Las Empresas que TODOS Ignoran son las Mejores Inversiones

Summary

Javier Ruiz of Horos described a long-term, value-oriented strategy focused on buying businesses below their estimated value, with a margin of safety. Horos does not try to forecast index moves or when a thesis will pay off; it focuses on company analysis, position sizing, and comparing each holding with other opportunities. The managers said periods of underperformance lasting several years can occur, and stressed that a falling share price alone does not make a stock cheaper if the business is deteriorating.

The fund has lagged stronger markets recently: the discussion cited roughly 2% performance versus about 10% for some European markets. Ruiz attributed the relative weakness partly to limited investor flows into value-oriented areas and the fund’s exposure to unpopular markets, notably France, which made up about one-quarter of the portfolio. France had relatively underperformed the European market for three years, with its weakest accumulated relative performance since the euro crisis. Horos said it remains comfortable with its holdings, while acknowledging that French fiscal deficits, pensions, and demographics pose longer-term risks.

Ruiz sees opportunities where sentiment is poor but businesses continue to generate cash. He also described investing through holding companies when they trade at a discount to their underlying assets, while emphasizing that this requires detailed work on their ownership structures and management’s record of unlocking value. The portfolio has little exposure to US AI-related companies; its technology exposure is mainly through Tencent and some companies perceived as vulnerable to AI disruption.

On AI, Ruiz said the technological shift is real, but that the spending race and expectations embedded in valuations concern him. Hyperscalers may be able to absorb poor returns on investment, but heavily indebted data-center and “neo-cloud” businesses could be more exposed if expected revenues fail to arrive. He pointed to signs of circular financing in the AI supply chain and warned that high expectations may leave stocks vulnerable to earnings or guidance disappointments.

For fixed income, Horos’s Oros Patrimonio fund is predominantly corporate credit with short duration. Short duration limits, but does not eliminate, exposure to rising interest rates. Ruiz said higher government-bond yields had pushed down bond prices and the fund’s returns, even where company credit fundamentals remained intact.

Methodology and Portfolio Framework

• Estimate business value and look for a margin of safety: Avoid paying for growth expectations the managers cannot confidently assess.
• Analyze the reason for a low valuation: Distinguish weak investor flows or sector sentiment from actual business deterioration.
• Assess businesses qualitatively as well as quantitatively: Consider competition, operating markets, supply and demand, and the factors affecting a company’s cash generation.
• Size positions and rebalance against value: Add when prices fall if the thesis remains intact; trim as prices rise or when another investment offers a better risk–reward trade-off.
• Compare opportunities relatively, not just in isolation: A holding can be attractive in absolute terms but less appealing than other portfolio choices.
• For holding companies, examine the structure and catalysts: Value the underlying holdings, account for cross-shareholdings and other liabilities, and favor managers with a record of shareholder value creation or actions to narrow the discount.
• For credit, focus on company risk rather than interest-rate forecasts: Keep duration short and assess whether the issuer can meet its obligations.

Companies, Assets, and Figures Mentioned

Value Holdings and Examples

• Bolloré and Compagnie de l’Odet (Odet): Holding companies providing exposure to Universal Music Group (UMG), with additional complexity from cross-shareholdings and Vivendi. Ruiz estimated Bolloré traded at about a 70% discount to the value of its subsidiaries after structural adjustments. He gave an illustrative comparison of UMG at roughly €16–17 per share directly versus exposure costing €5–6 through Bolloré. The Bolloré family has taken steps to simplify the structure, including buying Bolloré shares through Odet.
• Naspers / Prosus / Tencent: Naspers’s principal value is its indirect exposure to Tencent, via Prosus; Ruiz cited an approximately 25% Tencent stake. He described Tencent as trading at around 9× projected free cash flow to enterprise value three years out, and said its shares were down roughly 40%. Naspers’s discount to its underlying value had widened to around 50%, versus a more typical 25–30%. Naspers has been gradually selling Tencent shares and buying back its own shares.
• Exor / Ferrari: Ruiz estimated Ferrari represents about 30–35% of Exor’s value. He compared buying Ferrari directly at roughly 30× earnings with buying it through Exor at around 15× earnings. Exor also owns Philips and Stellantis; Horos assigned Stellantis no value in its investment case.
• Pluxee: A major employee-benefits business, including restaurant vouchers. Its fiscal 2026 results were described as better than expected, but its fiscal 2027 outlook disappointed investors. Management called 2027 a transition year and gave a minimum EBITDA expectation of about €440 million, below the prior year’s result. Brazil’s proposed regulatory changes could limit commissions and alter payment processing, pressuring profitability and growth. Horos thinks smaller competitors could be hurt more over time, potentially allowing Pluxee to gain market share.
• Edenred: A competitor to Pluxee, with a less concentrated employee-benefits business. Ruiz said its business mix and geographical exposure differ, helping explain different market reactions.
• Prosegur: Horos increased its position around €10–11 and trimmed it around €15–16 as the share price rose, then said it would reassess after a move back toward lows. Ruiz called it cheap and high quality but noted business exposure to Brazil.
• TGS: Horos’s largest holding at the time of the interview. It was above 7% of the portfolio at the end of Q1, fell to about 3% after roughly a 100% rise in Q2, and was subsequently increased again. TGS provides seismic and geophysical data to oil and gas companies. Horos expected a recovery in industry investment and said the stock traded at about 3–4× projected free cash flow three years out. The thesis depends on higher exploration and investment spending, including because of energy-security concerns.
• Booking Holdings (Booking.com): Added during the year. Ruiz said it had risen from around $150 to $200 and then returned to about $150. He illustrated its potential value as possibly 70% above the price—an example, not a stated target—and argued that AI agents’ ability to displace Booking was uncertain. He noted Booking’s hotel inventory, payment processing, and customer acquisition through Google as parts of the business that could matter to the disruption risk.
• PayPal: Described as one of Horos’s most uncomfortable holdings because of the risk of disintermediation by Stripe, Shopify, and other providers. Ruiz said it traded at roughly 4–5× projected free cash flow three years out, had generated broadly similar cash for the prior three years, and was still growing more slowly than before. Horos sees potential support from Venmo, other financial services, and share buybacks. The discussion cited more than 200 million monthly active users and about 70 transactions per user per year. Ruiz said a negative outcome could still cause substantial losses.
• Nike: Used as an example of a stock whose large share-price fall may not have made its valuation cheap, given business deterioration. The discussion cited a possible P/E range of roughly 27–32× after an approximately 80% decline; the speakers acknowledged they had not analyzed it in depth.
• Alphabet/Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Intel: Mentioned in the context of technology-sector volatility and AI expectations. The discussion cited Google down 15%, Amazon down 15%, and Intel down 17% during the live conversation; Microsoft was said to have held up better. These were live-market references, not longer-term performance figures.
• Novo Nordisk: Mentioned briefly as an example while comparing sharp stock declines and valuation changes; the speakers were unsure which example best fit the point.
• Plug Power: Mentioned as an example of trimming a holding after a substantial rise.

Markets, Macro, and Valuation Observations

• Horos said it had held as much as 30% in Spain in its international strategy around two and a half years earlier. Some Spanish holdings subsequently more than doubled; Ruiz cited approximate two-year IRRs of 35–40%.
• The managers said commodities had been deeply out of favor about five or six years earlier, creating opportunities in areas including copper, uranium, and metallurgical coal.
• On US valuations, Ruiz cited Coca-Cola at about 40× earnings, Walmart above 30×, and similarly high valuations for Costco and Johnson & Johnson. He contrasted these with about 18× earnings as a historical price for quality US companies roughly a decade earlier, versus 35–40× in the more recent market environment.
• He cautioned that the S&P 500 had become highly concentrated in a small group of large, AI-linked companies. His argument was that buying the index is still an investment decision and carries exposure to the valuations and outlook of its largest constituents.
• In AI, the discussion cited OpenAI potentially consuming $300 billion through 2030 and not generating cash for another four or five years; the host corrected a revenue figure mentioned in the conversation from $75 billion to $50 billion. Ruiz described a “rational bubble” dynamic in which companies invest heavily because they fear being left behind.
• CoreWeave was said to have fallen about 50% over roughly one and a half to two months. The discussion cited its borrowing costs moving from around 8–9% to 15–16% as market financing conditions worsened. The speakers warned that debt-funded data-center businesses are vulnerable if anticipated cash flows do not materialize.
• The managers cited interest-rate increases as one reason holding-company discounts can widen, alongside weak investor flows and a lack of management action to unlock value.

Fixed Income

• Oros Patrimonio was launched about a year before the interview. Ruiz described it as a mixed fixed-income fund with at least 80% in corporate fixed income, around 10% in Oros Valor Internacional, and the remainder generally in special situations.
• Average duration was about 2.5 years, with a stated average maximum of three years to limit interest-rate sensitivity.
• The fund had initially targeted about 4.5% annualized net returns after fees; its annualized return at the time was below 2%. Ruiz attributed the gap largely to higher government-bond yields and resulting bond-price declines.
• The speakers stressed that short-duration bonds can still lose market value when rates rise. A bond’s eventual return toward par depends on the issuer remaining able to repay; duration losses do not eliminate credit risk.

Disclosures and Cautions

• No explicit “not financial advice” statement appears in the subtitles. The discussion is presented as the managers’ views and examples, not as a guarantee of future performance.
• Ruiz repeatedly cautioned that the timing of investment outcomes is uncertain, that a low share price can reflect genuine business deterioration, and that some holdings—including PayPal and TGS—carry material risks.
• The host also discussed index funds as a way to diversify manager-specific risk, while noting that index investing still entails valuation and concentration exposure.

Presenters and Sources

• Andrés, host of La Pizarra de Andrés.
• Javier Ruiz, Horos asset-management portfolio manager.
• Ruiz referred to the Horos management team he has worked with since 2012 or 2013, including Alejandro Miguel. Horos’s management company was established in 2018.
• Horos reported approximately €540 million under management, compared with about €100 million two years earlier.