Mostly Borrowed Ideas Deep Dives, MBI Deep Dives

MBI Deep Dives

Mostly Borrowed Ideas Deep Dives

MBI is the abbreviation for “Mostly Borrowed Ideas”. Why “Mostly Borrowed Ideas?” As a generalist, I do not have a background in any particular sector. I enjoy navigating across industries, businesses, and countries to learn, understand, and connect the dots. In any case, most ideas and innovations are incremental in nature. Very few of us are smart enough to come up with truly original or groundbreaking ideas. I am Abdullah Al-Rezwan. I was born and brought up in Bangladesh. I went to University of Dhaka for my undergrad and majored in Finance. After working three and half years in Equity Research (Sell-side) covering Financial Sector in Bangladesh, I left Bangladesh to pursue my MBA in the US. I graduated within top 10% of the class from Cornell University's two-year MBA program and worked on the buy-side following my graduation. During my time at Cornell, I won two stock pitch competitions and also became finalists in four other competitions. I thoroughly enjoyed my stint as a generalist in the US large cap team at Madison Investments and covered a wide range of companies from UnitedHealth to Amazon and Boeing before US immigration reality paused my career in investment management. As my work authorization expired, I moved to Canada in January, 2021. Then in early 2022, I was able to return to the US.

Equity Bottom-Up

<ul><li>First some caveats: while we have all probably read Charlie Munger’s quote “I never allow myself to hold an opinion on anything that I don't know the other side's argument better than they do”, the reality is this is exceptionally uncommon and challenging.</li><li>In fact, when investors mention risks about a company they like, they often deliberately choose strawman arguments from the other side and advertently or inadvertently ignore steelman arguments.</li><li>I will try to avoid strawman bear cases (and boy there are many), and only outline the bear cases that indeed concern me as a shareholder.</li></ul>

First some caveats: while we have all probably read Charlie Munger’s quote “I never allow myself to hold an opinion on anything that I don't know the other side's argument better than they do”, the reality is this is exceptionally uncommon and challenging.In fact, when investors mention risks about a company they like, they often deliberately choose strawman arguments from the other side and advertently or inadvertently ignore steelman arguments.I will try to avoid strawman bear cases (and boy there are many), and only outline the bear cases that indeed concern me as a shareholder.

TMT & Consumer Independent Equity Research Analyst, Obex Capital Research

Aaron Gabin

TMT & Consumer Independent Equity Research Analyst

TMT & Consumer Independent Equity Research

Obex Capital Research

“Obex” is Latin for Barriers to Entry. Obex Capital Management’s investment philosophy is driven by an intense focus on which business model’s Barriers to Entry are able to withstand the ever increasing competitive disruption in the TMT and Consumer Sectors.

<ul>
<li>Management promises belt tightening! Losing €659M at ~€12B in revenues? And still won't be profitable in 2023?  Why should investors believe this change?</li>
<li>Gross margin guidance misses...again. Two beats in the past 3 years on gross margins.</li>
<li>Podcasting growing 100% in 1Q22 exited 4Q22 growing 30%...and ad-related revenues still just 14% of the total. Why will this move the needle?</li>
</ul>


Management promises belt tightening! Losing €659M at ~€12B in revenues? And still won't be profitable in 2023?  Why should investors believe this change?
Gross margin guidance misses...again. Two beats in the past 3 years on gross margins.
Podcasting growing 100% in 1Q22 exited 4Q22 growing 30%...and ad-related revenues still just 14% of the total. Why will this move the needle?


Head of Research, IPOs & Placements, Aequitas Research

Sumeet Singh

Head of Research, IPOs & Placements

IPOs and Placements coverage across Asia Pacific

Aequitas Research

We cover all listing across the Asia Pacific along with follow-up placements. As of Dec 2020, our team had covered 539 IPOs with a hit rate of 73.5% and 685 placements with a hit rate of 66.8%.

We combine fundamental bottom-up views with our proprietary quantitative framework to provide a holistic coverage across new listings and placements. Our coverage includes pre-IPO notes before the deal is launched, follow-up analysis once the deal is live and post-listing trading analysis as well.

Equity Capital Markets

<ul>
<li>IQIYI aims to raise around US$500m via a follow-on ADS offering.</li>
<li>While the company hasn’t stated its use of proceeds, it will probably use most of it to redeem convertible notes</li>
<li>In this note, we will talk about the deal dynamics and  run the deal through our ECM framework.</li>
</ul>


IQIYI aims to raise around US$500m via a follow-on ADS offering.
While the company hasn’t stated its use of proceeds, it will probably use most of it to redeem convertible notes
In this note, we will talk about the deal dynamics and  run the deal through our ECM framework.


IQIYI Follow-On Offering - Might Be Expected but Its Track Record Is...

<ul>
<li>MAUs beat, margins miss, guidance weak. Where / when is the operating leverage?</li>
<li>Podcasting business took a restructuring charge this quarter, not bullish for the business meant to expand gross margins.</li>
<li>TikTok reportedly readying a new streaming music app... not good.</li>
</ul>


MAUs beat, margins miss, guidance weak. Where / when is the operating leverage?
Podcasting business took a restructuring charge this quarter, not bullish for the business meant to expand gross margins.
TikTok reportedly readying a new streaming music app... not good.


Lionheart Studio  / Equity Capital Markets

<ul>
<li>
<a href="https://www.smartkarma.com/entities/lionheart-studio-corporation" target="_blank" data-smartkarma-citation="entities:36417:1" rel="noopener">Lionheart Studio (426630 KS)</a>, a game development studio based in South Korea,  aims to raise around US$420m via its South Korean IPO.</li>
<li>The company is majority owned by <a href="https://www.smartkarma.com/entities/kakao-games-corp" target="_blank" data-smartkarma-citation="entities:26730:1" rel="noopener">Kakao Games Corp (293490 KS)</a>, which after having recently hiked its stake, owned 54.94% of the company prior to listing.  </li>
<li>We spoke about the company’s past performance and undertook a peer comparison in our previous note. In this note, we’ll talk about our earnings estimates and valuation.</li>
</ul>



Lionheart Studio (426630 KS), a game development studio based in South Korea,  aims to raise around US$420m via its South Korean IPO.
The company is majority owned by Kakao Games Corp (293490 KS), which after having recently hiked its stake, owned 54.94% of the company prior to listing.  
We spoke about the company’s past performance and undertook a peer comparison in our previous note. In this note, we’ll talk about our earnings estimates and valuation.


Luxembourg

Spotify Technology S.A. provides music streaming services. The Company offers commercial free music and ad-supported services to subscribers. Spotify Technology serves clients worldwide.

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Spotify (SPOT US)

Meta's Achilles Heel(s)

I will try to avoid strawman bear cases (and boy there are many), and only outline the bear cases that indeed concern me as a shareholder.

MBI Deep Dives

Spotify 4Q22: Speed + Efficiency?

Promises of future margin expansion because Spotify laid off 6% of its (bloated) workforce and have done a reorg to stress efficiency? Structural...

Aaron Gabin

IQIYI Follow-On Offering - Might Be Expected but Its Track Record Is...

iQIYI aims to raise around US$500m via a follow-on ADS offering. While the deal might be expected, the stock's longer term track record doesn't...

Sumeet Singh

Spotify 3Q22: Another TikTok Victim?

Spotify had another murky quarter as margins continue to undershoot despite management talking about more cost discipline in this "new" cost of...

Aaron Gabin

Lionheart IPO - Thoughts on Valuation

Lionheart Studio (426630 KS), a game development studio based in South Korea, aims to raise around US$420m via its South Korean IPO. In this note,...

Sumeet Singh

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