Overview

Brady Capital Research is a leading-edge investment research firm focused on structural disruption. Our qualitative-based research enables investors to gain unique investment insights into the latest structural disruption developments to take advantage of emerging investment opportunities and avoid value traps.

Value Proposition

  • Independent: Pure unbiased research
  • Differentiated: Dynamic, thought-provoking and forward-looking qualitative research
  • Exclusive Access: Research is exclusively available to our select base of institutional investment clients

Research Methodology: Our Proprietary Value Pyramid Strategic Framework

The acceleration in structural disruption is creating an increasingly VUCA environment, leading to the blurring and decimation of industry boundaries and impacting the risk/growth profile of companies. Instead of analyzing companies in silos through a rear-view mirror, we piece together emerging structural disruption trends across industries, using our proprietary Value Pyramid strategic framework to identify new variables and angles, to help investors better look at and value companies. The Value Pyramid illustrates how the value equation is changing for companies. The three sides of the Value Pyramid are:

  • Customer Capital (Value origination through customer value proposition): In the age of Amazon, companies can no longer compete on a FUNCTIONAL customer value proposition basis (i.e., price, convenience, variety of choice), so they need to create EMOTIONAL connections and PSYCHOLOGICAL attachments with their customers.
  • Structural Capital (Value capture through capital investments): Companies that operate on only the PHYSICAL layer need to invest in moving up to the DIGITAL and AI (artificial intelligent) layers.
  • Economic Capital (Value extraction through economic system): Although most companies operate in the traditional CORPORATE ECONOMY, we are seeing the rise of a new class of disruptors that operate in the PLATFORM ECONOMY, which are ideally positioned to advance in the future to the emerging CRYPTO-ECONOMY.

The Value Pyramid Strategic Framework

Research Product

  • Weekly Research Note: 3-6 page research note providing key investment highlights and investment insights from the latest structural disruption developments.
  • Quarterly Research Report: 50-page+ research report providing actionable investment ideas on a wide range of sub-industries and companies and insights into emerging structural disruption themes
  • Special Report: 10-15 page company-specific research report exploring emerging risks/opportunities
  • Quarterly Meetings: 1-hour in-person meetings providing an opportunity to discuss and explore the latest disruptive themes

Research Report Highlights: “The Survival Guide to the New Ghost Town Economy” (April 1, 2020)

  • The black swan coronavirus has turned our world into a dystopian ghost town, creating an acute shift in societal and corporate behaviour. This is acting as a catalyst to disrupt all three sides of the value pyramid and fast-forward the digital transformation of society.
  • Our Coronavirus Pandemic Risk Assessment Framework will help you gain insights into which companies in your portfolio are headed for the ICU ward and which ones will be able to survive and even thrive after the lockdown.
  • The healthcare industry is taking a quantum leap in tech adoption. This positions Amazon to take a quantum leap in its disruption of healthcare through the strategic aggressive moves it has been making with Amazon Pharmacy, AWS, Dr. Alexa and Amazon Care.
  • Essential goods retailers are going on hiring sprees as fear drives panic buying of consumer staples.
  • The future of dystopian ghost malls is here. The closure of non-essential retailers will result in a quantum leap to online sales. We expect to see a tsunami of retail and mall bankruptcies.
  • Amazon is the best positioned to capitalize on the quantum shift to B2C as it had already been making aggressive moves into air freight and logistics as it rolled out One Day Shipping.
  • The luxury experience moat is out of vogue as stores are closed and who wants to buy luxury fashion when you can’t leave home? The exceptions are lululemon and Nike, which we believe are positioned to not just survive, but thrive after the pandemic.
  • The future of ghost kitchens is here as restaurants need to go digital to survive.
  • The auto industry has hit the brakes as factories have shut down and are being re-purposed to make ventilators. We suspect the value equation is currently being temporarily disrupted.
  • The lockdown is forcing us to quickly adopt new digital ways to live and work at home, creating permanent fragility for the following businesses: Movie theatres, Senior REITs, Office REITs and WeWork.
  • Lyft is driving off a cliff as ridesharing plummets. Uber could survive as it has an $8.5-billion cash cushion and can re-allocate its ridesharing drivers to deliver food for Uber Eats.
  • The sustainability movement has exited centre stage but prior to the pandemic, we were seeing a massive number of developments on seven fronts.

Barbara Gray, CFA

Barbara ranked as an All-Star Analyst for four consecutive years, achieving top-three standing each year in the Business Trust Sector in the Brendan Wood annual institutional survey. She has over two decades of sell-side equity research experience in both Canada and the U.S. Her prior research experience has included broad sectoral coverage such as the North American consumer discretionary and consumer staples, North American auto and Canadian industrial products, energy, and forest products sectors. Barbara has a Bachelor of Commerce (Finance) from the University of British Columbia (1993) and earned her CFA (Chartered Financial Analyst) designation in 1997. She is recognized as a leading expert in structural disruption and was invited to be the keynote speaker at a number of events, including the 2018 annual conference for one of Canada’s leading investment firms and the 2017 Investment Advisory Committee meeting for a top Canadian Crown corporation. She is also the author of the books The New Cyber Decade (2020), Secrets of the Amazon III (2019), Secrets of the Amazon 2.0 (2018), Secrets of the Amazon (2017) and Ubernomics (2016).