The Cheapest Large Cap Stock, page-4

@andy777,

Actually, no, I didn't do the exercise in any more detail than you did, but it sounds right.

To answer your question about whether Vitol has extracted full value from its investment in this suite of businesses: Yes, with a ~40% gain made over 4 years, I suspect they clearly have [*], but I think the overwhelming majority of the value uplift came not from selling VEA to the capital market, but from the spinning out of the REIT beforehand, which was never going to be properly valued if VEA was floated including its property portfolio.

This is the very reason that I own Caltex instead of VEA (despite VEA being, optically, one or two EV/EBITDA multiple point cheaper): because I believe that, CTX's its arrangement with Woolworths now firmly bedded down for the next 15 years, CTX is about to mimic its more nimble Private Equity counterpart in spinning out, and leasing back, its own property bank.

[*] Where I am a bit surprised is that they have sold the business to the market without first harvesting all the surplus capital... uncharacteristically, VEA's balance sheet is in pristine condition.