YB new stock pitches (Thu, Apr 23)

RCM Technologies (RCMT), a specialty engineering and staffing firm, has been identified as the likely preferred partner providing engineering services to Cipher Digital (CIFR) for its massive hyperscale data center buildout, evidenced by identical job posting language, matching geographic hiring footprints across Denver, Charleston, Colorado City TX, and New York, and RCM's Energy Services backlog surging to $70 million from $21 million year-over-year. Cipher has pivoted from bitcoin mining to HPC data center development and secured three major hyperscale lease agreements: a 300 MW facility at Barber Lake, TX with Fluidstack backed by Google ($3.8 billion contracted, potentially $9.0 billion with extensions), a 300 MW Black Pearl, TX facility with Amazon Web Services ($5.5 billion over 15 years), and a third undisclosed lease speculated to be Meta or Microsoft, while maintaining a total pipeline of 3.4 GW across nine sites including Reveille (70 MW), Stingray (100 MW), Colchis (1.0 GW), Ulysses (200 MW in Ohio), and a 1.5 GW Texas portfolio (Milsing, Mikeska, McLennan at 500 MW each). With industry benchmarks of $8-12 million per MW for Tier III data centers and Cipher's disclosed costs of $9-10 million per MW of critical IT load, the total buildout is valued at $21.5-23.9 billion, equivalent to constructing multiple 'giant Manhattan skyscrapers' simultaneously. Management described the opportunity as a 'protracted secular bull market' in 'early innings' and highlighted grid modernization and substation construction as core opportunities directly in RCM's wheelhouse, though they tempered Q3 guidance characterizing data center work as 'incremental' while calling utilities their 'stronghold,' and notably skipped the Q4 earnings call, keeping the full pipeline magnitude undisclosed. The investor has added RCMT to their watchlist based on this newly uncovered hyperscale infrastructure partnership.

Read the full article here. Read time: 7 min

Vicor Corporation (VICR) expanded Fab 1 capacity to $1.5 billion in revenue (up from $1 billion) by adding a second building to handle easier manufacturing steps, with this second building serving as an extension of Fab 1 rather than the separate Fab 2 that remains in development alongside a potential third-party licensing deal for faster capacity expansion and royalty collection. The CEO confirmed the company now has sufficient capacity to service a major OEM and hyperscaler in addition to their named customer Cerebras, leading the author to deduce these customers are AMD and Google rather than NVIDIA or Amazon, based on the logic that NVIDIA is known to fill two fabs when one fab represented $1 billion in revenue, suggesting the original $1 billion customer is someone half NVIDIA's size (Google) and the additional 50% capacity serves someone half that size (AMD Helios with approximately half of Google TPU's next-year volumes). The author sets a near-term price target of $400 for this year and a long-term target of $1,000+ or anticipates an acquisition in the $600-$800 range.

Read the full article here. Read time: 1 min

Versant Media Group ($VSNT), a recently spun-off Comcast entity managing legacy cable networks (USA Network, CNBC, MSNBC) and digital assets (Fandango, Rotten Tomatoes), trades at 3.1x '25 EV/EBITDA and 3.1x '25 FCF with 1.1x net leverage, offering 97% upside to a 5x EV/EBITDA valuation comparable expected from the Netflix/Paramount/Warner Bros Discovery bidding war. The thesis centers on Discovery Global Networks (DG), VSNT's closest comparable, being valued at $4-6.86 per share (5x-6.5x EBITDA) in the ongoing WBD sale process, with the author expecting a $4/share ($5x EBITDA) transaction as early as February 23 when Paramount's negotiation waiver expires. WBD rejected Paramount's $30/share bid for the entire company (implying $2.25/share for DG) after signing a $27.75/share merger agreement with Netflix for studios and streaming assets excluding DG, with WBD's board valuing DG at $4.63-6.86/share and Paramount subsequently raising their verbal bid to $31 (implying $3.25/share for DG). In 2025, VSNT generated $6.6 billion in revenue, $2.2 billion in adjusted EBITDA, and $1.4 billion in FCF, with 17% of revenue from non-pay TV sources and goals to shift this to 33% in 3-5 years and 50% long-term. Risks include linear TV decline creating a melting ice cube scenario if digital transformation goals aren't met, Brian Roberts' 33% voting control potentially blocking any sale, the possibility that Paramount and WBD don't reach a DG agreement, uncertainty around DG's $17 billion debt allocation affecting transaction multiples, and the potential for all-stock merger consideration making the 5x EBITDA comparable illusory. Catalysts include the sale or merger of Discovery Global Networks with a strategic buyer, the sale or merger of Versant with a strategic buyer, or Versant initiating a dividend.

Read the full article here. Read time: 6 min