Third Avenue Value Fund Comments on CBS Corp

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Dec 12, 2014

Content Trumps Distribution at CBS (CBS)

During the quarter the Fund initiated a position in CBS Corporation. CBS derives revenues from i) advertising on its owned and operated TV and radio networks, ii) content licensing and distribution and iii) affiliate and subscription fees (retransmission fees). The investment opportunity presented itself when shares sold off in the quarter, likely due to the unwinding of short-term event driven positions in the stock following the spin-off of its outdoor advertising unit, CBS Outdoors, and short-term concerns over a softer ad market.

However, we believe the long-term investment case is compelling, as the company is well positioned to capitalize on a new phase of industry transformation where boundaries between distribution and content are being blurred. The new paradigm is likely to benefit the content owners over distributors as the digital revolution has opened multiple new avenues of distribution that will compete for quality content. This change in relative leverage in the media value chain is likely to translate into earnings growth via i) retransmission fees and ii) content monetization. We believe CBS will benefit significantly from this secular change as it is one of the best curators of content in the industry. Over the last decade, the mix of the 20 highest rated shows in the US has changed meaningfully, but the one constant factor has been CBS’s ability to get eight to ten of the top 20 shows consistently, something which no other network has come even close to matching. At its core, this ability to consistently create top notch programming is what differentiates CBS management from all the other networks, in our view. CBS should benefit from incremental demand from content distributors, including TV networks, Subscription Video on Demand (SVOD), and virtual MVPDs (multichannel video programming distributors).

CBS is also leading the way in pushing for broadcast station retransmission fees and has grown EBITDA contribution from its retransmission by 18 times to approximately $500 million since 2008 and is targeting $1 billion in retransmission revenue by 2017 and $2 billion by 2020. As of now the company is pacing ahead of its $2 billion target. As these high margin fees are a “new” source of revenues for existing content, they almost entirely flow down to earnings. Furthermore, CBS has a strong balance sheet with net debt to EBITDA of 1.6x, and is able to generate $1.5 billion to $2 billion of free cash flow per year. CBS is embarking on a $6 billion share buy-back program, allowing it to retire close to 20% of its outstanding shares in the coming six quarters.

We believe CBS presents a compelling investment opportunity, with our cost basis at a meaningful 20% discount to our conservative estimate of NAV, and is likely to continue to grow NAV at 10%+ a year via i) retransmission fees, ii) content monetization and iii) share buyback. While short-term volatility around advertising spot market prices should be expected over our initial three to five year horizon, more material risks that would lead us to reconsider our investment would include an inability to continue to produce high quality content or a failure to achieve a higher normalized compensation level for this content.

From Third Avenue Value Fund’s 4Q 2014 Portfolio Manager Commentary.