Transportation & Mobility

Hohn favors transportation infrastructure investments like toll roads and airports due to their physical asset backing, monopolistic characteristics, and value in unregulated commercial areas, providing stable cash flows.

Physical goods movement from retail to online creates structural demand for logistics facilities; Blackstone became the world's largest logistics investor by anticipating this shift early and scaling globally.

Lyft's Free Now acquisition gives it immediate scale in nine European countries; the European ride-hail market is roughly the same size as the US but far less penetrated, allowing faster growth as Lyft ports its US technology and partnership playbook overseas.

Food delivery is nearly equal in size to mobility but growing faster. Uber's Delivery Hero acquisition buys instant scale in markets (Argentina, Korea, Middle East) where local brands have deep consumer mindshare that would take years to replicate. Combined mobility+delivery bundle in these markets creates a compelling consumer proposition.

Uber's delivery segment grows mid-20%+ for several quarters, dominates most global markets, yet trades at a fraction of DoorDash's multiple despite similar autonomous delivery investments.

Organic country launches are too slow to reach relevance at Uber's $250B GP scale; Delivery Hero provides instant leadership in Argentina, Korea, Middle East with entrenched local brands and consumer mindshare that are defensible; combined mobility+delivery bundle unlocks new growth.

Uber's delivery segment (primarily Uber Eats) is growing mid-to-high 20% quarterly, is the dominant player in most global markets, and contributes increasing share of revenue and profit. The market applies a ride-hailing multiple to the whole company, ignoring the delivery business's DoorDash-like growth profile.

Temporary Jones Act waiver demonstrated massive pent-up demand for cost-effective coastal shipping (LA-Seattle currently cheaper via South America or truck); autonomous vessels could permanently unlock domestic maritime commerce.

With Free Now providing immediate presence in nine countries and London as a beachhead for AV commercialization, Risher expects Europe to grow faster than the US over the next 3-5 years due to comparable TAM but much lower penetration, enabled by cross-app roaming by 2027.

Restaurant delivery orders yield 3-5x incremental margin vs dine-in (same rent/labor, no service cost), but ghost kitchens fail to scale because they lack brand awareness for customer acquisition and cannot match the billboard effect of physical locations.

Before autonomous delivery can scale, platforms must solve the 'staging problem': structured catalogs of all items in a city, real-time inventory positioning, and predictable fulfillment — requiring deep merchant integration and proprietary mapping down to the last two feet.

Lime's IPO validates the micromobility model after years of industry failures, demonstrating that operational excellence, city partnerships, and hardware ownership can yield sustainable 50%+ cash margins per trip in 230+ cities globally.

Lyft's acquisitions of Gett's UK business (luxury black cabs) and Free Now (European taxi platform) move the company into higher-margin premium segments and international markets, diversifying beyond the US duopoly with Uber. Gross bookings approaching $5B/quarter and active rider growth of 4M+ year-over-year demonstrate platform momentum despite smaller scale.

With $1.1B FCF, net cash, and a $1B buyback (15% of shares), Lyft's valuation at 1x sales and 6.9x FCF provides a hard asset floor while the AV optionality remains unpriced.

European airline deregulation enables Ryanair's low-cost model against government-owned incumbents, but US market is more regulated with stronger competitors; expanding would distract management and undermine European focus.

After 4 years of oversupply, carrier exits have rebalanced the market. Spot rates surged at the fastest pace in 10 years (Logistics Managers Index). Higher fuel costs are being passed through. This signals inflationary pressure but also a healthy logistics backbone for economic activity.

Lime survived by shrinking footprint to fix unit economics (from -300% gross margins to 50%+ cash margins), then scaling. Vertical integration (hardware, software, ops, gov relations) enables supply chain control, tariff navigation, and proprietary vehicle design. Scale allows 300k+ vehicles across 230 cities.

Average tanker size grew from 20,000 to 250,000+ deadweight tons; largest container ships carry 21,000+ TEU valued at $1B+, making distance irrelevant and sea transport the only scalable global logistics mode.