Equity Bottom-Up: Alibaba Group, Boustead Singapore, Bukalapak, HDFC Bank, Sino Biopharmaceutical, Bajaj Finance Ltd, RPSG Ventures Limited and more

• Alibaba Group (9988 HK)’s decision to replace the long time CFO Maggie Wu doesn’t seem like a reason for investors to panic sell.
• She will continue to serve the company as an executive director and continue to be involved in the business.
• Also, the fact that she is replaced by her protégé, Toby Xu seems like an indication that the top management is still happy with how financials are handled.

• Management Shake-up: Alibaba Group Holding (BABA.US) [Alibaba] announced that long-time CFO Maggie Wu will be stepping down in April 2022;
• Restructure: Alibaba also announced that it will be reorganizing its international and domestic e-commerce businesses; and
• Further Pressure:Just last month, Alibaba reduced its revenue growth forecast. The formation of a financial holding company will cause earnings to compress while capital requirements increase.

For our next Corporate Webinar we are glad to welcome Boustead Singapore (BOCS SP)’s Group Chief Investment Officer, Keith Chu. He will be joined by Debbie Tan and Janet Chia from the Corporate Marketing and IR team at Boustead. 

In their upcoming Webinar, the Boustead team will share a short company presentation after which, Keith will engage in a fireside chat with Smartkarma Insight Provider, Nicolas Van Broekhoven. The Corporate Webinar will include a live Q&A session.

The Corporate Webinar will be hosted on Tuesday, 14 December 2021, 17:00 SGT.

Established in 1828, Boustead Singapore Limited (SGX:F9D) is a progressive global infrastructure-related engineering and technology group listed on the SGX Mainboard. Focusing on the niche engineering and development of key infrastructure to support sustainable shared socio-economic growth in global markets, their strong suite of engineering services under their Energy Engineering Division and Real Estate Division centres on energy infrastructure and smart, eco-sustainable and future-ready business park and industrial developments.

Corporate Webinars by Smartkarma Corporate Solutions feature discussions with IROs and Executives, discussing their companies, the challenges they face, and the opportunities in their sectors and markets.

• Bukalapak (BUKA IJ) released an impressive set of 3Q2021, driven by explosive triple-digit TPV growth in its Mitra business, which enables mom&pop stores (Warungs) in Indonesia, along with higher take-rates.
• The slower growth in marketplace was accompanied by lower S&M costs, as the company transforms this business towards an online specialty store model, which is gaining traction.
• Bukalapak (BUKA IJ) looks to be misunderstood by retail investors, presenting an opportunity after the post-IPO correction, with a number of new initiatives gaining momentum in Mitra and marketplace.

• HDFC Bank (HDFCB IN) is pivoting itself to embrace new age digital banking processes. It has been revamping its back-end and front-end technology infrastructure to enable this. 
• It has been also partnering with the fintech ecosystem to enhance its reach. With fintechs as distributors, we think the value of back-end underwriting capabilities have grown all the more.
• We think technology has potential to significantly catalyze HDFC Bank’s growth over the next 3-5Y, to the extent that it may even outgrow its last 3Y growth.

• We analyzed the business performance and short-term catalyst for Sino Biopharmaceutical (1177 HK), and investors could decide whether to take advantage of it or not.
• We also analyzed the concerns about the Company as well as our insights on the valuation of biopharmaceutical companies.
• Based on our analysis, we are conservative about the Company’s outlook at the current stage.

• Bajaj Finance Ltd (BAF IN) reported strong growth across segments. With the environment normalizing, BAF’s management was upbeat and is focused on growth going forward. 
• The demand environment also remains robust and BAF is well placed to benefit from it. Digitization is likely to play a pivotal role going forward.  
• BAF is on an ambitious digital-first pivot to catalyze growth and embrace technology as a multiplier to scale its business to the next level.

• RPSG Ventures Limited (CESCV IN) (“RPSGV”) continues to take strides into the FMCG space. It recently forayed into the personal and beauty care segment.
• Sanjiv Goenka also successfully bid for the new IPL team of Lucknow, part of which is to be funded by RPSG Ventures.
• We attended the RPSG Group’s two-day investor conference where RPSG group shared detailed update on their vision and ambition around the FMCG business of RPSGV.