"Buffet visits mainland china" - The headline didn't matter as much as it should have. Buffett has been gung-ho on this part of the world for sometime. It's universal truth.. So what's the big deal?
"Buffett and his army marches ahead", was a better match in another edition. Now that's what caught my attention. As I scrolled down the colom, I figured that the name of the company in which Warren Buffett was evincing "more than life" interest was BYD.
BYD Auto better known as "Bǐyàdí Gǔfēn Yǒuxiàn Gōngsī" in cantonese is a clean energy (read battery operated) car that has got a fair share of attention from Uncle Sam now. US is struggling to understand the reasons for their failure to innovate as rapidly as this young company has in the past decade or so..
I was able to link this entire article with a discussion I had with a client, while working as a Financial advisor in Bangalore. My former client, a long-term Buffett style investor, someone who has substantial stake in eminent mid-cap companies in Bombay Stock Exchange and related to one of the top Indian stock brokers had spoken to me on this little-known company BYD Auto about a year back! He had wanted to invest about a million USD in this stock, which then was non-descript to me.
Today, I was amazed to note that this company had got massive support from the Chinese government that was showcasing this success story to the Westerners. Through this company, China had surely flexed its muscle big time proving yet again - what it takes to achieve scale. So cars manufactured by BYD Auto will get approximately 70000 Yuan rebate in five of the top chinese cities! Not just that, people who drive these cars will get addtional tax benefits from the government.
Thus, Warren Buffett had come down to China to meet the chinese authorities and whisper sweet nothings to them. Why not? Stock price of Mid-American holdings (Holding company of Berkshire Hathway) has more than 14% stake in BYD Auto. The stock price of Mid-American holdings has rallied by more than 23% in the last five months. This is not just a speculation game. if all goes well, this company will expand into the US and European markets and guzzle the market share of the Toyotas, GMs and Honda.
China is talking of 4 million cars that will go on road by the end of next year in these five cities. We have an Indian version of the same story. "Reva" now bought by M&M (Mahindra) needs to crack the global market in the clean energy space.
Till then the dragon will roar! And roar loud..
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
Friday, September 24, 2010
The CWG Mess : Indelible impact
A nation of 1+ billion minds, highly respected in today's transnational rankings measuring cerebral intellect, entrepreneurship talent and established leadership - that is "Emerging and new India" to the rest of the world. And yet this emerging India continues to impress or shall I say confuse the world with its display of the CWG (Commonwealth Games) mess!
I was having lunch with my colleagues in a small restaurant in Amoy street, Singapore. My colleagues are native germans and have been travelling extensively across Asia in recent times. Needless to say, they have been following India's growth story for some time now. On our table, the local edition of "Business Times" carried a small article on the CWG! I was hoping that the topic wouldn't be raised. But eventually it did.. A very naive question followed.. " India is a rising power man, what happened? "
While I tried giving a diplomatic revert, for one moment I shuddered at the thought of the hauntings that will follow once the games are over! The whole world has watched, read and studied this fiasco, as it has unravelled through the speeches of many senior government officials across Australia, United Kingdom, Canada and Newzealand.
There are no easy answers to this. 7 years back we got the mandate. 7 years is a long time to get basic infrastructure in place. Eminent parliamentarian and ex- IAS officer Mr. Mani Shankar Iyer went on record lambasting Mike Fennell yesterday. What was Mr.Iyer doing during his stint as sports minister! He hadn't even initiated the process of constructing the venues. In fact, he went on record mentioning that the monies for CWG need to be channelized for capability building of our sportsmen. Yah sure, please go ahead and do that. Just ask the foreign players who will be our guests to run and swim in stadiums, roofs of which may collapse anytime during their activity!
Then we have the comic display of Mr. Kalmadi and his group of croonies who have the collective audacity to say" Well, or venues are hygenic. It's just that westeners have different hygiene standards!" I mean, give us a break you jerks! Have you totally lost it? This generation of work-force which is pread globally and is working for international clients will need to go to their offices and be made a laughing stock...
The Indian tax-payer, including the bourgeois who has plodded hard and has paid his taxes on time. The Indian government and the organizing committee have taken him for a good ride!! We call them free-riders in campus jargon. The CM, PM and the entire top brass was sleeping over the last 7 years! The media which has suddenly woken up - I want to ask IBN and NDTVs of the world, "Where was your STING operation strategy?" I mean, they just woke up 3 months back??
Right now, am just so pissed. Especially when I thought I would have a good Friday lunch, stumped by the naive question posted by my friend. I kept thinking.. I really had lot of respect in the leadership of Manmohan Singh. Somewhere down the line it's got impacted..
I was having lunch with my colleagues in a small restaurant in Amoy street, Singapore. My colleagues are native germans and have been travelling extensively across Asia in recent times. Needless to say, they have been following India's growth story for some time now. On our table, the local edition of "Business Times" carried a small article on the CWG! I was hoping that the topic wouldn't be raised. But eventually it did.. A very naive question followed.. " India is a rising power man, what happened? "
While I tried giving a diplomatic revert, for one moment I shuddered at the thought of the hauntings that will follow once the games are over! The whole world has watched, read and studied this fiasco, as it has unravelled through the speeches of many senior government officials across Australia, United Kingdom, Canada and Newzealand.
There are no easy answers to this. 7 years back we got the mandate. 7 years is a long time to get basic infrastructure in place. Eminent parliamentarian and ex- IAS officer Mr. Mani Shankar Iyer went on record lambasting Mike Fennell yesterday. What was Mr.Iyer doing during his stint as sports minister! He hadn't even initiated the process of constructing the venues. In fact, he went on record mentioning that the monies for CWG need to be channelized for capability building of our sportsmen. Yah sure, please go ahead and do that. Just ask the foreign players who will be our guests to run and swim in stadiums, roofs of which may collapse anytime during their activity!
Then we have the comic display of Mr. Kalmadi and his group of croonies who have the collective audacity to say" Well, or venues are hygenic. It's just that westeners have different hygiene standards!" I mean, give us a break you jerks! Have you totally lost it? This generation of work-force which is pread globally and is working for international clients will need to go to their offices and be made a laughing stock...
The Indian tax-payer, including the bourgeois who has plodded hard and has paid his taxes on time. The Indian government and the organizing committee have taken him for a good ride!! We call them free-riders in campus jargon. The CM, PM and the entire top brass was sleeping over the last 7 years! The media which has suddenly woken up - I want to ask IBN and NDTVs of the world, "Where was your STING operation strategy?" I mean, they just woke up 3 months back??
Right now, am just so pissed. Especially when I thought I would have a good Friday lunch, stumped by the naive question posted by my friend. I kept thinking.. I really had lot of respect in the leadership of Manmohan Singh. Somewhere down the line it's got impacted..
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
USD 25 Trillion opportunity! I’m not joking
This was a meeting I would cherish for years to come! We all know about meetings.. most of them are drab, boring, same powerpoint enabled monologues.. But this was different..
I met this gentleman from Vietnam – a small time agriculture trader, a 2nd generation businessman. One wouldn’t give him a second glance if he were to pass by you. To give him good company, I kept speaking about India, Indian economy blah blah.. and he gave muted response to my exihilarated responses. But through his muted conversations he taught me how important it is to dream big! And dream really BIG!!
A small time agri-trader looking at raising capital from alternate investment markets (AIM) to the tune of 1.5 billion USD. For what damn it? I mean you suddenly get up one fine morning and want to invest more than a billion! Guess this man wasn’t that insane. So he actually sketched out the farm->to-> fork model by which he would integrate all disparate links in the food supply chain. All of this in Vietnam and in some parts of Indonesia.
An alternate market, an alternate stock exchange was in some way empowering the smaller constituents of the trading community to chart a quantum leap from their norms. Just think about it. We have about a 250 million farmers (approximate headcount) in India. Assume that the top 25 % are the richest lot who have access to capital and resources. To them alternate market is not priority.
But just segment the next 30-40 % of the middle class farmer segment. We are talking of a market size of 90 million farmers who find it exteremely difficult to access capital and thereby languish in the regime of poor infrastructure and low productivity. A dead, vicious cycle. I am assuming just 5 % of this segment falls in the “DREAM BIG” category. So that is about 5 million farmers who are the enterprising lot. Now assume each of them is dreaming to raise just 5 million USD (not much.. just about 25 crores). So tapping the alternate / impact investment exchange a total capital of 25 trillion USD. That’s more than twice the GDP of United States of America… You get what Iam driving home??
USD 25 trillion is 20 times India’s GDP. We should be proud of the fact that we are agri-heavy country and thanks to the hard work of our farmer community we have progressed thus far. It’s just that the government has remained oblivious to the needs of the farmer. He doesnt have access to state-of-art infrastructure nor capital to reach the size of my client from Vietnam.
Is anyone listening?
I met this gentleman from Vietnam – a small time agriculture trader, a 2nd generation businessman. One wouldn’t give him a second glance if he were to pass by you. To give him good company, I kept speaking about India, Indian economy blah blah.. and he gave muted response to my exihilarated responses. But through his muted conversations he taught me how important it is to dream big! And dream really BIG!!
A small time agri-trader looking at raising capital from alternate investment markets (AIM) to the tune of 1.5 billion USD. For what damn it? I mean you suddenly get up one fine morning and want to invest more than a billion! Guess this man wasn’t that insane. So he actually sketched out the farm->to-> fork model by which he would integrate all disparate links in the food supply chain. All of this in Vietnam and in some parts of Indonesia.
An alternate market, an alternate stock exchange was in some way empowering the smaller constituents of the trading community to chart a quantum leap from their norms. Just think about it. We have about a 250 million farmers (approximate headcount) in India. Assume that the top 25 % are the richest lot who have access to capital and resources. To them alternate market is not priority.
But just segment the next 30-40 % of the middle class farmer segment. We are talking of a market size of 90 million farmers who find it exteremely difficult to access capital and thereby languish in the regime of poor infrastructure and low productivity. A dead, vicious cycle. I am assuming just 5 % of this segment falls in the “DREAM BIG” category. So that is about 5 million farmers who are the enterprising lot. Now assume each of them is dreaming to raise just 5 million USD (not much.. just about 25 crores). So tapping the alternate / impact investment exchange a total capital of 25 trillion USD. That’s more than twice the GDP of United States of America… You get what Iam driving home??
USD 25 trillion is 20 times India’s GDP. We should be proud of the fact that we are agri-heavy country and thanks to the hard work of our farmer community we have progressed thus far. It’s just that the government has remained oblivious to the needs of the farmer. He doesnt have access to state-of-art infrastructure nor capital to reach the size of my client from Vietnam.
Is anyone listening?
Omahe Speak: Impact investing exchange!
Omahe Speak: Impact investing exchange!: "Impact investing! The concept blew me off the first time, I was briefed by a friend. And a seperate stock exchange that would list shares - ..."
Impact investing exchange!
Impact investing! The concept blew me off the first time, I was briefed by a friend. And a seperate stock exchange that would list shares - shares that would belong to companies filtered by this exchange! Wow..
Back home in India working part-time for Parikrma Humanity foundation, I had limited knowledge beyond the realms of community work, NGO activity, philanthropic grants etc; So when I started reading more on the concept of impact investing, I was able to unearth tomes of relevant literature in this space. Today, while working in this start-up which will evolve into a full-blown tock exchange in Singapore, I'm able to discern the level of sophisticiation pervious to this part of the world.
This exchange will foster the process of raising capital by firms from diverse verticals such as microfinance, clean-energy and host of companies from poor countries. This capital would then get deployed in host countries and in other geographical markets generating revenues and creating more jobs. Through this alternate exchange, multiple stakeholders including a large section of international FII community shall converge to unlock significant amount of business value.
The Indian regulatory bodies need to promptly take stock of this emerging concept. With more than 60 % of the indian population hooked into agriculture and food processing, and a host of unlisted companies in sunrise sectors jostling to raise capital for business expansion - an alternate exchange can bode trillion dollar market opportunity for all! Albeit, all aspects of risk management and due-diligence done to ensure compliance to international standards.
Back home in India working part-time for Parikrma Humanity foundation, I had limited knowledge beyond the realms of community work, NGO activity, philanthropic grants etc; So when I started reading more on the concept of impact investing, I was able to unearth tomes of relevant literature in this space. Today, while working in this start-up which will evolve into a full-blown tock exchange in Singapore, I'm able to discern the level of sophisticiation pervious to this part of the world.
This exchange will foster the process of raising capital by firms from diverse verticals such as microfinance, clean-energy and host of companies from poor countries. This capital would then get deployed in host countries and in other geographical markets generating revenues and creating more jobs. Through this alternate exchange, multiple stakeholders including a large section of international FII community shall converge to unlock significant amount of business value.
The Indian regulatory bodies need to promptly take stock of this emerging concept. With more than 60 % of the indian population hooked into agriculture and food processing, and a host of unlisted companies in sunrise sectors jostling to raise capital for business expansion - an alternate exchange can bode trillion dollar market opportunity for all! Albeit, all aspects of risk management and due-diligence done to ensure compliance to international standards.
Sunday, September 19, 2010
Social message from Dabaang
Yesterday was my 2nd viewing of Salman starrer "Dabanng". The quintessential hero as Salman personifies - "Robinhood" aka chulbul pandey was an adorable character for little less than 150 minutes. While watching this movie for the second time, I felt that Chulbul Pandey was crying loud seeking audience's attention to the state of affairs in Uttar Pradesh.
Uttar Pradesh (UP), the largest state in terms of area and population of India is well known for having nurtured India's political whizkids but has been a distinct laggard in terms of growth across all paramaters : employment, social equity, industrial and agricultural productivity to name a few. For decades now the state has been ruled by mediocre politicians, who in their quest for political longevity have ensured that progressive development of the people remain in cold storage!
The movie highlighted the dilapidated state of the police force in the state. Years of political slavery has jaded the foundation of integrity, agility and responsiveness of the police. The crime rate in the state has catapulted to the highest level in the last 40 years. "Jungle-Raj" as the political warlords call it! Who is listening to the common man? Where is all of this leading to? Is there a Robinhood pandey who will take onus of the common man's plights?
There cannot be simple answers to these set of questions. UP by far has the best talented set of people, a few of my very close friends who belong to this heartland. I wonder then.. will we imbibe the message of Dabaang, which means "Fearless" in Khari boli dialect and initiate the process of change in India's heartland UP!
Uttar Pradesh (UP), the largest state in terms of area and population of India is well known for having nurtured India's political whizkids but has been a distinct laggard in terms of growth across all paramaters : employment, social equity, industrial and agricultural productivity to name a few. For decades now the state has been ruled by mediocre politicians, who in their quest for political longevity have ensured that progressive development of the people remain in cold storage!
The movie highlighted the dilapidated state of the police force in the state. Years of political slavery has jaded the foundation of integrity, agility and responsiveness of the police. The crime rate in the state has catapulted to the highest level in the last 40 years. "Jungle-Raj" as the political warlords call it! Who is listening to the common man? Where is all of this leading to? Is there a Robinhood pandey who will take onus of the common man's plights?
There cannot be simple answers to these set of questions. UP by far has the best talented set of people, a few of my very close friends who belong to this heartland. I wonder then.. will we imbibe the message of Dabaang, which means "Fearless" in Khari boli dialect and initiate the process of change in India's heartland UP!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)