PUBLIC RESEARCH / SEAN BURNS

THE RESEARCH
ARCHIVE

Case files on capital allocation, market structure, institutional failure, and creative destruction.

Built from the 2024 public record; reconstructed and expanded against primary sources. This is an independent public archive—not research issued by or on behalf of Creemore Capital Management.

ANALYTICAL METHOD

The decision before the outcome.

Reconstruct the information set

Separate what was known at the time from facts that became obvious only after the outcome.

Map the economic mechanism

Translate narrative into leverage, duration, liquidity, incentives, unit economics, and capital structure.

Identify the forced actor

Find the point at which a manager, lender, customer, or incumbent loses the freedom to wait.

State the evidentiary limit

Distinguish filings and established facts from allegations, interpretation, and incomplete public data.

CASE FILES / 17

The original series, rebuilt as a permanent body of work.

MARCH—MAY 2024 / EXPANDED 2026

Market Missteps

Nine investment failures and one synthesis: leverage, liquidity, concentration, reflexivity, crowding, and the institutional conditions required to survive being wrong.

MM / 01The Rise & Fall of a Market MavenA record can be exceptional and still conceal a portfolio that has become dependent on one economic regime.Bill Miller · Financials · Path dependence MM / 02LJM: Lies, Justice & MalfeasanceA smooth return stream can be the visible premium for warehousing an invisible, nonlinear liability.Short volatility · Convexity · Risk disclosure MM / 03From Icon to Cautionary TaleAn open-end promise of daily liquidity is a liability. The assets must be managed against it, not merely selected on conviction.Neil Woodford · Open-end funds · Liquidity mismatch MM / 04Bill Ackman & ValeantThe durability of the business and the recoverability of the investment became inseparable from the credibility of the institution defending it.Concentration · Governance · Reputational reflexivity MM / 05The Rise and Reckoning of ARKKA portfolio of disruptive companies can still be one macro trade when valuation rests on distant cash flows and abundant liquidity.Long duration · Concentration · Regime dependence MM / 06The Archegos Capital CollapseSynthetic exposure let one portfolio look like several bilateral relationships until margin calls revealed the system as a single crowded trade.Total return swaps · Counterparty blindness · Forced liquidation MM / 07Amaranth Advisors AnarchyA spread can be market-neutral in direction and still be catastrophically exposed to curve shape, position size, and the impossibility of exit.Calendar spreads · Market depth · Exit capacity MM / 08Rick Guerin’s Berkshire BlunderLeverage can turn a temporary quotation into a permanent disposition of the asset one most wants to keep.Margin debt · Forced selling · Opportunity cost MM / 09Plotkin’s GameStop GambleA correct fundamental short thesis can be overrun by the market structure required to express it.Short interest · Squeeze mechanics · Asymmetric exposure MM / 10Season One ConclusionThe recurring error was not ignorance. It was a structure that made intelligent updating too late, too costly, or impossible.Synthesis · Portfolio architecture · Institutional survival

MAY—JULY 2024 / EXPANDED 2026

Disrupted

A seven-case inquiry into creative destruction: how profit pools move, why incumbents delay, and when technical awareness fails to become economic adaptation.

D / 01Examining Creative DestructionDisruption is not the arrival of a new technology. It is the reorganization of a profit pool around a new constraint.Industry structure · Incumbent response · Capital reallocation D / 02Blockbuster’s BlowupThe store network was an advantage until convenience moved from proximity to immediacy and the network became a fixed-cost claim on a shrinking model.Distribution · Fixed costs · Strategic delay D / 03Yahoo’s Fall from GraceA collection of valuable products is not the same thing as a coherent system for allocating attention, data, and engineering effort.Search · Advertising technology · Strategic coherence D / 04Kodak KamikazeInventing the successor technology does not solve the capital-allocation problem created when that technology destroys the incumbent profit pool.Cannibalization · Installed assets · Digital economics D / 05Chegg vs. ChatGPTA proprietary answer library loses scarcity when a general model can generate an answer at the moment of demand.Generative AI · Content moat · Customer switching D / 06MySpace’s Downfall and Facebook’s RiseThe platform optimized what it could monetize immediately while its rival improved the system that made future monetization possible.Product quality · Advertising load · Identity graph D / 07The Fall of StudebakerA company can survive one technological transition and still lose the industrial economics of the next competitive order.Manufacturing scale · Cost position · Late diversification

SELECTED NOTES

Shorter propositions and observations.

012024

Price Is the Dependent Variable

Value investors may reject the market’s current quotation, but the public record of the judgment is ultimately settled through price. Intrinsic value is the independent estimate; future price is the dependent variable through which recognition, liquidity, and realized return arrive. The paradox is that the investor must be willing to disagree with price without pretending to be independent of it.

ARCHIVED FROM THE 2024 PUBLIC RECORD

02May 9, 2024

Berkshire Hathaway AGM and Markel Brunch

Notes on succession, capital allocation, buybacks, cash in a higher-rate environment, Berkshire after Munger, and the different institutional models built by Warren Buffett and Thomas Gayner.

OPEN ORIGINAL NOTE ↗

032024

Bruce Berkowitz and the Portfolio Manager’s Journey

A note on the path from learning risk in a family corner store and through brokerage to running a concentrated portfolio—where security selection, temperament, and the business of managing outside capital become one professional problem.