How Multinationals Lost the Plot in India
Despite having access to enough capital and the experience of running financial services businesses for decades globally, foreign players have struggled in India. While the multinationals did not have any dearth of talent, capital, or technology, sustainable growth has eluded them (loan book market share has halved from ~8% in FY2000 to ~4% in FY2021). […]
Rising Giants’ M&A Forays
Acquisitions have been a cornerstone of Rising Giants’ growth strategy in recent years facilitated by burgeoning internal accruals and the consolidation opportunities thrown up by Covid-19. In contrast to the abysmal track record of Indian corporates generally with respect to acquisitions (particularly, international ones), the Rising Giants’ measured approach in terms of acquisition size, their […]
Too little, too late: Intel’s legacy is eroding
The article’s sub-title “…is the chip giant facing a Kodak moment?” might sound a bit sensationalist but in the world of disruptive tech, you don’t rule out any possibility. Especially if you follow how many times, the once iconic Intel has stumbled in the recent past “The company is stuck on an aging 10nm process; its […]
In “The Metaverse”, Matthew Ball explains where the idea came from
The use of the word Metaverse shot up sometime last year during the post Covid tech boom implying all of us will continue to spend the rest of our lives virtually. It got a stamp of credibility when Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella referred to it in one of his speeches. And Facebook actually changed its […]
How the Indian action spectacular RRR became a smash in America
A couple of months ago we had highlighted in 3 longs & 3 shorts that the Telugu superhit was topping Netflix’s charts in USA – see https://marcellus.in/story/the-netflix-hit-rrr-is-a-political-screed-an-action-bonanza-and-an-exhilarating-musical/ Now, as Simon Abrams, writes something even more unusual is happening: “The Telugu-language Indian action spectacular “RRR,” or “Rise, Roar, Revolt,” was already a worldwide box office winner when it […]
Quietly working his way up, Avinash Sable represents the steady rise of Indian athletics
A guest speaker in one of our recent webinars said India’s progress in the field of sports is an indicator of the strides the country as a whole is making in general. He might not be off the mark but he was clearly coming off the highs of India’s spectacular show in the recent Commonwealth […]
Venture capital’s silent crash: when the tech boom met reality
When the stock market crashes or ‘corrects’, you can see that right in front of you and, if you are so minded, you can do something about it. In the case of VC investing, as this piece in last week’s 3 longs & 3 shorts highlighted, there is very little an investor in VC funds […]
The Kingdom or the Crown: Address the Owner Dependence Dilemma in Your Company
Permanent Equity is a private equity firm based in Columbia, Missouri. In this newsletter they discuss at length which keeps us and many of our clients awake at night – namely, what will happen to a successful franchise when the Founder/Promoter is no longer around. We worry about this both from the perspective of being […]
Three Simple (But Not Easy) Ways to Make Money in India
Marcellus was incorporated exactly four years ago, and the firm opened for business on 1st December 2018. That day Saurabh Mukherjea became Marcellus’ first client. This week, Saurabh’s monthly statement showed that Marcellus’ Consistent Compounders Portfolio – consisting primarily of large cap stocks – has doubled his corpus in 3 years and 8 months thanks […]
You can’t say that!’: how to argue, better
Many of us have been guilty of getting into heated arguments over social and political issues often on social media, only to see neither party budge, instead souring our relationships with friends and family. As a result, some of us have chosen to avoid such arguments altogether preferring to hold onto our convictions depriving ourselves […]
An Economy of Overfed Middlemen
One would have thought that technological developments will bring producers and consumers closer obviating the need for intermediaries taking a cut in between. Indeed, traditional middlemen have been disintermediated, only to allow a much larger and more dominant middleman to emerge – an Amazon or Flipkart displacing traditional distributors, wholesalers and retailers of consumer goods […]
How Bihar’s artists rode out the Covid crisis with tech & tradition
This life affirming story in the Indian Express highlights how the “Madhubani painters in Bihar rose to the challenge and earned a steady income, even during the lockdowns”. The piece begins with a brief primer in Madhubani painting for the uninitiated: “Legend has it that Madhubani paintings originated when King Janak wanted the kingdom of Mithila decked […]
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