How Bira will accidently increase the profits of Kingfisher.
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United Spirits does a Marie Kondo
How united spirits is using the konmari technique to slim down its offerings and focus on those that matter.
Read MoreCCL Products 9M FY 19 Con-Call Update
Vietnam was Tax Free, now it even becomes DEBT FREE. Vietnam operating at 80% capacity. Will be enhancing capacity by 3500MT next year. Unlike Brazilian coffee converters, CCL can import coffee from anywhere in the world. Huge advantages from quality, price and availability. CCL has been concentrating more on developing countries rather than developed countries.…
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Will Prabhat have another Su-Prabhat ?
It’s funny how we take some major life decisions based on almost nothing and sometimes want every possible proof for smaller decisions. Ours is a country with very confusing faith systems. Finding a balanced faith which people use at all times is getting increasingly difficult. We choose life partners based on astrology, break and modify…
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How Continental Coffee is pulling a Steve Jobs !
How continental coffee is using the secrets of range architecture to conquer the Indian coffee market.
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Fun Facts from Factfulness
Without correct facts your instincts as well as your process will be wrong. This book shows you simple ways to separate fact from fiction.
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The Second Act of ACT II !
How the undisputed popcorn king is planning to get himself a new throne in the cereal space and what’s been holding him.
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Har baap ka sapna, bas SETTLE ho jaye beta apna ! (completing the man !) A note on Raymond Franchise Stores.
India is a land of the plenty, unlike the US, not of opportunities, but of money. Every businessman daddy is trying to “settle” his beta with an enterprise. Being huge fans of rentRaymond has a target to open 300 mini-franchise stores in the next one year. I am of the opinion that not only will…
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The Undoing Project – Michael Lewis undoes Danny Kahneman and Amos Tversky
From dealing with uncertainty, decision making, understanding and recognising your and public stupidity, negotiation, using intuition, defining losses, the difference between probability and possibility, controlling emotion while reasoning – this book has it all. Take your time in chewing on this. Probably the best book in psychology that I will ever have read. The Insider…
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Demonetization triggers Piramal Enterprise’s first ConCall in years !
Whenever there is wild spread ambiguity, i remember Pabrai’s distinction between risk and uncertainty loud and clear. In this specific case, the loan book concerns were about mortgage worthiness (risk) and cash flow/interest payments (uncertainty ). Piramal seems to have put off taking calls from investors all these years as the entire group structure itself…
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Bajaj Auto just shot itself in the foot with a Bullet !
Recently Bajaj Auto, released an ad on brotherhood day, an ad apparently to reduce discrimination in the Himalayas between the Bullet riders and the Avenger riders. Watch how it goes. I almost died laughing at the ad. It’s the cheapest shot of piggy backing on someone else’s brand name. The guy riding the Avenger, is…
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Who moved Jubilant’s Cheese ?
On August 2015, Jubilant traded at 1923 a share, thats a M.Cap of a whooping 12,610 cr.. Jubilant sold 2410 cr of pizzas(mostly) this year and made 114 cr after taxes. At 12,610 cr someone assumed that Jubilant is worthy to pay 110 years worth of current profits. 110 !!!!! I have something to say…
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Investing Capital Vs Re-Investing Profits – Is there a difference ?
This question has long plagued me. Should there be a distinction in investing capital/savings vs investing profits ? Money is money right ? Why should we then even bother answering this question ? I said this to myself and tried to convince/fool myself for a while. It didn’t work but just stayed in the “PENDING”…
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Don’t give him access to your loot, just because his talk is cute !
Choosing and investment manager is in many ways even more difficult than choosing stocks. We meet with them and open ourselves up to a new set of biases. Successful fund raisers are more qualified in psychology than in economics. Just like your “trusted” “sweet-talking” jeweller is more qualified in etiquette and mannerisms than actual gemology,…
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MPS moves up the Value Chain
I just watched the future of the Magazine. It is mouth watering. Take a look before going forward.Mag+’s version of the magazine I attended the con call yesterday and there seems to be a bit of confusion in what MPS is doing. In reality, its actually very simple. Its just that we seem to want…
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People finally warm up to NBCC
An explanation of NBCC’s new 25,000 cr redevelopment contract.
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100 to 1 by Thomas Phelps, in 95 points.
Revisiting Pat Dorsey’s Checklist on Economic Moats
Pat Dorsey’s little book-“THAT BUILDS WEALTH” The Game Plan IDENTIFY businesses capable of generating above average returns over many years. WAIT to buy, until they begin to trade at OR below their intrinsic value. HOLD till business deteriorates shares are extremely overvalued a better investment is found REPEAT till you die. Keep asking yourself what…
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RISK and its many Avatars by Howard Marks
Risk The world believes that you have to take a higher risk to get a higher reward. Value investors chuckle at this model as they believe in low risk high reward model. After reading this book by Marks, I can’t help but chuckle at the value investors too. Value investors are looking at the ratio…
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“We make instant coffee, and take instant decisions !” – CCL Products
CCL Products fell by about 8% today, as the ANALysts (yes that was intentional 🙂 ) were unhappy with the growth figures, compared to last quarter/six months. I don’t know when they will understand that companies will not grow in a linear fashion. You just have to think long term. Most of their questions in todays call…
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How Singapore INCENTIVISED itself into a First World Country
Singapore went from a Third World country to a first world country in 50 years. This is already impressive but what makes this transformation phenomenal is that this country was just a British Colony, without any natural resources, less than 700q km and no army. They achieved independence from the British and Malaysia, but their…
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Simple and effective thoughts by George Soros
This is a book summary of “Soros on Soros – Staying Ahead of the curve “. We try to simplify things. We don’t have a real or a scientific way to measure risk. People who are in the derivative business have very elaborate risk calculations. We are amateurs.We live in the Stone Age. Deliberately so. Lots of…
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The Shipping Man – Book Summary – An entertaining insight into the global shipping business
This book is probably the best book one can read to get an insight into the shipping finance business as well as the over all shipping business. This is a piece of fiction but its loaded with so much investing sense, that it just ought to be read by investors. If you simply replace “shipping”…
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Book Summary of – Charlie Munger – The Complete Investor – by Tren Griffin
INTRODUCTION Munger’s ability to cut to the heart of an issue with a few well chosen words is legendary, as is his desire to think independently. Munger is such an interesting person, in no small part because he is, in a word UNRESTRAINED. He once said, ” While Warren may be remembered as a teacher,…
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Is Prem Watsa deliberately downplaying Quess Corp’s margin ?
Lets take the Business Wise audited financial results of 2015 for this analysis. Though this has been prepared for 15 months I would still like to use it as it as this would most likely be the result for 2016, apart from the KUONI deal. Businesses Performance for 15 months ending in March 2015. in…
Read MoreWhy Ajay Piramal does not want you to read the Standalone Statements. (and other updates from the 2015 AGM)
I was suddenly taken aback when Ajay Piramal said this, ” Please do not read the standalone statements and read only the consolidated statements. If you do so you will only be wasting your time.” While my CA instincts kicked in all i wanted to do was hold up a red flag, but then this…
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Piramal’s definitive 3 pronged approach.
I initially bought into Piramal Healthcare as it was a cash bargain. At 360/- a share you actually got over 600/- of cash ( ignoring all the irrelevant stuff like management, brand company history etc 🙂 ). The logic was that even if Ajay Piramal lost/mismanaged or stole 50% of the cash, my investment would…
Read MoreCCL Products – How about TAX FREE as a MOAT ?
In its Q1 2015 results, CCL generated a profit of 30 cr of which, Vietnam generated 10 cr and the entire amount was tax free ! Now how do you like this for competitive advantage ? This has been generated by using about 75% of the companies 5000MT capacity, which means that the company will…
Read MoreMPS Version 2.0
“ The last few years performance was attractive, but what we could deliver may truly be exciting.” Welcome to MPS 2.0 When technology disrupts an industry there is major chaos, and where there is large spread chaos, there is opportunity. More than anything else, it matter which side of the disruption you are on. MPS…
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How to Trade in Stocks – Jesse Livermore – The birth of the semi-investor
Moneymaking via the value investing method is no longer completely distinct from speculation, owning to the speed at which information is exchanged today. While the difference between fundamental analysis and chart reading is still as clear as ever, value investors can make money in their stocks via structured trading without sacrilege. These bets would thus make him a semi-investor…
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