The Benefits of Timing are Inversely Correlated with the Quality of Fundamentals
The rate at which fundamentals of a company compound (and hence its share price) over the long term is inversely correlated with the quantum of benefit that an investor can achieve by perfectly timing her purchases at the bottom of the share price trajectory. Moreover, for a portfolio consisting of high-quality companies, benefits from a […]
CCPs use more ‘S-curves’ to elongate their fundamental compounding
Value addition from every initiative undertaken by a company follows an ‘S-curve’ with three parts to it – the investment phase, the growth phase and the fade period. The fundamentals of the overall company are a consolidation of ‘S-curves’ of all initiatives. There are several limiting factors to every initiative such as addressable market size, […]
The Path to Consistent Compounding is Paved with Free Cashflow
There are four key drivers of free cashflow in a business – revenue growth, profit margins, working capital efficiency, and asset turnover. The order of importance across these four drivers differs across businesses. As Marcellus’ CCP companies invest in technology to improve operational efficiencies, those companies that sell day-to-day essentials to their customers whilst avoiding […]
How Portfolio Rebalancing Tools Enhance Investors’ Returns
Every stock market crash causes a dislocation in a portfolio of high-quality companies, due to differential drawdowns in the share prices of constituent stocks. Rebalancing such a portfolio in the aftermath of the crash not only generates additional returns, it also crushes the risk of being left with uninvested cash. The biggest challenge faced by […]
The Power of Quantifying the Qualitative Aspects of Investing
Forecasts of the growth prospects of any business are based on several factors, many of which are qualitative in nature, such as management quality, capital allocation discipline, the ability to disrupt rather than be disrupted by unforeseeable events, etc. Investors who arrive at these decisions based on their personal beliefs or myths expose themselves to […]
Amidst the Covid turmoil, CCPs invested in tech & in institutionalisation
Longevity of free cashflow compounding is the most undervalued aspect of a high-quality stock. Besides strength of the existing business, the sources of longevity for a business include incremental reinvestment in areas which will deliver cashflows beyond the next 3-5 years, and the institutionalization of strategy and business execution. In the recent past, most CCP […]
CCP = 25% Free Cashflow CAGR = 25% Share Price Compounding
Capital reinvestments, including tech investments, drive incremental deepening of the Consistent Compounders’ (CCPs’) competitive advantages. This increases the importance of free cashflows in understanding the fundamentals and hence the valuations of our portfolio companies. Over the last 5 / 10 / 20 years, the free cashflows of our portfolio companies have grown consistently at around […]
India’s Greatest Cash Generation Machines Keep Compounding
Marcellus’ CCP Portfolio delivered earnings growth of 74% YoY in 4QFY21 which led to a 11% earnings growth for the full year FY21, almost fully offsetting the drag from nation-wide lockdowns during April and May last year (2020). Unlike the trend for the broader market, CCP portfolio companies’ earnings growth was supported by a strong […]
Why is it rare to find a free-cashflow generative retailer in India?
Modern Retail in India has a huge opportunity to modernize and consolidate this millenniums old sector. However, building and growing a pan-India retail network of stores with high ROCE consistently has been difficult for most retailers. Challenges range from understanding consumer preferences, optimizing store location / size / format, optimizing merchandise selection / procurement / […]
The Science Behind Portfolio Concentration
Diversification in an equity portfolio reduces stock-specific risk but excessive diversification reduces returns, substantially more than it reduces risk. Marcellus’ proprietary framework for arriving at the number stocks in a portfolio is based on the most critical driver of portfolio concentration, namely, the “gradient” of the characteristics that the fund manager seeks within her coverage […]
“Consistent Compounders” Demonstrate Stellar Market Share Gains
Marcellus’ CCP Portfolio delivered earnings growth of 29% YoY in 3QFY21 backed by revenue growth of 19% YoY. Almost all stocks in the CCP portfolio gained significant market share over the past six months from both organized as well as unorganized competitors. The non-Financials part of the portfolio reported 45% YoY growth in earnings during […]
Disrupt, Dominate, Deliver Strong Free Cash Flows and Repeat!
Whilst there are various investment philosophies aimed at swapping disrupted incumbents with new disruptors, such investments entail taking speculative risks around the future dominance of the new disruptor. At Marcellus, we believe that dominance cannot be sustained without disruption, and disruption is not worth investing into if it doesn’t generate substantial free cash flows for […]
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