Strength & Resilience in Difficult Times
We see limited impact of COVID-19 on Little Champs’ fundamentals beyond the short-term business disruptions given: (i) their strong balance sheets will help them navigate the near-term stress much better than leveraged peers; and (ii) export oriented portfolio companies’ exposure is mostly in essential products (pharma, agro, food) or replacement markets rendering immunity from a […]
Consistent Compounders fall less and recover sooner and sharper
In FY20, Marcellus’ CCP PMS has delivered healthy absolute returns (+7.6% vs -25.0% for Nifty50 Total Return Index) alongside resilience during the recent stock market correction (since 1st Jan 2020: -12.9% for Marcellus CCP vs -29.1% for Nifty50 TRI). Beyond the period of business disruption from the ongoing lockdown, fundamentals of Marcellus’ CCP companies are […]
The Trinity of Higher ROCE, High Reinvestment and High Growth
In our February 2020 newsletter we had highlighted the 22% rally in the BSE Smallcap index from August 2019-end to early February 2020. Since then the BSE Smallcap Index is down 10%. As in February 2020 when investors seemed to be turning euphoric and today when they are turning bearish, we advocate buying clean & dominant franchises […]
CCP’s performance in FY20 fully supported by earnings growth
The performance of Marcellus’ CCP portfolio over the past 12 months has been fully supported by fundamentals. The CCP stocks have seen more than 30% YoY growth in profits during 3QFY20 and 9MFY20 vs 28% portfolio performance since 1st April 2019. In fact, CCP stocks have seen more than 20% annualized growth in profits over […]
Quality Trumps “Cheap” Valuations Comprehensively
After falling by about 39% from its January 2018 peak to its August 2019 trough, the BSE Smallcap index has since returned 22%. This rebound has been fairly broad-based with >70% of the BSE Smallcap stocks giving positive returns. However, this rally does not seem to be backed by any meaningful improvement in the underlying macros and […]
Prudent Capital Allocation is Critical for Consistent Compounding
The most sustainable way for a firm to compound profits over the longer term, is to sustain high ROCE alongside a high rate of capital reinvestment. However, such businesses face the challenge of consistently finding avenues for incremental capital redeployment in areas which deliver high ROCE. Some of the most common capital allocation mistakes made […]
Introducing Little Champs – Marcellus’ Small Cap PMS
Given that each year 60 companies enter the BSE500, there are indeed strong economic drivers which help well run small firms explode into prominence. From an investors’ viewpoint, in the three-year run-up to entering the BSE500, new entrants outperform the index by a CAGR of 40%, indicating significant return opportunity before these stocks are discovered […]
The conventional DCF method undervalues longevity of a business
An investor looking to buy and hold stocks over a long time period, needs to be able to differentiate between businesses which can deliver longevity of consistently healthy free cashflows and those that run a high degree of uncertainty in their fundamental prospects. This differentiation is essential, both, in order to avoid premature exits from […]
The importance of accounting quality
45% of the stocks which were in the BSE500 ten years ago have exited the index since. The primary driver of these exits is shoddy corporate governance and poor capital allocation (the two are linked). In contrast, the number of companies which have significantly enriched their shareholders are a handful. Inspired by Howard Schilit’s legendary […]
Are consistent compounders too big to grow?
Marcellus’ Consistent Compounders Portfolio consists of companies which have already delivered consistently healthy growth in their fundamentals over the past decade or longer, and where we expect the firms to deliver consistent compounding over the next decade as well. However, given the long and consistent historical track record of these companies, some investors are concerned […]
Learning from Hermann Simon
‘Niche’ focused players have been the biggest wealth creators in India over the past decade thanks to superlative earnings growth and high return on capital. Given this background, it makes sense to identity & invest in such companies, more so when such companies are relatively ‘unknown’ in the stockmarket. We find German Management Guru Hermann […]
The Lenders In Our Portfolio Will Gain From The Ongoing Crisis
Great lenders (banks as well as NBFCs), which are Consistent Compounders, benefit significantly in the aftermath of a financial crisis. This is because: (a) when the competition struggles to raise funds during & after a crisis, great lenders have access to adequate liquidity; and (b) as competition’s ability to lend reduces, great lenders can […]
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