In today’s briefing:
- [7732 JP] KKR–JIC Take-Private of Topcon: Strategic Bet on Digital Eye Care
- Tencent/Netease: Zero Approval in July
- GCL Tech (3800): Why Wait?
- More Breakouts and Risk-On Developments; Monitoring Rotations: Miners, Retail, Lithium, China
- ASML: An Insight Into Its Recent Technological Advancements In EUV & High NA Lithography!
- TXN: Good Results, Decent Guidance, the Stock Tanks -13%. The Market Didn’t like the New Narrative.
- [Bilibili Inc. (BILI US, BUY, TP US$24) TP Change]: C2Q25 Preview: New Game Emerged for 4Q Launch
- GCI Liberty Spin-off Deep Dive
- Hybridan Small Cap Feast: 14/07/2025
[7732 JP] KKR–JIC Take-Private of Topcon: Strategic Bet on Digital Eye Care
- KKR and JIC Capital launched a ¥348B (~$2.3B) MBO for Topcon (7732 JP) at ¥3,300/share, offering an ~88% premium.
- The deal implies ~78x FY25 P/E and ~37x FY26E P/E—pricing in Eye Care’s high-margin growth while Positioning remains a cyclical drag.
- Long term, Eye Care is well-positioned to scale globally as AI diagnostics and SaaS platforms unlock sustained double-digit growth.
Tencent/Netease: Zero Approval in July
- China announced game approval for the July batch. The number of games approved remained at a higher level than 2023.
- The pace of China game approval appears to have accelerated to the same level as pre-tightening.
- In July, 7 listed companies that we tracked received zero domestic game approval. Having said that, overall sentiment is improving and gaming names have performed well YTD.
GCL Tech (3800): Why Wait?
- Suffering from overcapacity for a while, the company is a beneficiary of the Chinese government policy to consolidate the solar industry.
- At 0.6x PBR and a share price at HKD 1.3, far from its high at HKD 4, sounds like a bargain.
- Management has conducted one share buy back this year and share price rallied afterwards.
More Breakouts and Risk-On Developments; Monitoring Rotations: Miners, Retail, Lithium, China
- We remain near-term bullish since our 4/22/25 Compass, and our intermediate-term outlook remains bullish as well (as of our 5/14/25 Compass).
- Short-Term supports on the SPX include the 20-day MA (currently 6233), 6200, 6100-6150, and 6028-6059, with additional supports at 5804-5854 and 5700-5785. Buy pullbacks to these areas.
- SPX has not closed below its 20-day MA for two months, but even when it does, all we would expect to happen is for a new, less-steep uptrend to form.
ASML: An Insight Into Its Recent Technological Advancements In EUV & High NA Lithography!
- ASML Holding recently reported its financial results for the second quarter of 2025, demonstrating strong performance amidst a backdrop of macroeconomic and geopolitical uncertainty.
- The company reported total net sales of EUR 7.7 billion, reaching the upper end of its guidance range.
- This was driven by successful revenue recognition of one High Numerical Aperture (NA) system and additional upgrade business, with net system sales amounting to EUR 5.6 billion.
TXN: Good Results, Decent Guidance, the Stock Tanks -13%. The Market Didn’t like the New Narrative.
- 2Q25 results beat Consensus by 5%. 3Q guidance is close to Consensus, so you can’t call that a disappointment.
- Very different tone. 1Q management was confident of a cyclical recovery and accelerating growth in 2H25. Now, we have lower growth in 3Q, more disclaimers, 2Q was “too hot” .
- The stock was trading at 38x 2025 EPS and 32x 2026 before earnings, a bit of disappointment does crash the stock -13%. This can take weeks to settle down.
[Bilibili Inc. (BILI US, BUY, TP US$24) TP Change]: C2Q25 Preview: New Game Emerged for 4Q Launch
- Local news reported that <Project: Three Kingdom Ncard>, a derivative card game of its <Three Kingdom MDTX> IP, might be released in C4Q25.
- <Ncard> fills the air pocket in BILI’s game pipeline. We thus raised BILI’s TP from US$22.0 to US$ 24.0 and maintain BUY rating.
- We thus raised BILI’s TP from US$22.0 to US$ 24.0 and maintain BUY rating.
GCI Liberty Spin-off Deep Dive
- In anticipation of its merger with Charter Communications (CHTR), Liberty Broadband (LBRDA/LBRDK) spun off its Alaska telecom business (GCI Liberty).
- Liberty shareholders received 0.20 shares of GCI Liberty common stock per Liberty Broadband common share. Regular way trading starting on July 15, 2025.
- GCI Liberty is the leading telecom provider in Alaska. The remoteness and harshness of the Alaskan landscape provides a moat around its business.
Hybridan Small Cap Feast: 14/07/2025
- A cloud computing and connectivity provider for financial markets announced the signing of approximately $10m of Proximity Cloud contracts in June and provided an update on trading for the year ended 30 June 2025 (FY25).
- Results for FY25 are expected to once more demonstrate significant double-digit growth on the prior year, driven by a strong performance across Beeks’ Private, Proximity and Exchange Cloud offerings.
- Revenue for FY25 is expected to have increased by approximately 25% to £35.5m (30 June 2024: £28.5m), with underlying EBITDA growth of 29% to £13.8m (30 June 2024: £10.7m) and underlying profit before tax growth of 41% to £5.5m (30 June 2024: £3.9m).
💡 Before it’s here, it’s on Smartkarma
Sign Up for Free
The Smartkarma Preview Pass is your entry to the Independent Investment Research Network
- ✓ Unlimited Research Summaries
- ✓ Personalised Alerts
- ✓ Custom Watchlists
- ✓ Company Data and News
- ✓ Events & Webinars
