It's hard to pigeonhole Jonathan Boyar. A principal in Boyar Value Group in New York, he favors cheap stocks but isn't averse to growth stocks, either, provided he can buy them at a discount to what he and his team think the business is worth.

Boyar Value's founder, Mark Boyar, launched the firm in 1975 and was first interviewed in Barron's in 1986. The older Boyar, now 84, still contributes stock ideas to his son and the team. Jonathan Boyar, 46, joined the firm in 2008.

Boyar Value has two main businesses. Its asset management arm oversees about $350 million, and its stock research division serves family offices, hedge funds, and other institutional clients. It also offers stock research at a lower price point via Substack to financial advisors and retail investors. In addition, Jonathan Boyar hosts The World According to Boyar podcast.

The firm's research business is perhaps best known for the Forgotten Forty, an annual list of stocks it considers undervalued, published at the end of each calendar year. The most recent list included Walt Disney, Uber Technologies, and CVS Health. Barron's spoke with Jonathan Boyar several times in recent weeks about his investment strategy and favorite stocks. An edited version of these conversations follows.

Barron's: How would you describe your approach to value investing?

Jonathan Boyar: The best situation for us is to buy something cheap that is growing. We are value investors, but the more apt description is opportunists. One reason why I take exception to the term value investor is that I don't really know any growth investor who is looking to overpay, either. We try to buy the proverbial dollar bill for 50 cents.

We are also concerned about business quality. We don't want to buy mediocre businesses at great prices. We want to buy good to great businesses at good to great prices.

And, we look for catalysts. It isn't enough for a stock to be temporarily inexpensive. There has to be a reason why the market will recognize its value over a reasonable time. We are patient, more so than most people. In 1986, Barron's called my father, Mark Boyar, the world's most patient investor. I'm not as patient as him, but I'm pretty patient. We're willing to wait a couple of years for the market to come around to our view.

Is there a valuation line in the sand that you won't cross when buying a stock -- for example, nothing purchased below five times forward earnings?

Value doesn't have to be measured only by traditional metrics. Sometimes a stock might not look statistically cheap on, say, a price/earnings basis. Take the former Madison Square Garden Sports, which has been rebranded as the MSG Knickerbockers. It owns the New York Knicks basketball team. It had a recent enterprise value of about $10 billion. Based on comparable sales of other NBA [National Basketball Association] teams, notably the Los Angeles Lakers, the Knicks are probably worth $12.5 billion.

MSG Sports spun off the New York Rangers, a premiere NHL [National Hockey League] franchise, last month as a new company, MSG Rangers. The Rangers are worth, let's say, $4 billion. So, you were getting a $16.5 billion valuation on a stock that had an enterprise value of $10 billion. On a price/earnings basis, it didn't look cheap, but based on what a knowing buyer would pay for it, it was cheap.

We'll get back to this spinoff. Meanwhile, what did you learn from launching your Boyar career during the financial crisis of 2008-09?

It was a great time to learn the business. Obviously, I had skills and training before that. I've been exposed to investing my whole life. But to see up close how cheap stocks can get and how quickly they can get cheap -- and also how quickly the rebound can happen -- was valuable. Going through that period made me a more conservative investor. For people who've been in this business for, say, 10 years, with the exception of the Covid pandemic, they haven't really seen a sharp downturn like that. Looking back, it was certainly an interesting time that I prefer not to relive.

How has your approach to stock analysis changed over time?

You always have to learn and evolve. I now have more of a focus on business quality, rather than a focus only on the huge upside you can sometimes get in a low-quality name that gets super cheap. The phrase gets thrown around a lot, but I like long-term compounders. When you can buy a great business that stubs its toe, and you're able to get it at a good valuation, that excites us.

For example, we bought Microsoft more than a decade ago, and we've pretty much kept our position because it never got crazily overvalued. But for new accounts that came in, we never bought it because it didn't give us that margin of safety as the stock appreciated.

Earlier this year, Microsoft fell sharply on concerns that artificial intelligence would be a negative for software companies. We bought shares for the first time in probably well over a decade. We were able to buy a great business selling at 19 to 20 times earnings.

So much of the market's performance today hinges on investor sentiment about AI, positive and negative. Has that created opportunities for you?

Goldman warned in several recent notes about the impact of AI tools like Meta Platforms' Muse on consumer stocks. But many companies negatively impacted by Muse's launch have good businesses. Booking Holdings sold off significantly several times this year, including in September [when the launch of Muse sparked concerns that AI agents would book travel directly, bypassing companies like Booking]. It has been an AI-driven market, and the average stock hasn't really done well. We try to take advantage of it.

Can you highlight a few opportunities you see?

One is Uber Technologies. The company has grown adjusted Ebitda, or earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization, at an annual rate of 30%-plus these the past few years. Its business is way above average. The stock has sold off this year on fears about robo-taxis. However, fears about Uber's demise are greatly exaggerated. The company is going to be a beneficiary, not a victim, of autonomous vehicles.

It has the platform, and is partnering heavily with autonomous-vehicle companies. It's a long-term winner, but the market is treating it like a long-term loser. I'm willing to wait and see. I believe we will be vindicated, and our patience will pay off. We value the stock at 25 times our 2028 earnings-per-share estimate of $5.25 a share, putting the price at $131, versus in the mid-$60s recently. The stock could go significantly higher than that if things really start going Uber's way.

Let's return to the MSG Knickerbockers and the MSG Rangers. What do you like about these stocks?

Prior to those changes, the company was worth about $16.5 billion, as I mentioned, with an enterprise value of about $10 billion. We held Madison Square Garden Sports shares for a long time. We did well, but the stock languished for a bit in 2025. In June of last year, we wrote in a letter to CEO and Executive Chairman James Dolan that the board should separate the company into two publicly traded companies to help highlight the valuation disparity. There should be a publicly traded Knicks company, we wrote, and there should be a publicly traded Rangers company.

We also said that Dolan should consider selling a minority stake in one or both of the teams to help highlight the value. A few months after we wrote the letter, they announced that they would be separating the Knicks and the Rangers into two businesses.

Did your letter affect the company's decision to separate the two teams?

I have no idea, and I don't really care. What I'm happy about is that Dolan did the right thing for shareholders, and he's showing that he's shareholder friendly. I hope we had something to do with it, but regardless, he is trying to help unlock value, and I expect these moves will accomplish that.

Where do you see these stocks going from here?

We haven't sold any of our shares. The next catalyst we see is Dolan selling a minority stake in one or both of the teams, to help highlight that value. You have to consider what some of these professional teams have sold for, and how much private equity is getting involved in professional sports.

Do you plan to hold on to the Knicks' and the Rangers' stocks?

Right now, the plan is to hold both. The combined enterprise value of both companies is a little less than 10% higher than it was immediately prior to the spinoff.

Markel Group is another of your holdings. What appeals to you about Markel?

Wall Street describes Markel as a Baby Berkshire [Hathaway]. That's kind of generous. Still, it is a good business selling at 1.2 times book value, compared with a five-year average of 1.4 times book. It's primarily a specialty insurance company that, like Berkshire, uses the float from premium income to invest in individual equities and businesses. The problem is that the company wasn't doing a good job writing insurance in the past couple of years, but it looks like it is getting its act together.

Markel's best insurance division was international. Last year, it elevated Simon Wilson, who was running that business, to oversee the entire insurance operation. Those operations so far are improving, which is good. They should also be helped by rising interest rates. Right now, the stock is in the penalty box until Markel can prove that its insurance underwriting and growth are coming back. We expect it will. You can buy the stock at a reasonable valuation.

Markel is run by Tom Gayner, who has done a good job as CEO. With activist investor Jana Partners applying pressure, the company has become more aggressive in repurchasing its own shares. We have long believed the company was too cautious on buybacks, but recently it has meaningfully stepped up the pace.

What is Markel worth?

We use a sum-of-the-parts valuation, and we get to $3,500 a share. The stock trades at about $1,880, which gets you close to about 90% upside from current levels.

Circling back to sports, you like Atlanta Braves Holdings. What's the bullish thesis?

It's controlled by media mogul John Malone, and it's one of the few stocks he has actually bought in the public market in recent years.

Another Major League Baseball team, the Los Angeles Angels, is being sold for about $4 billion. If you use the same multiple for that transaction and a conservative view of what the real estate near the Braves' Truist Park outside of Atlanta is worth in a mixed-use development, you get $88 a share for Braves Holdings, which currently trades around $50. The stock is selling at a significant discount, in our view, and it's rare for public companies to sell at significant discounts to what private companies go for.

Thanks, Jonathan.

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