Marcellus Insights
Short read: ‘Web Beneath the Waves’: The world in the details
Over the past decade, we have enjoyed reading Samanth Subramanian’s writings and shared many in this newsletter. Here’s a new book titled “The Web Beneath the Waves: And Other Reports From Our Tangled World”, which is a collection of his essays from publications as varied as The New Yorker, Granta, Caravan, The Guardian, Financial Times […]
Short read: Risk of irrelevance?
We have had the good fortune of being associated with Akash Prakash, the founder of Amansa Capital, a highly respected India focused fund management firm based in Singapore. Even more so, we look forward to his column in the Business Standard, for he says it the way he sees it. In this piece, he laments […]
Short read: Let’s welcome data centres—but on the right terms
India may be seen as an anti-AI story where we don’t have AI winners among our companies whilst at the same time AI’s displacement of jobs can undo our expected demographic dividend. Yet, there is reason to cheer as over the past year, hyperscalers such as Google, Amazon and Microsoft and Indian conglomerates like Adani, […]
Long read: Accidentally On Purpose
India has no dearth of options to spice up its food. From the mild black pepper we add to a tea masala, to the fiery green chillies we use in everyday cooking, to one of the hottest chillies ever measured, the bhut jolokia, we have a wide range to call our own. It is something […]
Long read: Dave Cote’s second act
At Marcellus, we love to invest in businesses that dominate their industries. Companies that build and sustain deep competitive moats, thus staying a step ahead of the competition. And such moats are often found in boring, unglamorous companies. Ask an investor about the big winners in the AI boom and you’ll hear the usual names, […]
Long read: It wasn’t Beijing
Every time India’s growth rate gets compared with China’s, the gap is explained by a familiar set of factors. Some say India’s democracy holds it back. Others point to culture, and to differences in work ethic. Still others attribute it to Beijing’s centralised, top-down directing of the economy to pick national winners. This essay looks […]
New Kings & Queens: India’s Auto Dealers
In our 21st October blog (India’s New Kings & Queens Are Flourishing in Small Town India) we showed how a new class of business families is flourishing in small town India. In our view of the most dependable routes into this class runs through running auto showrooms. Over the past decade the domestic revenue of […]
India’s New Kings & Queens Are Flourishing in Small Towns
Even as the conventional tax-paying middle class gets crushed economically in India, the number of individuals declaring more than Rs 1 crore of income has risen about seven-fold in twelve years to 3.24 lakh, and the number of listed companies earning Rs 50–500 crore of annual profit has almost doubled since FY10 – with the […]
Short read: The Walmart of War
Ask an insider and they would say that one of the biggest challenges to the growth of a homegrown defence industry Is the bureaucracy. Capital and technology are of course major constraints, but sometimes the paperwork and procedures are the real pain. Ukraine, in the middle of a long-drawn war has figured out a way […]
Short read: A Himalayan bird is changing its voice to be heard over us
There was a time when you would endure a 12-hour drive from Dehradun airport to reach a remote Himalayan village for a holiday, hoping to escape the crowds at popular spots like Mussoorie. Others seeking even more quiet would trek high up to camp in serene meadows between snow-clad peaks. Sadly, it is getting tougher […]
Short read: The American coast that refused to let African culture die
When Africans were brought to America as salves, most of what they brought along, in terms of their languages, foods and customs, was slowly absorbed into American life over the generations. One group however retained its culture. This piece in the BBC by Dexter Strong writes about this group, the Gullah Geechee, who, along the […]
Long read: The Numbers Behind the Bond Bear Market (with a Look at Equities)
Our blog earlier this week about multi asset investing referred to the ‘All-weather’ portfolio made famous by celebrated hedge fund manager Ray Dalio of Bridgewater Associates. Dalio is also known for his books most notably Principles: Life and Work.But his 2021 book on The Changing World Order, popularised the phrase that is often used to […]
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