Daily Brief Consumer: Mandom Corp, Yum China Holdings , Chery Automobile, Digital Holdings Inc, Urban Company, TSE Tokyo Price Index TOPIX, SGX Rubber Future TSR20, OPAP SA, Herbalife Ltd, Milbon Co Ltd and more

• On 10 September, the founding Nishimura family, the PE Firm CVC, and Mandom Corp (4917 JP) agreed that the first two could take over the latter at 4.9x Mar28 EBITDA.
• A cocktail napkin calculation of expected leverage suggests the equity check is buying this at 5x average Mar27-28 free cash flow. That’s cheap for a growing company.
• The register is open enough to cause problems but not open enough to allow a clean hostile bid by a strategic. But still open enough for someone to have fun.

• The HSCEI serves as a benchmark to reflect the overall performance of the top 50 “Mainland China” securities listed in Hong Kong.
• In this insight, we take a look at the rankings of potential ADDs and potential DELs for the December 2025 index rebal event.
• At present, we see three changes based on the latest data but the rankings can change until 30th September 2025.

• Chery Automobile is looking to raise about US$1.5bn in its upcoming Hong Kong IPO.
• Chery Auto is a Chinese passenger vehicle company which designs, develops, manufactures and sells passenger vehicles, including internal combustion engine vehicles and new energy vehicles, both domestically and overseas.
• We have looked at the company’s past performance in our previous notes. In this note, we talk about valuations.

• On 11 Sep 2025 after the close, Hakuhodo Dy Holdings (2433 JP) announced a takeunder of Digital Holdings Inc (2389 JP) in MBO form. 
• Two major holders with 37% roll their stakes into new ownership in Hakuhodo Dy Holdings (2433 JP) and another 17+% probably just fall in line.
• Foreigners hold a lot. They may not like the takeunder. It is not clear who would buy this if Hakuhodo does not, or whether it is worth the hassle.

• India’s home services market, valued at INR 5,210 billion, is projected to reach INR 8,580 billion by FY2030 at a CAGR of 10–11% .
• Urban Company’s core Indian business has turned profitable, with its EBITDA for this segment improving from a 9.72% loss in FY23 to a 3.30% profit in FY25.
• The company’s annual consumers grew from 4.76 million in FY2023 to 6.5 million in FY2025, while average spend rose from INR 3,786 to INR 4,079 during the same period.

• As lack of investment, including in human capital, is recognized as a factor behind the lack of growth, there’re plans to enhance disclosure of human capital in annual securities reports.
• While labor share of large companies has fallen 1.3 ppt over the past year, OP margins increased only 0.3 ppt. It’s necessary to produce products with high gross profit margins.
• Unable to make bold investments to create higher added-value products, companies instead use cash-flows for shareholders return without increasing cash reserves, resulting in high level of cash on hand.

• Sailun revives Bridgestone’s idle TBR plant, breaks ground in Egypt  
•  Chinese pneumatic tire exports climb 4.6% in value in H1 2025  
• Jiangsu General ramps up projects in Thailand and Cambodia  

OPAP delivered good growth in revenue and EBITDA in H125 as its online activities continued to power ahead, with solid support from its retail activities. The results provide management with confidence in delivering FY25 guidance, against more challenging comparatives from H224 following OPAP’s exceptionally strong performance last year. Post the period end, OPAP bought the remaining minority stake in Stoiximan and the tender offer for the next 10-year licence to manage and operate the Greek State Lotteries (Instant & Passives vertical) has commenced, with OPAP through to the next stage of the process. The valuation looks well-supported by our unchanged DCF-based value of €22 per share and attractive dividend yield.

• HLF has a network of more than 2 million distributors and is unique among direct sellers by having a hybrid model that includes more than 60,000 brick-and-mortar locations worldwide in the form of its distributors’ nutrition clubs.
• This unique infrastructure provides a strong foundation to build a premier, technology-driven health and wellness platform.

• Today’s technology-driven platforms interact with customers on one end and service providers on the other, bringing the two together to create a marketplace.

• Milbon Co., Ltd (4919 JP) reported FY25 (Dec year-end) 1H earnings with a gross profit [GP] of ¥15,502mil (-1.6% YoY) and operating profit [OP] of ¥1,938mil (-39.0% YoY) on sales of ¥24,807mil (+1.1% YoY).
• RP declined -44.3% YoY to ¥1,853mil, due mainly to net FOREX losses (-¥120mil).
• The 1H results fell short of the firm’s sales and OP guidance by -4.2% and -31.0%, respectively due to (1) a decline in GP due to weaker-than-expected sales (-¥707mil) and (2) the deterioration of the GPM on the back of inventory valuation losses (approx. -¥454mil).