Our Story
metronuclear LLC is a deep value investment partnership that awaits then exploits market dislocations, uses algorithms to make investment decisions, and engages management teams to reduce price-value gaps. Originally established to supply physical uranium concentrates to US nuclear plants receiving state-level subsidies, metronuclear invests exclusively in German companies that are overlooked and undervalued.
Our Journey
Our founder pioneered uranium trading at two global investment banks and later launched metronuclear when New York and Illinois approved annual ratepayer subsidies for nuclear power plants. We have engaged practically every corporate owner of a nuclear power plant fleet in America. While waiting for these corporate owners to diversify their nuclear fuel supply chains, we pivoted to deep value investments, starting with German bank shares (and/or proxies thereof) that traded at historically large discounts to their tangible net asset value, then expanding gradually to shares of other German companies with similar dislocations.
Our Investments
metronuclear has concentrated investments in Commerzbank Aktiengesellschaft and Puma Societas Europaea.
Commerzbank AG
Commerzbank is Germany’s second-largest listed bank, the market leader in Mittelstand banking, and the parent of leading digital bank and broker comdirect. Its mBank subsidiary is Poland’s fifth-largest bank. And its CommerzVentures venture capital platform invested successfully at an early stage in several fintech unicorns. Hypothetically, if Commerzbank were a US bank, it would rank as the sixth largest bank in the US by total assets with around 600 billion euros.
The cornerstone of metronuclear’s investment thesis for Commerzbank is the bank’s capital return strategy under the leadership of CEO Bettina Orlopp. Commerzbank expects to deliver around 2.5 billion euros in net profit for full year 2025, per its own guidance. Backed by a robust CET1 ratio of 14.74 percent, 438 basis points above its regulatory minimum requirement and ahead of peer averages, the bank plans to return at least 100 percent of annual profits to shareholders through dividends and share buybacks from 2025 through 2028. Over that four-year horizon, Commerzbank projects undiscounted capital returns of roughly 12.9 billion euros, or around 36% of its current market capitalization.
UniCredit SpA, Italy’s largest bank by market value, now holds a 29.3 percent economic stake in Commerzbank, making it the bank’s largest shareholder. While UniCredit has signaled interest in a full takeover, its footprint in Germany is already substantial through HypoVereinsbank, a wholly owned subsidiary comparable in size to Commerzbank. But its missing piece is Poland. UniCredit has no meaningful presence in Poland, leaving a critical gap in its self-styled pan-European model. Commerzbank’s ownership of mBank, one of Poland’s most profitable and digitally advanced banks, makes Commerzbank uniquely attractive to UniCredit. In our view, mBank is not just a strategic asset; we believe it is the quiet catalyst behind UniCredit’s stake building in Commerzbank.
We believe the most expedient way for Commerzbank to dispatch UniCredit and preserve its independence is to sell mBank. The net proceeds could finance a super-capital return to shareholders, reinforcing Commerzbank’s positioning as a disciplined capital return provider. Alternatively, Commerzbank could propose a swap, exchanging its mBank stake for UniCredit’s Commerzbank shares, subject to a standstill agreement. Either path could defuse the takeover threat while protecting, and indeed enhancing, shareholder value, leaving both banks strategically better off, in our view.
metronuclear believed any one of nine events would over time improve Commerzbank’s fortunes and generate favorable investment returns: (1) reversal of negative euro interest rates; (2) management change; (3) cost optimization; (4) capital optimization; (5) merger or acquisition; and (6) fiscal expansion in Germany; (7) euro appreciation versus the dollar; (8) Commerzbank’s reascension to Germany’s DAX 40 blue-chip index; and (9) positive re-rating of the bank’s shares by the sell-side equity analyst community. All nine events occurred. metronuclear’s original investment in Commerzbank delivered a peak investment return of around 20x inclusive of leverage and is expected over time to deliver annual capital returns (dividends plus share buybacks attributable to our shares) of around 2x the original investment.
Past performance is not indicative of future results. You should not rely on our information to make any investment decisions. Please read our disclaimer.
Puma SE
Puma is the world’s fourth-largest sportswear brand after Nike, Adidas, and Lululemon, and, like Commerzbank, is based in Germany. Puma and Adidas have several family, geographic, and leadership links: Their founders were brothers; both companies are based in Herzogenaurach, Bavaria, Germany; and Puma’s current CEO is an Adidas alumnus and Adidas’ current CEO was previously Puma’s CEO. But Puma is the little sibling by comparison as its market value is around one tenth of that of Adidas.
Groupe Artemis owns around 30 percent of Puma and around 40 percent of Kering, which owns luxury brands Balenciaga, Gucci, and YSL. Puma collaborates with Balenciaga to create co-branded fashion collections, giving them a distinct competitive advantage over competitors who lack direct access to similar luxury brands. As its largest shareholder, Artemis exerts considerable governance influence over Puma, including through board representation.
metronuclear believes Puma is overlooked and undervalued, both independently and relative to its peers and in particular Adidas. Adidas’ market value is around 10 times that of Puma but its sales are only around three times that of Puma. We believe the valuation gap is attributable to (amongst other factors) perception, performance, and profitability, each of which is an opportunity area for Puma and its management team. Since metronuclear began building its own stake in Puma, several institutions newly acquired stakes of various sizes in Puma. A financial sponsor recently acquired a Puma competitor with sales comparable to Puma’s sales at a valuation of around three times Puma’s market capitalization at the time of acquisition. Sales equivalence notwithstanding, this competitor is significantly more profitable than Puma, suggesting Puma could benefit from renewed focus on optimizing costs that are fully within the control of its management team and specifically its Chief Financial Officer.
Past performance is not indicative of future results. You should not rely on our information to make any investment decisions. Please read our disclaimer.
Our Team
Roy Adams
- Founder and Chief Investment Officer of metronuclear
- Handelsblatt: Scaled metronuclear’s investment in Commerzbank and launched #BetOnBettina campaign
- Women’s Wear Daily: Proposed Puma-Adidas merger through #MPGA (Make Puma Great Again) campaign
- Orchestrated metronuclear’s pivot from the physical uranium market to the German stock market
- Created metronuclear’s deep value algorithms and uranium term and option pricing models
- Originates, executes, and manages all deep value investments for metronuclear
- Engages investment targets’ management teams to reduce persistent price-value gaps
- Performs fundamental research across all relevant knowledge domains
- Pioneered uranium trading at Deutsche Bank and Lehman Brothers in UK and US with 40+ customers spanning 5 continents
- Financial Times: Adams left Deutsche Bank to work with two non-profits and later to invest privately in uranium miners and European and German banks
- Reuters: Deutsche Bank’s global uranium trading business was long-term supplier of uranium to utilities, profitable each year of its existence, and later sold to Australian bank Macquarie
- Originated and executed first-ever long-term physical uranium supply contract between a bank and a nuclear utility
- Arranged first-ever financially-settled uranium swap with a nuclear utility, covering a quarter of its annual fuel requirements
- Traded first-ever financially-settled uranium swap with institutional investors
- Built uranium-linked structured products portfolio with peak assets under management of 100 million dollars
- Graduate of NYC Public Schools K-12 (valedictorian at every level), Mathematics and Science for Minority Students Program at Phillips Academy Andover (Honors), Yale University (Varsity Football), and Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth (Edward Tuck Scholar)
- Member of the Board of Directors and Audit & Finance Committee for PENCIL Inc., an educational charity that connects NYC Public School students to success