Louis-Vincent Gave: We Are Heading Into a Great Environment for Emerging Markets
China’s spectacular reopening amidst skyrocketing cases has puzzled many of us. The selective reporting of the western media doesn’t make things easier. Hence, we pay close attention to folks like Louis-Vincent Gave of Gavekal research, someone who has eyes and ears on the ground and is also known to speaking his mind. Here’s an interview […]
How MA Jinnah’s bargain with communal politics sealed his fate and that of India’s
In business, one is often told that it might make sense to take a negotiating stance which is at odds with one’s beliefs and convictions regarding what is right and what is wrong. The life of MA Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan, shows this might actually be a very bad idea. In order to manoeuvre […]
How Founders Should Think About Cash Management
As listed market investors, we tend to think about and write about capital allocation (by ourselves and by our investee companies) for much of our time. Outstanding books have written on the subject such as ‘The Outsiders’ by William Thorndike Jr. What this Andreesen Horowitz piece does is highlight a specific subset of capital allocation […]
‘The Godfather, Saudi-style’: inside the palace coup that brought MBS to power
In our day-to-day work we tend to encounter a cross section of people some of whom have a fondness for authoritarian rule. Whilst we hope that the ongoing unravelling of China will give such people food for thought, an even more dramatic upheaval is playing out in Saudi Arabia where behind palace doors a young […]
The Best Blogs of 2022
The year 2022 was full of drama akin to a 90s Hindi feature film. Just as the world was finding its feet post the devastating blow from Covid-19 over 2020-21, we heard the news of Russia – Ukraine war that sent the energy and food prices through the roof. At the same time, we saw […]
The Best Newsletters of 2022
The end of a year is a great time for self-reflection and to assess how we’ve grown as individuals and as an organization. At Marcellus, one of the key elements of growth (and something we take pride in) is learning more about the world we live in. It’s our constant endeavor to keep building on […]
‘Our team will win’: how so many Indians started supporting Argentina
The FIFA football world cup remains the greatest show on the planet. Last Sunday’s incredible final proving it beyond doubt. It is clearly the most popular sport on the planet but the eventual winners Argentina turned out to be the most popular team for neutrals across the world. Lionel Messi’s genius and the fact that […]
Is India’s defence business a good news story or bad? Perhaps both, but changing for the better
There is a lot of excitement about defence stocks these days. Having seen such bouts of excitement before, the team at Marcellus is a more than a little circumspect about such excitement. For those who are excited about investment opportunities in the context of defence spending in India, the legendary TN Ninan has some sobering […]
On China, government needs to be more forthcoming
We published a note last month on the positive economic implications – from an Indian perspective – of the ongoing unravelling of the Chinese economy – see https://marcellus.in/blogs/chinas-unravelling-creates-a-300-billion-opportunity-for-india/ However, as Pratap Bhanu Mehta explains in this edit piece, the challenge that India faces is that the more China unravels, the more India’s economy & influence […]
The collapse of insects
Plenty tends to get written about in terms of harmful effects of climate change. But thanks to one of our readers who shared this brilliant graphics piece, we learn about the unnoticed damage to the large class of creatures in the animal kingdom – insects. Scientists apparently refer to this as the ‘Insect Apocalypse’. This […]
Investing in an age of disruption
What makes investment management a super interesting profession is that there doesn’t have to be one right way of investing. If Lindsell Train’s newsletter was all about finding Anti-Fragile businesses which can not only withstand the test of time and technological disruption but emerge stronger, this speech from another fund manager is a little more […]
The Triumph of Experience Over Hope
For a few years now, it has been fashionable to say that we are living through a pace of accelerating technological change which shortens the lifespan of companies. Commentators who say these sorts of things (eg. management consultants, brokers & bankers) also enjoy noting that most investors are now traders i.e. people who seem to […]
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