Short read: The extraordinary legacy of a grounded economist
For several years now, Pramit Bhattacharya has been writing outstanding pieces for Hindustan Times and Mint. His latest column is about one of India’s greatest economist’s, KN Raj. Raj’s son, Gopal Raj allowed Pramit to go through some of Raj’s correspondence (much of it has been destroyed) during a trip to Thiruvananthapuram last year, and […]
Long read: An indelible ink maker looks to make a mark beyond the poll booth
All of us here at Marcellus’ Mumbai offices are quite excited about tomorrow – where we get to exercise our franchise, the power to elect the people who govern our country. Indeed, elections are much like festivals – a celebration of democracy. There’s plenty of discourse and banter among the contestants, their supporters and the […]
Long read: Blue Tokai, Black Baza, Third Wave—Indian entrepreneurs making coffee premium like wine, whiskey
Over the past year we have commented on and invested into the rise of roughly a million super rich Indians (super rich not just by Indian standard but also by Western standards). We call such Indians octopi – see https://marcellus.in/blogs/the-octopus-ascends-the-rise-of-crazy-rich-indians/ One by-product of the rise of the octopi is that niche high value products are increasingly […]
Long read: The Emergence of Mafia-like Business Systems in China
A political scientist who specialises in the Chinese political system mailed us this riveting paper authored a couple of years ago by two academics – Meg Rithmire of HBS and Hao Chen of the University of Southern California. The core thesis of the paper is so close to home that it can serve as the […]
India Stack 2.0: Using AI to Democratize Access to Tech
India’s methodical build of digital public goods, starting with Aadhaar, followed by Jan Dhan (bank accounts for all), and accompanied by affordable mobile connections (courtesy Jio) has led to successes such as the Unified Payments Interface (UPI). The next step in this journey seems likely to be to ensure that India Stack becomes truly transformative […]
Short read: Reimagining how the Indian state works
Whilst the Indian state has done a remarkable job in delivering physical infrastructure such as roads, power, airports, etc and digital infrastructure over the past decade, there is still much to do on the social infrastructure aspects of healthcare and education. “The annual survey on the state of Indian education that civil society group Pratham […]
Short read: Pushing the boundaries: England Women using AI to help with team selection
Those of who are in the business of curation felt a shudder run down our spine earlier this week regardless of whether we are in the business of curating sports team, equity portfolios or articles for 3 Longs & 3 Shorts. The trigger for this shudder was the following bit of remarkable news: “The England […]
Short read: Wounded orangutan seen using plant as medicine
Human beings had one less reason to fancy themselves as being a singular species after the BBC published a short video this week of a Sumatran orangutan successfully self-medicating with an ointment he had made himself using 100% organic ingredients [and he managed to do it without needing to watch any videos on YouTube]. Reporting […]
Long read: Customer care: How the bot army will shrink the outsourcing pie
Artificial Intelligence is likely to disrupt several enterprise functions and businesses – one that’s already underway is customer care and its outsourced industry. This piece by Shelley Singh in the Mint tracks the development and its implications on the industry and employment. To be fair, it is not just AI, let alone GenAI, there have […]
Long read: The Biggest Investor in the World
Marc Rubenstein writes an insightful blog on financial services businesses. However, this one features not exactly a business. It is about a sovereign wealth fund, the largest in the world – Norges Bank Investment Management. When the Norwegians discovered oil in the North Sea, they decided to buffer the government expenditure from the inevitable volatility […]
Long read: Berkshire after Buffett: can any stockpicker follow the Oracle?
One of the biggest obstacles to taking a long-term view of any business – listed or unlisted – anywhere in the world is that the shelf life of CEOs of large firms tends to be short. Whilst a typical American CEO lasts only 4-5 years, even in India successful CEOs rarely get more than a […]
Global Compounders Portfolio: The Four Pillars of American Capitalism
Marcellus’ Global Compounders Portfolio (GCP) strategically invests in 25-30 deeply moated global companies aligned with megatrends, fostering a consistent mid to high teens compounding of free cash flow/earnings. A large part of our portfolio comprises of American firms, and for good reason. Over the last 30 years, US equities have demonstrated exceptional ability to generate […]
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