In this podcast, Motley Fool analyst Jim Gillies and host Ricky Mulvey discuss:
Why luxury department stores are struggling.
Disney spending $645 million to make two seasons of Star Wars: Andor.
What investors should consider before using options to generate income.
To catch full episodes of all The Motley Fool’s free podcasts, check out our podcast center. To get started investing, check out our beginner’s guide to investing in stocks. A full transcript follows the video.
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This video was recorded on Dec. 23, 2024.
Ricky Mulvey: The sale at Nordstrom is over. You’re listening to Motley Fool Money. Jim, this is our second recording of the day. We are now on minute 40 of seeing each other. Do I still do the like, hey, it’s good to see you thing? Or do we let the listeners know what’s going on behind the scenes?
Jim Gillies: Feel free. Let’s pretend.
Ricky Mulvey: It’s so good to see you. How’s your morning going?
Jim Gillies: It would have been better if we got on the first take, but other than that, it’s great.
Ricky Mulvey: Let’s do this Nordstrom story again. First time for the listeners, though, the theme of this, Jim, is that being a public company is difficult. El Puerto de Liverpool, SAB is acquiring all outstanding shares of Nordstrom for a little bit more than 24 bucks in cash. It’s a tiny premium for what it goes for today. The Nordstrom family will hold onto a majority of the company as it goes private. But why do you think this storied brand is leaving the public markets here?
Jim Gillies: Because they haven’t been rewarded for being public. Also too, small premium, this has been in the works for a year. I think it was a year ago with December 14 in 2023 when El Puerto de Liverpool filed a public NDA, essentially saying, Yeah, we’re looking at this and we’re happy to do it the way you guys want to do it, you guys being Nordstrom family.
In September 2024, there was a preliminary filing offering $23 a share here, so the fact they’ve settled at 24-25, this was coming for a while and you can see it in the stock price chart this year, as well. Like, Nordstrom this year has been a market beater in 2024, which is funny, It’s up about 31% this year. But trust me, the 10-year chart tells you a very different thing.
They really haven’t gotten any advantage for being public they don’t need to raise capital, so they’re not using for capital markets here. They’ve got some debt. They’ll be able to roll that just fine as a private company. I think they probably said them, as well as Liverpool. We’re probably just sitting here going like, look, this is a cash cow. We can run it as a cash cow. There’s no there’s no growth coming here.
The stock being taken out today, it’s about 17 times enterprise value to free cash flow, which is fine. It’s unlikely to go much higher in the public market. This has not been a terribly great capital allocation story. It’s been a little a scattershot, the way I probably would put it. They’ve made some questionable repurchases a little bit. They’ve had some dividends and they’ve cut them back during COVID and then only brought them back at about half the prior level. Being a public company is expensive. These guys can just go away and milk it for cash, and call it a day.
Ricky Mulvey: This is a big bet for Liverpool, which is about a $7 billion USD company and Nordstrom is about $3 billion. There is one brand in there that I’m particularly curious about, which is Nordstrom Rack. I like the Nordstrom Rack. I know our colleague, my co-host Mary, who’s listening right now, is a big fan of the Nordstrom Rack. Also, public markets love TJ Max. So I guess when you’re looking at this, why couldn’t Nordstrom Rack be more of a growth story as we’re talking about Nordstrom going private right now? People love a treasure hunt, Jim.
Jim Gillies: Well, you know what? People love more than a treasure hunt because big lot says hi. People love everyday low prices. People love buying in bulk to save a few bucks on a per-unit basis. The luxury department stores have large and this is the same problem at Macy’s, the same problem at Kohl’s. A couple Canadian names I could mentioned that have long gone now Eaton’s and Simpsons. We, of course, saw Sears go away. Not so much luxury, but department stores and the one store fits all it’s gone away in favor of the or at least they’ve suffered. In favor of the discounters? Could it have been the next TJ Maxx? I don’t know, maybe, but I think that people are just more interested in low cost and buying in bulk.
That may or may not be some commentary on the high cost of living today, but it’s just some of these things, their time has passed rightly or wrongly. I don’t think it’s really that much more complicated. Then the fact that you have the family ownership and the dominance there, it’s like they’re still going to make their millions every year and it’ll be fine and there’s no tag days for them. But I think, like, what’s the incentive to stay public? You’re going to get a load of mid-teens multiple on cash flow. Your cash flow is not growing. In my view, at least anyway, there’s not a lot of booming upside here. Take it private, get rid of all the public filing costs. Maybe you can streamline the business a little bit more and then just run it as a cash cow for both Liverpool and the Nordstrom family.
Ricky Mulvey: You get access to capital markets, you get more liquidity if you want to sell some shares. There’s some advantages to being a public company, even if you’re getting a lower multiple Jim.
Jim Gillies: Yeah, I don’t think they’re going to have any trouble raising capital on the debt side. They get about 2.6 billion in debt. They will have no trouble rolling that. I don’t see the potential upside in the value creation here. So it’s like public, not public. I don’t think it’s going to really impact anyone’s life unless your last name is Nordstrom.
Ricky Mulvey: Bloomberg reported that in 2018, the board rejected the family’s bid to take Nordstrom Private at 50 bucks a share. Now it’s going for less than half of that. We’ve seen a similar story at Paramount, which is this family business that refuses to sell when an offer is high and the growth prospects are subdued. You have outside buyers coming in and saying, hey, we can cool this melting ice cube if you want to hand it to us in the private markets. Are there any companies you’re looking at today where if the board invited you in Jim, you would say, you know what? Now might be a good time to leave the public markets. Take the silver. Get out of here.
Jim Gillies: Well, the first thing I say, I hope the board, the members of the board from 2018, who rejected that $50 bid, I hope they’re writing checks to return all of the compensation they’ve got over the past seven years to take now a buyout at half. Good job, guys. I don’t really follow companies, to see them taken out in this negative situation, which is what I think this is. I think it goes down to, I’ve got lots of companies, I think are going to be acquired or I would like to see a takeout. I had one personally on my Canadian service here is being taken out today. It’s got a surprise bid. That’s a tiny little company, so it won’t go too far there.
I’m generally looking because I play in the small-cap space a lot, I’m generally looking in probably about half of my companies over time get taken out. I’m thinking back to I was the co-advisor for a little Foolish service called Pay Dirt back in the mid 2000s. I’ve kept the names from that service a little spreadsheet I check in occasionally. More than half are gone now. They’re long gone because small companies get acquired. That’s what I’m looking at. I don’t really look at these companies where, oh, we don’t want to taken out, we don’t get taken, fine, now we’ll take a buyout when you’ve eroded shareholder value for half a decade.
That’s not my jam. I will say, though, that there are some companies I think would probably benefit from being out of the public eye. The one that I think should probably be folded into a larger connected fitness player at some point, although we won’t say Apple, but maybe Google and their fitness app, because they did buy Fitbit, is Peloton. I think Peloton, they finally got the right people in charge or at least better people in charge. They finally decided to stop bleeding cash. They finally decided to fix their balance sheet as best they could, given they were over a barrel.
I think as there’s still a really nice subscription business hidden in there, even though their hardware is not selling as well as it was during the pandemic for what I think are obvious reasons, I think the value of and especially as they’ve got the app, so you don’t even actually have to own hardware from Peloton anymore to play here. You can own the app and pay the subscription there and use your own material and your own hardware. I think at some point, they’d be my candidate to go away, unless you want to I think people Hope Spring’s eternal, and I think companies always think they can be the ones to turn around. New managers think they can always be the ones to turn it around.
Heck, investors buying I like to call it the cult of the value investor of which I am a card-carrying member. We always think a turnaround is going to come around and some of them do. But some of them don’t. Nordstrom, public, private, I don’t think we’re going to be missing out by them going away. I think Peloton if it gets taken out next couple of years 20, $25, it wouldn’t shock me.
Ricky Mulvey: We’re going to move on to a story that is significantly more personal to you as the listener can’t see this. I’m looking behind Jim’s shoulder and I see a stormtrooper bobblehead, certified Star Wars fan. This caught my attention. Forbes reports that Disney will spend more than $600 million on making two seasons of Andor. The second season coming in at $345 million. We’ll go from the fan perspective and the investing perspective. This is a lower-level Star Wars fan than you. I like the first season. I thought it was pretty good. Practical effects are expensive. I didn’t know they were that expensive. But I’m looking at this, in my back at the napkin math is that these episodes are going to be about two times more expensive than the final season of Game of Thrones. As a Star Wars fan, are you happy to see this investment in a gritty adult Star Wars series?
Jim Gillies: Heck, yes, it’s not my money. Spend away. Go ahead. It’s the same thing I have when I see Juan Soto or Shohei Ohtani sign for whatever they signed for. It’s like, it’s not my money, go get paid, guys. Yeah, so I’m fine with this. I will also say that this is supposed to be the final season of Andor. It’s only going to run two seasons. I will humbly suggest without seeing it that the final season of Andor will be better than the final season of Game of Thrones. That might be more of a comment on Game of Thrones. But anyway, I’m happy to see it because I will hold that there are two distinct eras of Star Wars.
There’s before Disney and after Disney. Before Disney has its issues the prequel trilogy is a step down from the original Trilogy. I hold Andor is the best thing they’ve done since they acquired. I’m going to loop Rogue one in there as well, because Andor is technically a prequel to the movie Rogue One. But Disney has not had any real clue how to hold and monetize Star Wars. Now, I think they’re going to lose their shirts on this, given the cost of this because it is the least watched Disney plus show at least until the Acolyte aired. If you tried watching the Acolyte you’ll know why that one failed. I did, and I do.
But why was Andor the least-watched Disney Star Wars Show? The answer is, in my opinion, because the stuff they had before was scattershot, the tent pole movies so the episodes 7, 8 and 9, they didn’t have a coherent plan, and they didn’t have a coherent story. The Episode 8 seem to be trying to monkey with what they set up in Episode 7. Episode 9, was trying to fix Episode 8. Poor character writing. Finn’s a big hero in the first one. Oh, now he’s a joke in the second one. Ray is perfect the way she is, so who cares? Captain Fasma was a waste. Snoke the big bad or he’s not. It was completely incoherent.
The lesser, the non trilogy movies, Rogue 1 is excellent, but it’s excellent because it was a more adult and they took some risks. Solo is fine. But then what TV shows have they done? Well, the Mandalorian and the first couple seasons are fine. The third season was terrible. Obi-Wan Kenobi was a joke. The Acolytes joke. Season 7 Clone Wars was fine, but Bad Batch was mundane. They’ve been very scattershot and they don’t know what they have. Another thing too, is what I’ve said here. We went to the Star Wars and at Disney and yeah, you can see a bunch of stuff behind me, and what you can’t see is all the stuff on that wall and you can’t see the stuff downstairs. There is a lot of Star Wars stuff in this house and we’ll leave it at that, including some very nice artwork.
You don’t realize the Star Wars stuff till you look closely. We went to Galaxy’s Edge and Disney a couple years ago, and we were quite excited. I took money because I have money and I am willing to spend it. Disney take my money. I didn’t buy anything. I walked out because everything they are trying to sell you at the Disney Park is not Han Luke Lea R2 3PO. It’s not Darth Vader Stormtroopers. It’s not the classic stuff that people who have money are willing to buy. It wasn’t that. It was all stuff from the sequel trilogy. I’m don’t want a Kylo Ren plushy. I don’t care. The character didn’t resonate. The character was uneven anyway. But when they’ve had good writing and Rogue 1 is good writing.
Andor is excellent writing. I would say that the Luthan speech, anyone who’s seen Andor, the four people who’ve seen it will know what I’m talking about when Luthan talks about what he sacrifices. It’s gritty. It’s adult. It’s actually showing what life is like under this totalitarian government and that it’s oppressive and that it’s hard and people are going to die. This is a mature story being told by a really good storyteller. You go look at a lot of stuff it’s played for laughs. It’s like Star Wars can be funny. But that’s not the primary motivation, like Han Solo funny guy. Princess Leia had some pretty good lines in the original Star Wars. But it’s not humor isn’t the Andor. Also too and this is just a personal thing, and this is more Star Wars than anyone when I ever wants to hear from me. The totalitarian fascist government in charge, which is what the empire is. Under Disney, they’re clueless rubes that can’t do anything right, it’s a joke. If you don’t give consequences to your characters, people aren’t going to take your character seriously.
Ricky Mulvey: Well, IP Management, including Star Wars and Beyond Star Wars, is something that Disney seems to be struggling with. They had a.
Jim Gillies: Yes.
Ricky Mulvey: Movie open this weekend that is underperforming with Mufasa. These are fond memories people have as children and they’re struggling to get people back to the movies to go see them. I think of the Daisy Ridley’s character in Star Wars.
Jim Gillies: It’s Ray.
Ricky Mulvey: Yeah. Ray, excuse me, Ray. In one of the new movies, they have her essentially speed-running through Jedi training.
Jim Gillies: She’s perfect.
Ricky Mulvey: When you think of the original trilogy, Luke Skywalker has to go through some stuff with Yoda in order to be a Jedi. I think there’s just some fundamental misunderstandings about storytelling under this new regime for Star Wars that I don’t understand why they don’t understand it.
Jim Gillies: You’re exactly right. Again, I think Daisy Ridley did fine with what she had, what she had to do, but the character was written where she gets everything almost instantly. There’s the classic hero’s journey, the hero has to suffer in order to overcome. You don’t see that. But you’re exactly right. Lucas film, Disney’s having problems. But even at Lucas film, the Indiana Jones movie. Dial of Destiny or whatever it was. People want to see Indiana Jones. The first 20 minutes of that movie where they’ve de-aged Harrison Ford and I understand that’s expensive,and that felt like Indiana Jones. I’m hearing good things about there’s a game out called The Great Circle right now. I’m hearing really good things about that game. But when it came to the rest of the movie, the movie was awkward and bad because they showed old broken down they deconstructed the hero. That’s what they’ve done with Star Wars, as well. We’re going to deconstruct Han solo. Forget the love story of Han solo and Princess Leia. Now they’re divorced and he’s an absentee father because reasons. It’s just like, well, we don’t want our heroes deconstructed. We don’t want to be told that, hey, the heroes you loved, yeah, they’re flawed and terrible. Here’s some new heroes and we’re going to take these guys apart, it doesn’t sell.
Ricky Mulvey: We can talk about what Disney doesn’t know how to sell the fact of the matter, though. Biggest two movies this year are Inside Out 2 and Deadpool and Wolverine.
Jim Gillies: Both of which are good movies, by the way.
Ricky Mulvey: Both of which are pretty good movies. Inside Out 2 was good because it had something new to say in a sequel. In the original Inside out, the main character young kid experiencing these emotions. Now we have her in puberty and understanding things like anxiety. There’s something new to say from a director that has children and also, like, is able to bring real life into it. Deadpool actually was a real risk. It was an R rated movie coming from Disney about Superheroes, which is something that granted, it’s a sequel, but people still like going to the movies to see superheroes and the X men.
Jim Gillies: Yeah, I liked both of them. I really did. I agree with what you said about Inside Out 2. Deadpool and Wolverine, the amount of character work. I know it’s an R-rated movie coming out of Disney, but it’s not the first time. They used to what was it Miramax or whatever they had a deal with. They would release their R-rated stuff through they can do that and the audience is there. But the audience has been built up in the prior to Deadpool movies. It’s been built up in however many X-Men movies there are, which even when they changed the main cast, they never recast Logan. They never recast Wolverine. It was always Hugh Jackman. The issue I see is that you can’t make your money now and selling the DVD and the Blue Rays after, which was the way it was for about 20 years there. It’s even if you didn’t make it back in your box office, you would make it back in DVD and Blu-ray sales later. We’re not really doing that anymore. Because, well, because we don’t. No one buys physical media. We all want to subscribe to 17 streaming services, apparently, instead.
A lot of these things, they’re losing their shirts on them, and they haven’t really found out a way to monetize them and so what are they doing? They are really relying on existing IP. We’re going to do sequels as much as possible because at least we’ve got that built in audience to maybe entice you in or we have to get smaller. These are the two that hit, but I already mentioned how much I’m not a big fan of the Disney Star Wars with a couple of exceptions. I mentioned the Indiana Jones, guys, at some point. Even in the Marvel universe, which of course, Disney owns as well, they peaked with endgame. End games five years ago now. It was 2019. All of the Marvel since then, all the Phase 4 and Phase 5, whatever we’re doing, the TV shows, the movies, it’s just been a steady degradation. It’s nice what happened with Deadpool Wolverine and it’s good.
But I don’t have a lot of hope for a lot of the other stuff that’s been coming out because I mean does anyone remember what the plot of the Marvels or the Eternals was like?
Ricky Mulvey: Two final points, and then I’m going to move to a question for the hardcore investors listening. If you made it through that conversation on Disney and Star Wars, I want to make sure we leave you with a little treat, something to take home with you. My two final points are, one, the International box office is less reliable for big 10 pole movies. Then the second is that Deadpool and Wolverine was the only Big Marvel movie this year. I think both of those facts are important. I had to say that.
Now, we’re going to go to a mailbag question that at the end of the year, I want to get to an advanced investing concept because in the beginning of the year, we’re going to get more general stuff as we have newer investors welcomed to the show. Here’s the question from Calfool that I thought would be good for you, Jim. I’m thinking about using more options to generate income on the stocks that I own. This is selling a covered call. What should I know before doing this? Is there an advantage to doing this instead of just owning dividend-paying stocks and doing a little less work?
Jim Gillies: Well, the advantage is you can increase the income on the underlying stock by selling calls against it. The disadvantage and I can go in a number of different directions here. Well, number one, first off, to companies that pay dividends, so if you’re going to sell a covered call on a dividend-paying stock, dividends take down the price of the calls. When you’re selling it, you’re arguably getting paid less than you should be. That’s I have to get you a finance paper to show you how that works. But yeah, let’s just say selling covered calls on big dividend payers is going to pay you less. The problem that Calfool may be stepping in here is because they specifically say, generate income on stocks I own. Well, what is your cost basis in those stocks that you own? What account are those stocks held in? If they’re held in a tax-sheltered account, this is probably not that big of a deal. If they are held in a non-tax sheltered account, let’s say, I’m going to pick on Starbucks just because it’s the one that comes to mind for I think it’s about 85 or $90 a share.
If your cost basis is $10 a share and you say get paid two or $3 to sell a three-month call option against your shares, that money is yours to keep. You’d sell one call option for every hundred shares you own. But if the stock runs up. If a stock goes from 85 where it is today, 87, where is it today. Let’s say it runs to $120 by the end of the three months Brian Niccol is perceived to be turning the company around. If you sold, say, the $90 call option to generate income today, you are going to be scrambling to either buy those calls back and they’re going to be a lot more expensive and it’s going to largely eliminate any profitability you could have had or you’re going to say goodbye to your shares that maybe you don’t want to say goodbye to and you’ll have a big tax bill.
Always think about, am I doing this in a taxable account? If not, it’s probably fine. You might end up selling something you don’t want to sell too quickly, but at least there’s no major tax implication. If it’s in a taxable account, you might want to rethink this. This is why when I was running Motley Fool Options, my good friend Jim Mueller is running Motley Fool Options today, he will say the same thing. It’s we’ve always preferred what’s called the buy right. If you want covered calls and you’re aiming for 1% a month, which is reasonably you can do it, maybe a little bit better, actually. What you would do is you would buy shares in lots of 100 and then you would sell one call contract against the shares you bought. That way, you’re deliberately targeting income. Don’t do it in an account where you already own shares. We could lose those taxes again. But just be careful and think about what you’re doing. Think about the tax implications.
Then, as well, be sure you’re OK waving goodbye to those shares, because at some point you will see a stock run-up, you will see a call exercised against you. Then the final potential indignity is always be aware if you are going to sell covered calls on a dividend-paying company, be aware once the stock price goes above the strike price on the call, and if we’re heading toward the next dividend date, you might lose your shares early and there’s some formulas you need to worry about, but we go there. You might lose your shares early because the counterparty your option might try to steal your dividend from you. Just be aware and think through the implications of what you’re doing here. It can be fine. I do cover calls all the time. Just be aware.
Ricky Mulvey: Good place to end it. Gets to run long today. No B segment. Jim Gillies, appreciate you being here. Have a good holiday week, and I think I’ll see you in the New Year.
Jim Gillies: Thanks, Ricky. You too.
Ricky Mulvey: As always, people on the program may have interests in the stocks they talk about and the Motley Fool may have formal recommendations for or against, so don’t buy or sell stocks based solely on what you hear. While personal finance content follows Motley Fool editorial standards and are not approved by advertisers, Motley Fool only picks products that it would personally recommend to friends like you. I’m Ricky Mulvey, thanks for listening. We’ll be back tomorrow.
Suzanne Frey, an executive at Alphabet, is a member of The Motley Fool’s board of directors. Jim Gillies has positions in Apple and has the following options: short April 2025 $8 puts on Peloton Interactive. Ricky Mulvey has positions in Walt Disney. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Alphabet, Apple, Peloton Interactive, Starbucks, TJX Companies, and Walt Disney. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
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