We Will See the Return of Capital Investment on a Massive Scale: Russell Napier
Many of us including mainstream economists tend to get carried away by the lure of free market economics. Turns out it is no more than being wishful. To get us out of our delusions, we need someone like Russell Napier, the independent strategist who has been calling out for sustained inflation soon after the Covid […]
India Has Led The Way In Authenticating Medicines, But Must Do More
One of the reasons we avoid investing in Indian pharma companies which make formulations is because our channel checks suggest that the business model of Indian pharma companies is NOT only unviable in the long run, in the short run it leads to cutting of corners with inevitable consequences for quality – see our blog […]
The Stars are Aligned for Indian Lenders
The fact that Indian lenders are sitting on: (i) their highest ever capital adequacy, (ii) their lowest non performing assets since the Asset Quality Review in 2015, and (iii) their highest RoAs since FY13 has been masked by global macro uncertainties. Since private sector Indian banks are funded by growing domestic financial savings and have […]
The flavours of nostalgia : How Nirula’s changed the way Delhi eats
This article is essential reading for anyone who has NOT had the Hot Chocolate Fudge (HCF) at Nirula’s, an essential experience that civilised folks in the NCR have been partaking in for decades. Sadaf Hussain writes in the Indian Express that “When I first arrived in Delhi in 2011, Nirula’s seemed to me like any other […]
Nobel prizes most often go to researchers who defy specialization – winners are creative thinkers who synthesize innovations from varied fields and even hobbies
In 2019, David Epstein published his fascinating book “Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialised World” challenging the belief that specialised expertise as the only route to success. In that book, he contrasts the lives of Tiger Woods who picked up the golf club as a toddler to Roger Federer who played a whole range of sports […]
The US-China chip war is reshaping tech supply chains
With the West’s energy supply chain with Russia broken, much of the world is now preparing for a breakdown of the semiconductor supply chain emanating from Taiwan (something that will be become inevitable if China attacks Taiwan): “…intensified US-China tension over technology — and especially semiconductors — has shifted electronics supply chains in slow but significant […]
Psychiatry wars: the lawsuit that put psychoanalysis on trial
In the week of World Mental Health Day, we thought we’ll do our bit in terms of raising awareness about the condition which is increasingly prevalent yet not fully understood nor given due importance. This is a piece adapted from a new book Strangers to Ourselves by Rachel Aviv. The Guardian describes the book as: “The highly […]
A Brief History of the Past 10,000 Years of Monetary Policy and Why Last Week Was a Big Deal
The past two weeks have seen a spike in the use of the phrase ‘Lehman moment’, thanks to the policies of the new government in the UK. Many of us got to learn about Wall Street’s creation of exotic derivatives such as CDOs and CLOs which turned toxic during the Lehman crisis. The equivalent this […]
Howard Schultz’s fight to stop a Starbucks barista uprising
This long read from the Washington Post is a brilliant case study of just how dramatically the world has changed in the past four years – supply side issues (especially the supply of labour) are now a critical challenge the world over. The even deeper issue is that inflation is lifting the cost of living […]
Tech as an Enabler of Free Cashflow Compounding
Rising Giants have been at the forefront of implementing tech solutions to sustain their competitive advantages, drive efficiencies (around cost, working capital and asset utilisation) and build scalable organisations (transitioning from single to multi-product & multi-geography companies). At the same time, the relatively low-cost but high impact nature (low marginal cost & ability to scale […]
How Zoho became a $1B company without a dime of external investment…
Whilst India is clearly a world leader in IT services, its success in IT products has been patchy. Zoho, an enterprise software company is one of the few success stories in this space. It is special not just because it is a rare success but also the way the company has got here. In a […]
Why MS Dhoni doesn’t carry his phone and what we can learn from him
Our 2020 bestseller “The Victory Project: Six Steps to Peak Potential” espoused simplicity and decluttering as essential behaviours for improving productivity and performance. Supreme Court lawyer and our favourite Indian Express columnist, Menaka Guruswamy (whose father’s friend is a client of Marcellus) has written a piece supporting this point of view. Interestingly, however, this support […]
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