Philip Steury/iStock via Getty Images The following segment was excerpted from the Protean Funds Scandinavia AB April 2026 Partner Letter. If there's a single position that embodies the Rashomon effect this month, it's Vend ( SBSNY ) (previously known as Schibsted). Regular readers may recall our short case in the same stock from the October letter: network effects growing fragile, revenue growth ...
Philip Steury/iStock via Getty Images The following segment was excerpted from the Protean Funds Scandinavia AB April 2026 Partner Letter. If there's a single position that embodies the Rashomon effect this month, it's Vend ( SBSNY ) (previously known as Schibsted). Regular readers may recall our short case in the same stock from the October letter: network effects growing fragile, revenue growth dependent on ARPA hikes rather than volumes (which presumed a behavioural stability we doubted), management's dismissive tone towards AI disruption, and a stock at NOK 340 that priced in a potentially eroding durability. The stock fell 30%+ over the following months. Our witness was right. Case closed? Not so fast. In Kurosawa's film, the twist is that the same events genuinely look different depending on where you stand. And where we stand has evolved. Both we and the market have had time to digest the AI-impact, and our thinking has evolved from: can Vend sustain its premium? to a more relevant question when the stock was trading sub 240 NOK: is the market now pricing too much disruption? Stress-testing the AI threat, we've started to think it is limited, at least in the short to medium term. Marketplaces own their inventory, which means LLMs cannot legally scrape or replicate it. It is notable that OpenAI is building partnerships with incumbents rather than attempting to build competing platforms. There is a scenario where the disruptors need the platforms more than the platforms need them. Sure, the long-term risk remains as entire business models are in flux and progress is linear if not exponential, but the timeline has surely been pushed out. At the same time, Vend continues to simplify and is delivering reasonably on both cost initiatives and shareholder friendliness. There is a lot of fear baked into the valuation when the stock trades at a material discount to peers with free cash flow yield in the double digits. Add to the mix that M&A has returned to the classif...
Earnings Call Insights: Tempus AI (TEM) Q1 2026 Management View "We had a great quarter. Revenue was $348.1 million, up a little over 36% year-over-year." (Co-Founder, CEO, President & Chairman Eric Lefkofsky) "Our Diagnostic revenue was $261.1 million, representing almost 35% growth, driven by particular strength in our Oncology business, which had unit growth of about 28%" and "our MRD volume pe...
Earnings Call Insights: Tempus AI (TEM) Q1 2026 Management View "We had a great quarter. Revenue was $348.1 million, up a little over 36% year-over-year." (Co-Founder, CEO, President & Chairman Eric Lefkofsky) "Our Diagnostic revenue was $261.1 million, representing almost 35% growth, driven by particular strength in our Oncology business, which had unit growth of about 28%" and "our MRD volume performing even better." (CEO Lefkofsky) "Our data business, data and applications business did extraordinarily well, $87 million of revenue, representing 40.5% year-over-year growth" and "we had our third straight quarter of bookings north of $100 million, with TCV rising." (CEO Lefkofsky) "We’re on track for a great year, and as a result, increased our guidance to now a range of $1.59 billion to $1.6 billion for the year, with adjusted EBITDA of about $65 million." (CEO Lefkofsky) "This quarter alone, we added Merck, who signed a very large strategic collaboration with us. We expanded our relationship with Gilead." (CEO Lefkofsky) "We’ve never been at this point in the year with this level of visibility into the overall number." (Chief Financial Officer James Rogers) Outlook "Increased our guidance to now a range of $1.59 billion to $1.6 billion for the year, with adjusted EBITDA of about $65 million." (CEO Lefkofsky) "As we’ve previously noted, we don’t expect that to have any impact on pricing or ASPs in 2026." (CFO Rogers, on the xF FDA submission) "We’re expecting a decision there imminently" regarding "an amendment" that "will cover tumor only" and "will allow us to accelerate the migration over to the ADLT version of the assay." (CFO Rogers) "We would anticipate a significant improvement in Q2" free cash flow, and "then from there, just continued improvements as adjust EBITDA improves." (CFO Rogers) Financial Results "Revenue was $348.1 million" with "Diagnostic revenue" of "$261.1 million" and "data and applications" revenue of "$87 million." (CEO Lefkofsky) "Our Onc...