Contrarian Corpus
activist conference presentation initial thesis
2023-05-09 · 47 pages

Vitesco Technologies VTSC

Vitesco trades at €2.6B EV — less than its ICE business alone is worth (€2.9-4.3B at peer multiples); buy the stock and get the high-growth EV-powertrain unit for free.

N 5 Narrative
V 3 Visual
C 2 Craft
Original source ↗

Thesis

Vitesco Technologies, a German auto-parts supplier spun out of Continental AG in 2021, trades at just €2.6 billion enterprise value despite housing two distinct businesses. The legacy ICE-powertrain unit ('Chocolate') generates ~€6.4B in stable revenue and ~€800M EBITDA — implying €2.9-4.3B of standalone value at peer multiples of 0.5x sales, 5x EBITDA, and 8x EBIT. The hidden gem is the EV-powertrain unit ('Peanut Butter'): a leading supplier of inverters, e-axles, and battery-management systems to Hyundai's E-GMP, Stellantis, and Renault, with a €27B order backlog and a book-to-bill above 4x. Greenlight projects Peanut Butter to reach ~€11B revenue and ~10% EBIT margins by 2030. At today's price, you pay less than peer-multiple value for the ICE business and get a hyper-growth EV pure-play for free.

SCQA

Situation

Vitesco is a German auto-parts supplier spun out of Continental AG in 2021, operating both a stable ICE-powertrain business and a fast-growing EV-powertrain franchise supplying inverters and e-axles to Hyundai, Stellantis, and Renault.

Complication

The market treats Vitesco as a single low-growth ICE supplier and ignores the EV unit, even as anti-value sentiment drives capital away from anything ICE-adjacent and into unprofitable EV pure-plays at premium multiples.

Resolution

Greenlight is long Vitesco at €60.25 per share and frames the trade as a sum-of-parts arbitrage: buy the whole company because the ICE segment alone more than covers the enterprise value.

Reward

ICE peer multiples imply €2.9-4.3B for that segment alone — already above the €2.6B current EV — making the EV powertrain franchise (potentially worth €6-30B by 2030) effectively a free option.

The three reasons

  1. 1

    Vitesco's €2.6B EV is below the standalone ICE-peer value of €2.9-4.3B

  2. 2

    EV-powertrain unit has €27B backlog and ~20% revenue CAGR to 2030

  3. 3

    Trades under 3x 2026 EBIT — arguably the cheapest auto-parts supplier worldwide

Primary demands

  • Buy Vitesco at €60.25 per share
  • Recognize the SOTP gap: ICE peer-multiple value alone exceeds the entire enterprise value

KPIs cited

Vitesco enterprise value
€2.6B at €60.25/share (May 4, 2023)
ICE segment implied value (peer multiples)
€2.9-4.3B using 0.5x sales, 5x EBITDA, 8x EBIT on 2024E
EV segment order backlog
€26.9B at FY22, with €10.4B order intake on €2.6B sales (~4x book-to-bill)
EV segment revenue CAGR
~20% from €2.6B (2022) to €11.4B (2030E)
EV segment EBIT margin trajectory
From -9.3% (2021) inflecting positive in 2024E to ~9.9% by 2030E
Hyundai/Kia E-GMP monthly sales CAGR
207% over Apr-21 to Mar-23, reaching 30,000+ units in March 2023
Vitesco consolidated trading multiples
0.3x 2024E sales, 2.4x EBITDA, 4.8x EBIT — vs peer median 0.5x / 4.8x / 7.7x
Profitless tech comp multiples
Average 4.5x 2024E sales, 3.4x 2025E sales for unprofitable EU/US growth peers

Pattern membership

Where this document fits across the library's 12 rhetorical / structural patterns.

Notable slides (6)

Notes

Classic Einhorn Sohn presentation built around a code-name reveal device: 'Chocolate' (ICE business) + 'Peanut Butter' (EV business) = 'Reese's Cups' (Vitesco). The narrative arc holds the ticker until slide 45 to force the audience to evaluate the SOTP on substance first. Not an activist campaign — purely a long thesis pitched at Sohn 2023; no demands on management, no proxy fight, no stake disclosure. Heavy use of stock photos, cartoons, and CartoonStock clips for levity. SOTP arithmetic is the engineering of the deck (slides 11-18 set up Chocolate's value, 19-37 set up Peanut Butter, 40-44 collapse them into the 'free' gap). Visual craft is basic PowerPoint with dark-blue gradients; the cleverness is in narrative structure, not design.