This is a financial promotion for The First Sentier India Strategy. This information is for professional clients only in the UK and EEA and elsewhere where lawful. Investing involves certain risks including:
- The value of investments and any income from them may go down as well as up and are not guaranteed. Investors may get back significantly less than the original amount invested.
- Currency risk: the strategy invests in assets which are denominated in other currencies; changes in exchange rates will affect the value of the strategy and could create losses. Currency control decisions made by governments could affect the value of the strategy's investments and could cause the strategy to defer or suspend redemptions of its shares.
- Indian subcontinent risk: although India has seen rapid economic and structural development, investing there may still involve increased risks of political and governmental intervention, potentially limitations on the allocation of the strategy's capital, and legal, regulatory, economic and other risks including greater liquidity risk, restrictions on investment or transfer of assets, failed/delayed settlement and difficulties valuing securities.
- Single country / specific region risk: investing in a single country or specific region may be riskier than investing in a number of different countries or regions. Investing in a larger number of countries or regions helps spread risk.
- Smaller companies risk: Investments in smaller companies may be riskier and more difficult to buy and sell than investments in larger companies.
For details of the firms issuing this information and any strategies referred to, please see Terms and Conditions and Important Information.
For a full description of the terms of investment and the risks please see the Prospectus and Key Investor Information Document for each strategy.
If you are in any doubt as to the suitability of our funds for your investment needs, please seek investment advice.
As the saying goes, “There are two kinds of forecasters: those who don't know, and those who don't know they don't know.” Recently, we have seen hordes of the latter kind, garbed as analysts, Unicorn founders, freshly-minted CEOs and so-called “experts”, as they engage in modern-day snake oil salesmanship, which is what seems to pass for Fundamental Equity Research these days. The difference between making forecasts and predictions is the difference between a rational investor and a soothsayer. Today, there are a number of companies and analysts who desperately pretend that a different set of rules apply to them. To that end, they have even invented a new jargon-littered language that has been enthusiastically adopted by the investing community. Some of the words and phrases being used (and over-used) these days make us wince. Let’s look at a few.
“TAM” or Total Addressable Market: When I started my career as an analyst 20 years ago, certain things were key to forecast what might become of a business over the long term (i.e. five to ten years). These included an understanding of the market size of a product or service and its growth potential; assessing why certain businesses in that industry were doing better or worse than others; and evaluating the management quality and figuring out the alignment (both financial and cultural). Today, it feels like all that analysis is now captured in one word, “TAM”, which companies are helpfully providing to analysts and they, in turn, end up using it as a fig leaf to justify almost anything — from the current small scale of the business, the pitiful margins, the ridiculous sales/marketing strategy and, of course, the outrageous valuation. It feels like the time when people used to mention enterprise value (EV)/ click or EV/eyeballs or EV/square foot.
Unit Economics: We used to think that, for young businesses, one needs to see if it is able to generate a positive contribution margin to cover some of its fixed costs and then calculate how long it would take to achieve breakeven. But in the “free money” era, the term has become convoluted, as analysts are rewarding businesses who don’t want to do any of that. Customer Acquisition Cost is the new buzzword and Unit Economics have been reduced to some sort of weird distortion aimed at justifying massive upfront costs. We used to look at how much a company is spending on sales and marketing, analyse the mix of short-term promotions and long-term advertising (good old above and below the line costs — where is the line now we wonder?), how the sales team was organised, their incentive structures and what a business was doing to prevent mis-selling. Nowadays, that seems like a primitive way of trying to understand basic unit economics; what the phrase now means is anyone’s guess!
Value Proposition: “What is your value proposition?” analysts are asking companies these days. But, isn’t that something that the analyst needs to figure out? By all means, ask the management for their views, but regurgitating those same views without critical reasoning is pointless, in our view. What is it that makes a company generate superior returns on capital employed (ROCE) and what makes its growth and returns sustainable? It could be many things — a brand, technology, license, etc. But what we have been hearing (and what is often not said) is that the only value proposition many of these new businesses have is access to unlimited, unabashed funding.
Flywheel: A surprising number of management teams we meet these days are hard at work pushing “Flywheels” as they attempt to defy the gravity of flawed business models. The term was made popular by Amazon as a way to describe the virtuous cycle that happens when the whole business model is aligned to offer a remarkable customer experience. But it seems the term is now being used instead to provide a remarkable initial public offering (IPO) roadshow experience, which the analysts are lapping up.
Pivot: We have heard this word more in the last 12 months than ever before. Companies now are desperate to tell analysts their pivots in life; and they are pivoting quite often to the next fancy thing, which salivating analysts are gobbling up as it helps them to see the almighty “Path to Profitability”.
Path to Profitability: Another recent favourite. By brewing a concoction of TAM, Value Proposition and Unit Economics, with some Flywheels and Pivots along the way, the modern soothsayers are able to discern a “Path to Profitability”. The whole sham is not unlike TV evangelists prescribing a path to heaven that they have divined. I am sure the CEOs of some of these companies would secretly love to find this path to the Promised Land that seems so obvious to some investors.
As more and more people are pivoting away from common sense, our team is resolved NOT to pivot away from our (admittedly) boring way of investing. We have been through these manias before and now, more than ever, we must be vigilant. Our goal is to keep it simple — preserve our clients’ capital and grow it steadily by investing in good businesses, run by good people, for the long term.
* Company data retrieved from company annual reports or other such investor reports. Financial metrics and valuations are from FactSet and Bloomberg. As at 30 September 2021 or otherwise noted.
Important Information
This material is for general information purposes only. It does not constitute investment or financial advice and does not take into account any specific investment objectives, financial situation or needs. This is not an offer to provide asset management services, is not a recommendation or an offer or solicitation to buy, hold or sell any security or to execute any agreement for portfolio management or investment advisory services and this material has not been prepared in connection with any such offer. Before making any investment decision you should consider, with the assistance of a financial advisor, your individual investment needs, objectives and financial situation.
We have taken reasonable care to ensure that this material is accurate, current, and complete and fit for its intended purpose and audience as at the date of publication. No assurance is given or liability accepted regarding the accuracy, validity or completeness of this material and we do not undertake to update it in future if circumstances change.
To the extent this material contains any expression of opinion or forward-looking statements, such opinions and statements are based on assumptions, matters and sources believed to be true and reliable at the time of publication only. This material reflects the views of the individual writers only. Those views may change, may not prove to be valid and may not reflect the views of everyone at First Sentier Investors.
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References to ‘we’, ‘us’ or ‘our’ are references to First Sentier Investors, a global asset management business which is ultimately owned by Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group. Certain of our investment teams operate under the trading names FSSA Investment Managers, Stewart Investors and Realindex Investments, all of which are part of the First Sentier Investors group.
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