$VST CEO James Burke bought his stock 3 times in the last 3 weeks, with an average of $135.
Down 38% from its peak, I see an asymmetric bet here. (I own 37 shares in
$VST at $139)
Fundamentals
- 13.7x forward EPS vs peak in 25x --> Almost a year of compression
- Forward High Cash Flow Yield near 9% (Guidance targets more than $10B in total cash generation across 2026 - 2027 period)
- 2026 volumes are 100% hedged, 2027 volumes 94% hedged --> Baseline Cash Flows almost completely insulated from spot natural gas or electricity price drops
- S&P Global upgraded
$VST to BBB- with net debt to EBITDA leverage ratio within 2.6x - 2.8x range by 2026-2027 (Investment Grade)
Contracted Cash Flows
- PJM Capacity Reset:
$VST contractually locked in an incremental $1.1B-$1.4B in high margin annual EBITDA through 2027 -->
$VST makes nearly 100% pure profit with no extra expense
- Tech Annuities with Hyperscalers: 3.8 GW locked into 20-year nuclear Power Purchase Agreements with AWS and Meta at fixed premium prices.
- Built-In Margin Buffer: 41 GW generational fleet paired with roughly 5M retail customers of TXU and Dynergy -->
$VST owns both power plants and the retail utility companies, which can capture profits regardless of power price direction
Insider Signal and Capital Allocation
-
$VST repurchased more than $6.5B of its stock since Nov 2021 and total common shares outstanding dropped 30% --> $1.2B more authorized for buyback
- Insider selling from directors completely halted once
$VST was below $145
- David Tepper (Appaloosa Management): Increased his VST position by ~10%, expanding it into a ~$350M stake
- Peter Thiel (Thiel Capital): Disclosed a new starter stake of ~$59M during Q2 cycle
-
@pelositracker Nancy Pelosi's husband has 5000 shares of
$VST since the start of this year.
Is
$VST still a buy at $149?