy states that users are allowed 14 days after purchase to cancel and receive a full refund. If they cancel after the 14^th day, then they are charged 50% of the remaining value of their contract as a cancellation fee. A screencap showing an example of a user canceling the Creative Cloud subscription by month is displayed below.

Users may still access their Creative Cloud files on their computer and the Creative Cloud website, subject to a 2GB cloud storage limit. If the user has exceeded the 2GB limit then they have 30 days to move their files out of the cloud. Since users don’t own Adobe software anymore, once the subscription is cancelled, they cannot use it anymore. This differs from some of its competitors that allow users to buy software once and either have a perpetual license for updates or the ability to use the current version of their software and pay for updates as time goes on.

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“Sometimes you just gotta lick the stamp and send it.” – Daniel Ricciardo

I believe the two quotes above apply to the current situation at Crox (NASDAQ: CROX). You may appear intelligent to some if you buy a security at this level and its price rises. If the opposite occurs and the price declines further, then you look like a fucking idiot to everyone. By the way, I got this quote from Joe K. Raymond in his recent writeup about Munger’s investment in Hayes Lemmerz International, so shoutout to him. His newsletter is appointment reading.

The second quote comes from one of my favorite former Formula 1 drivers after he was asked about his aggressive pass, known as a dive bomb, on Lewis Hamilton during the 2018 Chinese Grand Prix. This along with masterful driving throughout the remainder of the race helped secure his victory. Sometimes you just gotta go for it.

I don’t think Crocs is the best enterprise ever, but I also don’t think it’s “some lousy business” either. I’m interested in the shares. Its stock price plummeted more than 25% following its Q2 2025 Press Release and corresponding Investor Presentation. It currently trades at roughly $75 per share as of the publishing date of this update. Let’s look at the bad, the good, and current valuation of the business.

Here is a link to my original writeup of the business back in January of this year: https://open.substack.com/pub/possiblevalue/p/crocs-nasdaq-crox?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web

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Revenues

Revenues, calculated as net interest and dividend income plus non-interest income, CAGR’d at 23.46% between 2019 and 2024 from $18.46 million to $52.95 million. While most impressive, the 2024 figure was affected by the federal elections which sizably increased deposits into the bank. To put things into perspective the revenue CAGR was 13.85% if you use 2023’s revenue of $31.02 million.

Revenues, calculated the same way as above, through the first half of 2025 were $27.16 million compared to $23.64 million during the same period in 2024. This was an increase of 14.9%.

Net interest and dividend income increased 59.9% to $44.37 million in 2024 from $27.74 million in 2023. Net interest income increased $6.28 million in the first half of 2025 to $25.64 million from $19.36 million during the same period in 2024. The reason for the increases in net interest income in both 2024 and the first half of 2025 was an influx of deposits related to the 2024 federal elections.

2024 non-interest income increased $5.29 million, or 161.5%, to $8.58 million from $3.28 million in 2023. $4.20 million of the year-over-year increase was due to “deposit place services income”. This was the income earned from its “One-Way” Sell deposits that are described in detail later in the Deposits section of this writeup. Non-interest income plunged to $1.52 million in the first half of 2025 from $4.28 million during the same period in 2024.

Given its current market capitalization of ~$170 million, Chain Bridge trades at ~3x 2024 revenue.

Net Income

Net income increased from $4.89 million in 2019 to $20.94 million in 2024. That was a white hot CAGR of 33.77%.

Per the Q2 2025 Press Release, net income increased to $10.19 million for the first half of 2025 compared to $9.72 million for the same period in 2024 which was an increase of 4.8%.

Given its current market capitalization of ~$165 million, Chain Bridge trades at ~8x 2024 earnings.

Balance Sheet

Chain Bridge’s most up to date balance sheet is posted in the two screencaps below which were taken from p. 11 of the Q2 2025 Press Release.

Two line items stand out on the balance sheet. The first are the “Interest-bearing deposits in other banks”. You’ll notice that the amount has decreased considerably over the last year, which would normally be concerning. That doesn’t seem to be the case for Chain Bridge. What happens is that these deposit accounts fluctuate due to inflows and outflows related to the election cycle. For example, per p. 37 of the Q1 2025 10-Q, “For the three months ended March 31, 2025, our net interest income increased by $5.1 million, or 57.5%, compared to the three months ended March 31, 2024, primarily driven by a $328.9 million increase in the average balance of interest-bearing deposits in other banks, principally at the Federal Reserve. This increase was primarily due to inflows of deposits from political organizations, which were invested in interest-earning assets, such as reserves at the Federal Reserve.” In the second quarter the opposite occurred where the bank experienced outflows from political organizations.

The second line item that sticks out are the noninterest-bearing deposits. They skyrocketed from $913.4 million in Q4 2024 to $1.24 billion in Q1 2025 and then retreated to ~$895 million in Q2 2025. This was again related to inflows of deposits ahead of and after the 2024 federal elections. Per p. 51 of the Q1 2025 10-Q, “During the first quarter of 2025, the Company experienced a material increase in deposits from certain political organization clients, primarily attributable to a post-election surge in deposits following the November 2024 federal elections. A significant portion of the increase was concentrated in three accounts that each, individually, held more than 5% of total deposits at quarter-end. In the aggregate, these accounts totaled $472.0 million and represented 30.1% of consolidated total deposits as of March 31,2025. While historically political organization deposits have began rebuilding in the quarters following an election, the pace and scale of the increase in the political organization deposits during the first quarter of 2025, and the resulting deposit concentration, differed from typical patterns we have observed in prior post-election periods and reflected elevated, event-driven fundraising activity.” Again, the opposite happened in Q2 where the bank experienced outflows from political organizations.

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Before moving on I’d like to thank Derek Pilecki of Gator Capital for putting me on to this bank. He mentioned his investment in it during a podcast episode in 2024. Per TIKR, his fund owns ~6.50% of shares outstanding. His fund invests only in financial businesses and is about as good as it gets, so I thought Chain Bridge was worthy of further investigation.

History

Chain Bridge was started by Peter Fitzgerald, a former senator from Illinois and scion to a banking family in the Chicago area. A fun fact about him is that after leaving the Senate his seat was taken by none other than Barack Obama.

Peter’s father was Gerald Fitzgerald. Per his Wikipedia page, the elder Mr. Fitzgerald started Suburban Bancorp in the early 1960s and ended up selling it to Bank of Montreal in 1994 for $246 million. Not bad. The screencap below, also taken from his Wikipedia page, paints an interesting view of Mr. Fitzgerald’s business outlook.

I mention Gerald because I think his banking philosophy wore off on his son. I’ll comment more on this later.

Peter founded the bank in 2007. In what is one of those quirks in life, the founding of Chain Bridge may not have happened without the McLean Little League. By chance, a baseball league for the youth in Northern Virginia brought Peter together with other early investors in the bank.

The June 15, 2007, issue of American Banker goes on to highlight the plight local businessmen in the McLean area were facing. The TL;DR is that they felt the regional and megabanks in the area weren’t catering as well as they could to local businesses. Paul Shiffman, a founding member and former director of the bank, approached Peter Fitzgerald through connections in the Little League and got him to agree to run the operation. The original Board of Directors included six people involved in the McLean Little League. Mr. Fitzgerald went on to get management in place and, per the article, raised $18.2 million with the other founders and voila. They were in business.

From its founding, Chain Bridge has operated out of its headquarters in McLean, Virginia. It does not have a physical branch network.

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You can find my writeup on this business here: https://possiblevalue.substack.com/p/valvoline-nyse-vvv

Closing price on 3/22/2022: $30.96

Closing …

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