Asia and the X Origins of Politics-Business Nexus: Days of Future Past and Implications for Value Investors

Dear Friends and All,

Asia and Her X Origins in Politics-Business Nexus: Days of Future Past and Implications for Value Investors

“Politics and business are inseparable. We have to accept this reality. Politics is like the sun, and business like the earth. If the earth goes close, it will be too hot, and if it moves far away, it will be too cold. But they are inseparable.”

– Thaksin Shinawatra in an interview on 22 March 1992

It is said that to understand Thailand’s business and politics, all you need is to master the understanding of Page 4 of the newspaper Thairath, which is Thailand’s most widely circulated newspaper with at least 1 million copies sold daily, and the underlying philosophy of “Boon Khun”. The Thairath has a long history of publishing a daily column on high-society weddings, including a color picture of the wedding reception. The photo typically shows the couple, their parents, and the most distinguished guests in attendance, for example members of the royal family and top business and political leaders. “Boon Khun” is the gratitude from the traditional Thai belief that parents have done their children the biggest favor possible by giving them life and raising them to adulthood; therefore children should be grateful to their parents and must fulfil filial duties, respecting their wishes, including marriage decisions.

Such “network marriages” and family politics to breed wisely by combining the bride and groom’s family firms to form horizontal or vertical alliances has influenced the growth, direction and even survival of family businesses. For instance, Thaksin was once pursued by angry creditors and clients from his failed business ventures in 1979 as recounted in Thaksin: The Business of Politics in Thailand but his fortunes turned around with the help of his wife Pojaman, the daughter of a powerful general whom he married in July 1976, in winning a computer contract to the police department in 1986 and the first government telecommunication concession that played a pivotal role in establishing the foundation of the powerful Shinawatra kongsi (or family business).  Thaksin’s career from the start was in the twin fields of politics and business. His success arose from his ability to synergize the two. He added his understanding that political regulation of business is the source of abnormal rates of profits. The Thai stock market from late 1980s, pumped up by financial liberalization and a worldwide enthusiasm for “emerging markets” translated the high profits into even higher net worth.

Could the lenses of family politics help investors see better the recent event in Thailand? From high-level sources in the Thai establishment dominated by the military, old money families and the bureaucracy obtained by WikiLeaks, the May 22 coup, Thailand’s 19th since the end of the absolute monarchy in 1932, was a result of..

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In the movie X-Men: Days of Future Past, the formidable and terrifying Sentinels were created to exterminate the mutants but ended up destroying the humans in a dark path. The military, unleashed by the old elite establishment, may possibly provoke a similar effect and the coup might escalate into a violent civil war, affecting the stability of the Southeast Asian region. How could things have been different if time can be travelled backwards to make corrections? Or will it be a case of time as a river: you can throw a stone into it, cause ripples and upset the flow – but eventually, somehow, the river course-corrects itself? Peaceful co-existence between the humans and mutants appear impossible. Leading members of Thailand’s old elite establishment not only hate Thaksin, but they are terrified of the prospect of him regaining power and wrecking revenge on those who have wronged him, just like the powerful Eric Lehnsherr “Magneto” in X-men who set about to destroy the humans in vengeance for extermination of his kind. Any credible compromise deal would need to involve elections being held within a reasonable time frame. Thailand’s old elite is determined to delay elections as long as possible because they know that Thaksin’s immense popularity among the poor guarantees his allies success at the ballot box. Can a marriage of true love really happen in Thailand’s elite? The complex politics-business nexus in Thailand can have implications for other Asian countries such as India which saw Narendra Modi and his economic backers, such as billionaires Ambani’s Reliance Group and Gautam Adani’s Adani Enterprise (ADE IN, MV $9.5bn), rise to the top. What are the implications of Asia’s deepening politics-business nexus for value investors? We tend to avoid businesses reliant on concessions and political favors to generate their cashflow, as highlighted earlier in our May 2013 article Pilgrimage to Omaha + Entrepreneurship, Asian-Style:

“As value investors in Asia should know, path dependency has influenced the Southeast Asian (ASEAN) economy, which is the product of a relationship between political patronage and economic elitist power that developed in its initial starting point in the colonial era, and this politics-business nexus was sustained with a different cast of characters. Bet on the wrong jockey (entrepreneur) and the race is over. The Asian horse (business) doesn’t matter much; the ownership of the horse can change, a far more important information to monitor and analyze. Alas to the ones who are not in the insider’s track. These big Asian horses are often grants to quasi-monopoly or regulated/ protected concessions, normally in domestic goods and services industries without a requirement to generate the technological capabilities to compete on the global arena. These asset-based, deal-making trading businesses that form the foundation of many Asian tycoons are akin to elite forms of barber-like “services” in which the fiercely global competition cannot attack with impunity, such as commodities, construction/ infrastructure/ property, financial services.. Southeast Asia has all the trappings of a modern dazzling economy with its high-tech factories and high-rise buildings but few indigenous, large-scale companies producing world-class products and services. The scraps that trickle down the big, long tables of the Asian tycoons are left to be competed fiercely in a lose-lose situation at the SME level. Even with the export-driven boom, the SME’s role as middlemen in taking and executing orders efficiently from their MNC customers has limited the scalability of their business model.”

Dynasty Ceramics Vs SET Index and S&P 500 Index – Stock Price Performance, 1992-2014

We prefer to focus on Bamboo Innovators who are able to compete and win on their own economic merits and wide-moat advantages. One such Thai business that is able to hold its own even when competing against the royal family’s business unit Siam Cement is Dynasty Ceramic (SET: DCC TB, MV $670m) which sells ceramic tiles to the middle-to-low-end market…

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In Asia, even though there are a number of seductively powerful Magneto-like tycoon businesses, we prefer investing in the “Charles Xavier”/”Professor X” businesses who are able to hear the problems and sufferings of the masses, absorb them to gain power and create unique products, services and solutions with their wide-moat to transcend above political fighting to create value. Asia needs the Professor X innovators to hope again.

To read the exclusive article in full to find out more about the wide-moat factors behind Dynasty Ceramics and the implications of the politics-business nexus in Asia for value investors; please visit:

• Asia and Her X Origins in Politics-Business Nexus: Days of Future Past and Implications for Value Investors, May 26, 2014 (Moat Report Asia, BeyondProxy)

Value Unplugged 2014 and Value Investing Seminar in July in Italy

Value Unplugged 2014 (www.valueunplugged.com) in Naples, Italy is now full. We’ll gather in a small, relaxed setting to learn and make friends. We’ll also attend Ciccio Azzollini’s sold-out Value Investing Seminar in July in Trani, Italy — the definitive summer conference for value investors – as one of the keynote speakers.

http://www.valueinvestingseminar.it/content_/relatori.asp?lan=eng&anno=2014

“In business, I look for economic castles protected by unbreachable ‘moats’.”

– Warren Buffett

The Moat Report Asia is a research service focused exclusively on competitively advantaged, attractively priced public companies in Asia. Together with our European partners BeyondProxy and The Manual of Ideas, the idea-oriented acclaimed monthly research publication for institutional and private investors, we scour Asia to produce The Moat Report Asia, a monthly in-depth presentation report highlighting an undervalued wide-moat business in Asia with an innovative and resilient business model to compound value in uncertain times. Our Members from North America, the Nordic, Europe, the Oceania and Asia include professional value investors with over $20 billion in asset under management in equities and savvy private individual investors who are lifelong learners in the art of value investing.

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Our latest monthly issue for the month of May investigates the Home Depot of Asia which has the largest market share in its home country and now seeks to expand regionally. It is one of the few home improvement retailers in the world which is able to achieve a structural negative cash conversion cycle (CCC) at -39 days for resilient, recurring and sustainable operating cashflow to enable the expansion of its store network while keeping a healthy balance sheet. It is hard to achieve negative cash conversion cycle (CCC) as a home retailer as compared to a supermarket retailer as the product nature is more durable. Even Home Depot, Lowe’s and Bed Bath & Beyond (BBBY) are not able to achieve a negative CCC. Led by the capable owner-operators since 1995, the company is a pioneer in proactively creating awareness and demand in the minds of consumers that upgrading your home can be fun and in incremental affordable steps. Its creative branding has resulted in the firm to become the “first on customers’ mind”, or what Charlie Munger elucidated as the “psychological wide-moat” advantage. 80% of sales are generated customers looking for home improvement and renovation ideas and solutions.  Growth is supported by the management’s proven ability to identify and cater to dynamic changes in customer preferences. The firm’s comprehensive pre and aftersales service creates brand loyalty and sustains long-term sales. The merchandizing management is tailored to the peculiarities of customer preferences in each area to drive same store sales growth with creative customization by store, location, season and events. Its key strategy to expand its profit margin is to increase its higher-margin house brands and product-mix management. Its EBITDA/sqm of $400/sqm was higher than Home Depot until Home Depot experienced a rebound last year to $500/sqm. The firm’s resilient sales are supported by its unrivalled network of diverse locations throughout the country. Its bold vision and successful “Blue Ocean” execution in the highly fragmented second-tier markets has created a powerful wide-moat advantage that will last for many years to come. In short, the management have proven their ability to execute in difficult market and industry conditions especially in the past 5 to 7 years during the 2007/09 global financial crisis with the firm emerging much stronger. The Illinois Institute of Technology engineering graduate and quiet billionaire owner behind the home retailer is one of the few Asian business tycoons who has the thirst to scale up the business in a sustainable way, as opposed to opportunistic ventures, having been largely influenced by his early years experience observing the success of American wide-moat firms. If we can adjust the EV/EBITDA valuation metric to reflect the CCC, the company’s EV/EBITDA of 18.5x will be lower at 10-11x, while Home Depot’s EV/EBITDA 11x will be higher at 13x. Noteworthy is that Home Depot has a negative free cashflow throughout FY1989-2001 (13 consecutive years!) and yet market cap has climbed from $1.5bn to $103bn. Home Depot compounded despite the ugly valuations during the capex ramp-up. This once again highlights that the power of wide-moat is often underappreciated, misunderstood and overlooked. When Home Depot generated $180m in operating cashflow in FY1992, quite similar to this Asian firm now, Home Depot is valued at $5bn (vs $3bn). Store network is expected to double in the next 4-5 years, representing a potential doubling in market value.

Our past monthly issues examine:

• The Northeast Asian-listed company who is the world’s largest maker of an essential component with applications in apparel, shoes, diapers, car seats etc. All top 20 global athletic shoe brands, including Nike, Adidas, Reebok, Sketchers, UnderArmor are customers and this Asian innovator with R&D capabilities has forged long-term “spec-in” partnerships with them. Its broad product offering is protected by over 110 patents. By locating its Pan-Asian production plant network in China, Taiwan, Vietnam and Indonesia close to its major clients, including sales/customer service centers and warehouses in US and Europe, the firm is better positioned to understand their requirements, deliver fast and meet their needs. While top 10 athletic shoe brands account 40% of its revenue, the firm has a diversified clientele base of over 10,000 customers, giving it resilience and growth with both the established and emerging brands as clients. The company is trading at PE14e 12x, EV/EBITDA 7.1x and EV/EBIT 10.6x with a dividend yield of 3.9%. Interestingly, its EBITDA margin is double that of Adidas and its 8.7% net margin is higher than Adidas’ 5.4%, though below Nike’s 9.8%. Given the tipping point of its Pan-Asian production network and contributions from its new products and as capex tapers off in the next few years, free cashflow could be around $50-60m and applying a P/FCF of 15x would yield a market value of $750-900m,, representing a potential upside of 100-150%. Thus, the firm offers a similar quality growth trajectory to Nike/Adidas with its unique knowledge-based business model and yet trades at a more attractive valuation and higher dividend yield as downside protection.
• The Middleby of Asia commanding a dominant market share of over 80% in hypermarkets, 50% in chain outlets, 30% in 4- to 5-star hotels in China and an overall 30% in its home market. Yet, no single customer accounts for more than 5% of its revenue. Just to recall for value investors, NYSE-listed Middleby, with its sleepy and boring business, has compounded 100-fold from around $50m to $5.7bn since its tipping point in 1999. The founders of this Asian family business demonstrated clear dedication in building up the company with its wide-moat business model backed by a strong and unique distribution/marketing network in finding, winning and binding new customers to build massive brand equity and long-lasting relationships with clients over time. Their devotion to its core product for nearly 20 years results in maximum problem-solving skills, innovative strength and product leadership and hence, to ever greater customer benefit that will protect the company to consolidate the fragmented market and provide ample opportunities to continue its profitable growth. The company is currently trading at PE13e 15.8x and an undemanding EV/EBIT 10.1x and EV/EBITDA 9.5x and its growth potential based on its unique business model is not priced in. There is a structural re-rerating of niche business models with (1) diversified client base, (2) steady revenue streams, (3) lean capex requirements that creates ample free cashflow and defensive growth. Based on PE, P/CFO and EV/EBIT, the company is trading at a 40-50% discount to the foreign listed comparables despite more efficient use of assets in generating profits and cashflow. It has an attractive 7% earnings yield growing at 20% over the next 3-5 years and a 3.8% dividend yield that is supported by its strong cashflow generation ability, steady revenue stream and lean capex requirements to limit downside risks in valuation. Based on the growth plans to penetrate new product and customer segments; build its third plant in India in addition to the ones in its home market and in China; and potential bolt-on acquisition opportunities with its healthy balance sheet in net-cash position, it has the potential to double its operating cashflow in the next 3-5 years and market value could double, representing an upside potential of 100-140%.
• An emerging Asian Walgreens which is a top 3 community pharmacy operator in its home market. Walgreens is a classic neglected American compounder up over 272-fold to $54 billion from under $200m as it quietly consolidates the market. Over the decade, we observed that it is difficult to scale services-based businesses without an entrepreneurial mindset, committment and execution and the bold and unique management system of the company since 2000 allowed the pharmacists to be part-owner of the business which will lead to increased level of commitment and an owner’s mindset in growing the business for the long-term in the community. The firm has strong cash generation ability due to its negative cash conversion cycle (CCC) in the business model to help the business stay resilient during difficult times and to fund capex needs internally without straining the business model scalability as the network expands. The centralized logistics system provide regular deliveries to all of its community pharmacies enables the outlets to maximize retail space without the need to have space to keep stocks. This also enables the community pharmacies to optimize retail space to carry a wide range of products which is important as consumers increasingly have top-of-mind recall for the company as the destination to go to for their healthcare needs. Like Walgreens, the company believed in the power of embedding technology into the business model to better compete and its financial and warehousing/inventory management systems are integrated with its in-house POS (point-of-sale) system which is linked among all its community pharmacies and head office via virtual private network. The company is founded by five college friends who were somewhat frustrated that their pharmacy degrees were underappreciated and under-rewarded as compared to their medical degree counterparts even though they had studied hard for 4-5 years and had in-depth medical knowledge. They were eager to prove themselves that they are as capable, if not more so. This restless spirit to prove their capabilities resulted in them coming together to be entrepreneurs and they wish to provide the platform for similar restless pharmacists to apply their hard-earned knowledge acquired in the university. We find that this common purpose and camaraderie spirit is rare in Asian companies and makes the company unique to scale up sustainably. The company is currently trading at a EV/EBIT of 13.9x and EB/EBITDA 12.6%. In the next two to three years as the company expands its network of outlets, operating cashflow (CFO) could increase 50-60% and a re-rerating could result in a doubling in market value.
• An Asian-listed pharmaceutical company which has a dominant franchise in a neglected but growing disease and is a leader with a domestic market share of 49% in this niche segment and is the only fully-integrated player amongst the few pre-qualified WHO firms, giving it >30% EBITDA margin, better pricing power compared to the competition, and significant advantage over other players in ramping up the global business from the current 30% market share in the most-common treatment drug (vs Novartis 50%). Furthermore, the pharma company has the second-highest GP/TA (gross profit/ total asset) ratio in the industry at 56.3% and the most conservative accounting practice in the industry which “depresses” earnings relative to its peers i.e. it is the only domestic firm which expenses, and does not capitalize, all R&D. With the new plant for formulations export to US, the deepening of the niche drug franchise, growing wins in chronic pain and other niche areas and the commercialization of the potential blockbuster product of blood thinner by FY16/17, EBITDA could potentially double to $200m in the next 4-5 years, triggering a valuation re-rating to a market value of $3.4bn, a 130% upside.
• An Australian-listed company with market value $405m, EV/EBITDA 7.5x, EV/EBIT 10x, div 3%, 70% domestic market share whose management made the controversial bold decision to stop overseas exports in order to focus on cultivating the higher-margin domestic market with innovative marketing strategy and new products and is potentially doubling its supply in the next 3-5 years. It is in its 10^th year of listing after piling the foundation in consolidation, investment, rationalization for its next stage. It has an all-time low debt-equity position 18.6% with healthy balance sheet. “Buffett of Nordic” recently increased position between Apr-Sep this year in the peer comparable of the company and the billionaire investor announced in Nov an acquisition of a rival in a wave of global consolidation and with the view on a sustained recovery in product prices.
• A Northeast Asia-listed company with global #1 market share leadership in 4 different products, including making the components for an innovative consumer product whose sales have climbed from $90 million to $526 million in the recent three years. The company is a hidden global consolidator with underappreciated growth. The stock is trading at PE 11.5x, EV/EBITDA 9x and generates a sustainable dividend yield 5.75%.
• A Taiwan and Southeast-Asian-listed entrepreneurial company, both with a dominant 80% domestic market share and have innovative business models to generate substantial cashflow to support both expansion and a 4-5% dividend yield.
• There is also a behind-the-scene conversation with the CEOs of the companies to understand their thinking process in building up the business.

The Moat Report Asia Members’ Forum has been getting penetrating quality dialogues from our subscribers.Questions range from:

• The nuances of internal dealings in Asia, including the case discussion of the recent deal in which HK billionaire’s Lee Shau-kee Henderson Land acquiring Towngas or Hong Kong & China Gas (3 HK) from his family holdings, seemingly déjà vu from the early Oct 2007 transaction when the market peak.
• The case of F&N Singapore spinning out its property unit FCL Trust and getting “free” special dividend-in-specie and the potential risk in asset swap restructuring to deleverage the hidden debt in the entire Group balance sheet.
• The dilemma of whether to invest in a Southeast Asian-listed company and hidden champion with a domestic market share of 60% due to family squabbles and a legal suit over the company’s ownership.
• Discussion of the wise and thoughtful 107-year-old Irving Kahn’s investment into a US-listed but Hong Kong-based electronics company with development property project in Shenzhen’s Qianhai zone and the possible corporate governance risks that could be underestimated or overlooked, as well as their history of listing some assets in HK in 2004.. This is also a case study of “buy one get one free” in John’s highly-acclaimed book The Manual of Ideas in which the “free” property is lumped together with the (eroding) core business to make the combined entity look cheap and undervalued. What are the potential areas that value investors need to watch out for when adapting the SOTP (sum-of-the-parts) valuation method in Asia?
• And many more intriguing questions.

Do find out more in how you can benefit from authentic and candid on-the-ground insights that sell-side analysts and brokers, with their inherent conflict-of-interests, inevitable focus on conventional stock coverage and different clientele priorities, are unwilling or unable to share. Think of this as pressing the Bloomberg “Help Help” button to navigate the Asian capital jungle. Institutional subscribers also get access to the Bamboo Innovator Index of 200+ companies and Watchlist of 500+ companies in Asia and the Database has eliminated companies with a higher probability of accounting frauds and  misgovernance as well as the alluring value traps.

Our 7^th run of the series of workshop From the Fund Management Jungles: Value Investing Exposed and Explored– (Part 1) Moat Analysis, (Part 2) Tipping Point Analysis and (Part 3) Detecting Accounting Fraud – on 8 Mar 2014 has been well-received with serious value investors, professionals, and serious lifelong learners attending.

Our 8th workshop on Tipping Point Analysis will be held in June 14; we are taking a short break as our business partner Linda is delivering her new baby!

Thank you for your support all this while!

http://www.eventbrite.sg/e/in-search-of-compounding-stocks-in-uncertain-times-tickets-10057477185?aff=eorg

Thank you so much for reading as always.

Warm regards,

KB Kee

Managing Editor

The Moat Report Asia

Singapore

Mobile: +65 9695 1860

A Service of BeyondProxy LLC

1608 S. Ashland Avenue #27878

Chicago, Illinois 60608-2013

Other offices: London, Singapore, Zurich

P.S.1 Here is a little more about my background:

KB Kee has been rooted in the principles of value investing for over a decade as an analyst in Asian capital markets. He was head of research and fund manager at Aegis Portfolio Managers, a Singapore-based value investment firm. As a member of Aegis’ investment committee, he helped the firm’s Asia-focused equity funds significantly outperform the benchmark index. He was previously the portfolio manager for Asia-Pacific equities at Mirae Asset Global Investments, Korea’s largest mutual fund company. He holds a Masters in Finance and degrees in Accountancy and Business Management, summa cum laude, from Singapore Management University (SMU). KB had taught accounting at his alma mater in Singapore Management University and had also published an empirical research paper Why ‘Democracy’ and ‘Drifter’ Firms Can Have Abnormal Returns: The Joint Importance of Corporate Governance and Abnormal Accruals in Separating Winners from Losers in the Special Issue of Istanbul Stock Exchange 25^th Year Anniversary Best Paper Competition, Boğaziçi Journal, Review of Social, Economic and Administrative Studies, Vol. 25(1): 3-55. KB has trained CEOs, entrepreneurs, CFOs, management executives in business strategy, macroeconomic and industry trends in Singapore, HK and China.

P.S.2  Why do I care so much about doing The Moat Report Asia for you?

My personal motivation in embarking on this lifelong journey has been driven by disappointment from observing up close and personal the hard-earned assets of many investors, including friends and their families, burnt badly by the popular mantra: “Ride the Asian Growth Story!” I witnessed firsthand the emotional upheavals that they go through when they invest their hard-earned money – and their family’s – in these “Ride The Asian Growth Story” stocks either by themselves or through money managers, and these stocks turned out to be the subject of some exciting “theme” but which are inherently sick and prey to economic vicissitudes. They may seem to grow faster initially but the sustainable harvest of their returns is far too uncertain to be the focus of a wise program in investment. Worse still, the companies turned out to be involved in accounting frauds. Their financial numbers were “propped up” artificially to lure in funds from investors and the studiously-assessed asset value has already been “tunnelled out” or expropriated. And western-based fraud detection tools and techniques have not been adapted to the Asian context to avoid these traps.

After a decade-plus journey in the Asian capital jungles, it has been somewhat disheartening as I observe many fraud perpetrators go away scot-free and live a life of super luxury on minority investors’ hard-earned money. And these perpetrators make tempting offers to various parties in the financial community to go along with their schemes. When investors have knowledge in their hands, we have a choice to stay away from these people and away from temptations and do the things that we think are right. With knowledge, we have a choice to invest in the hardworking Asian entrepreneurs and capital allocators who are serious in building a wide-moat business.

The Moat Report Asia
A Service of BeyondProxy LLC
1608 S. Ashland Avenue #27878
Chicago, Illinois 60608-2013

Other offices: London, Singapore, Zurich