In today’s briefing:
- Ohayo Japan | Memorial Day Respite
- Decoding Consumption Slowdown and Its Potential for Revival in India
- Semiconductor Tariffs. No Thanks, But If You Insist…
- Shortlist Of High Conviction Long and Short Ideas in Indian Auto:Growth Outlook & Valuation-May 2025
- India’s Paints Sector: A Tale of Disruption and Transformation
- Monday Delight: 26/05/25
- What’s News in Amsterdam – 26 May (Ahold Delhaize | Heineken | PostNL)
Ohayo Japan | Memorial Day Respite
- Global markets and the euro rallied on Monday after US President Donald Trump postponed his threat of 50% tariffs on EU goods until July.
- Rakuten Group has partnered with Japan Post to begin selling government stockpiled rice on its “Rakuten Ichiba” e-commerce site
- Major Toyota automakers are increasingly disclosing securities reports before annual general meetings, with seven of eight major companies adopting this practice
Decoding Consumption Slowdown and Its Potential for Revival in India
- India’s private consumption expenditure, experienced a significant slowdown in FY24, a three-year low growth rate of 5.6% and its share in real GDP reducing to a five-year low of 56.1%
- This deceleration, which mirrors a pre-pandemic trend, is primarily attributed to stagnant income levels, elevated inflation, and a notable surge in household debt.
- There are nascent signs of recovery in FY25, particularly with easing inflation and a slight uptick in rural wages,
Semiconductor Tariffs. No Thanks, But If You Insist…
- A total of 154 submissions on proposed tariffs by the US authorities on semiconductors were received by the closing date of May 7, 2025
- Key submissions were made by TSMC, Intel, Texas Instruments, Lam Research, Micron etc. Notable by their absence were Apple, AMD, Cadence, Synopsys, Broadcom, Marvell etc.
- The submissions by key players were universally negative on any types of tariffs with many warnings about unintended consequences as well as the threat of reciprocal tariffs from other countries.
Shortlist Of High Conviction Long and Short Ideas in Indian Auto:Growth Outlook & Valuation-May 2025
- Our selection of Indian Auto companies is based on these characteristics: value, near term growth triggers, margin of safety and management commentary post Q4FY25 Results.
- We present our list of stocks in the BUY, SELL(short) and HOLD category in this insight.
- We will review our note on these names post their monthly sales volume performance and outlook in medium term.
India’s Paints Sector: A Tale of Disruption and Transformation
- INR 10,000 cr+ of fresh capacity, led by Grasim’s Birla Opus will lift organised paint capacity ~70 % by FY26 even as FY24 industry revenue growth slowed to ~4 %.
- Hyper-Competition has shifted the fight to dealer shelves: aggressive discounts, wider distribution and heavier ad-spend are squeezing incumbents’ volumes and have dragged sector EBITDA margins from ~20% to ~16 %.
- Near-Term earnings for legacy leaders will stay under pressure and market share will churn, but 80 % organised share and structurally strong housing demand keep the medium-term growth story intact.
Monday Delight: 26/05/25
- Each week, I’ll share five intriguing investment ideas that recently caught my attention. These ideas are meant to spark your research and help you kickstart the week ahead with fresh insights.
- Because these ideas are the result of my first-level idea generation process, they require more in depth research. Therefore, the ideas will often be concise, with occasional references to valuable work from other practitioners that I encourage you to explore.
- If you have something fascinating to share that could benefit me and the wider community, don’t hesitate to send it my way—I’d love to hear from you!
What’s News in Amsterdam – 26 May (Ahold Delhaize | Heineken | PostNL)
- According to an article in the La Lettre website, Ahold Delhaize entered preliminary discussions to acquire all or part of French supermarket chain Carrefour at the end of 2024.
- However, talks ended in January 2025 without a deal.
- Ahold Delhaize, with a 2024 turnover of EUR 89.4bn and strong U.S. operations, sought expansion into the French market and saw potential synergies, particularly in private-label products and Carrefour’s Brazilian assets.
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