Saplings Capital Profile picture
May 6, 2021 15 tweets 4 min read Read on X
#PixTransmission is a dominant small cap in its duopolistic market of V-Belts, essential in all manufacturing sectors.
Company due to robust demand has recently approved further capex of 60 crores.
Promoter increasing stake.

Disc: invested from 300 levels.

Much more to come!
Indian Market is dominated by Pix & Fenner, V-Belts has repeatable purchase as the product wears out after a limited time.
Due to its use in every industry, it is required that the manufacturer have v belts in 1000's of sizes and every size has a different mold.
This inventory of molds calls for a significant investment, which acts as a moat for the incumbent.
Since v belts are used across India, the vendor is required to have most of its variants stocked with dealers across the country.Pix has a significant distribution moat in India.
Pix is also expanding its horizons abroad where it follows a stock and sell model, to be able to service customer requirement in quick time, which increases inventories.
This quick service helps build trust with the customer, very important because of nature of repeat sales.
Every glass lined reactor in every chemical plant which has an agitator requires power transmission, from the motor to the agitator, it is either done through a coupling or a Vbelt.
Even in the cement,coal sector vbelts are used, and if the vbelts give out. production is halted
The next big sector in which Pix is having a go at is agriculture, Vbelts finds great application in Agriculture equipments.
In Industry, manufacturers use multiple vbelts at the same time to bring in buffer if any vbelt gives leading to production disruption.
Every centrifuge, compressor used across the industry requires a Vbelt.
The applications spread across the length and breadth of industry. It is synonymus with manufacturing.
Roce of the company is poised to go above 20 which is significant given the working capital requirement.
The best companies are those that enlarge their fixed assets base over a period of time without burgeoning the balance sheet. Pix haa done just that over the past few years.
With regards Rubber price impact, one would do well to notice that almost all of the ebidta improvement over the last couple of years has come from operational efficiencies and volume growth with gross margins remaiming more or less stable.
The company in the last quarter yoy increased it sales by 30% without increase either in employee costs or operational expenses in the other expenses line item.
Which guides that the company was able to carry out plant automation and reduce wastages while increasing efficiencies.
This highlights that the company over past few years has been able to insulate itself from the vagaries of RM price movements with gross margins remaining stable between a handsome 62-65%.
A factor that lends to #pixtransmission business predictability is the installed machine base, which keeps throwing annuity demand for belts.

& since the ticket size of the product is low, the company is able to make high margins without burning a whole in the customers pocket.
Brilliant results from our Sapling #Pixtransmissions, delivers a lifetime high quarterly profit of almost 22 crores. Company is trading very cheap and deserves to trade at a valuation that is telling of its dominance in its niche and fundamentals better than world leader. Image
What drives a purchase decision is a point of consideration while analyzing business stickiness .
An element that we love, works here for Pix is Paranoia, the paranoia of using something cheaper which might cause losses more than cost of the vbelt in case of failure.
Why would all the competitive forces of this world allow a seemingly simple rubber belts manufacturer from a small town in India to make 20 odd crores profit every quarter with high return ratios.

More than what meets the eye!

Isnt it?

#Moatinvesting.

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More from @CapitalSapling

Jul 30, 2021
Some companies that deliver future returns have hair on them to begin with.
#Camlinfine is one ex, has been going a transformation internally (not visible optically at present) and is now on strong footing with installation of commissioning of Diphenols capacity in Dahej.
Diphenols capacity helps them save on freight which was hitherto spent on importing from Italy.
This capacity makes them one of the very few players in the world with captive capacity of diphenols.
The diphenols derivatives to come will have substantially higher margins.
The optionality remains in terms of the bumper outcomes that can come from their agreement with Lockheed Martin for supply of speciality chemicals that go into energy storage( a huge sunrise opportunity) over the next few years as the supplies begin.
Read 4 tweets
May 25, 2021
Great thread. #Garwaretechfilms is one of the few small caps, thats able create a brand in advanced markets. They compete with the likes of 3m in the US and while it gets valued as a commodity company, it deserves to be trading as a speciality consumer company.

Disc: Invested
A barometer of company's brand strength is it gross margins & Payment terms. GM% are at a great 65% at present( vs 38% for the commodity film companies) and the company offers no credit and works on a cash & Carry model.
Hard to find an Indian company that sells in the US in cash
One of the best models is for the company to sell to many small customers & that too in retail. Garware Hitech's customers are the 4000 paint tinters in the US. Their existing brand recognition amongst the tinters for the window films will work well for it paints film business.
Read 5 tweets
May 13, 2021
Even for a small cap investor a large % of his PF should be optimized for "Capacity to suffer & durability" rather than for pure upside.

In country like India, if one stays invested long enough the demographics & its upwardly mobile percapita income will take care of the upside.
This calls for a supply side excellence which creates a capacity of suffer through difficult periods or actually demonstrates antifragility and thrives under stress through the strength of its reputation and balance sheet by acquiring assets in distress.
A classic ex of this is APL apollo, over the last decade where most metal convertors have struggled, APL has demonstrated anti fragility thrived by using its superior balance sheet to acquire assets from companies that were in distress like the plant bought from Shankara.
Read 6 tweets
May 4, 2021
Investing in Small cap domination eventually leads to big wealth creation, Don't overoptimise for valuations here, in-fact optimize for Moat, if the company's business Castle is well moated, the long runway of opportunity will ensure you make a hell of a lot of money regardless.
The likes of Astral and Page hardly ever traded at conventionally cheap valuations since the beginning of last decade, but have still generated immense wealth for investors who have held it with the scarce commodity called "Patience".
While one might think that we chose the likes of astral and page selectively in hindsight, but the truth is truly moated small caps are hard to come by.
And being lenient with valuations is an act to be committed only with a select few.
When in doubt skip!
Read 5 tweets
Mar 15, 2021
A successful consumer tech company should always be valued significantly higher than a normal consumer company.
Opportunity size is large for both but the digital distribution of the tech company services allows it traverse the opp landscape faster than a normal consumer company.
Since capex is not a challenge in setting up a tech business, therefore a tech company has to create alternate barriers, thus the need to drive business velocity as network effect is true barrier to entry.
To get to that scale, tech companies have to sacrifice near term eps.
If public market doesnot agree with this, its the markets' loss, these companies will either stay private or raise equity from Nasdaq.

So in true tech if the public market participants want the alpha, they have to devise alternate methods to assess a company and its valuations.
Read 7 tweets
Mar 6, 2021
#Nazara's gamified early learning app, Kiddopia, subscriber base grew from 115,220 paying subscribers in January 2020 at the time of acquisition to 290,508 as of Oct 2020.

Stunning growth!

Another #Nazara subsidiary has 80% market share of Indian industry in esports segment.
#Nazara's annualised Advertisement & Promotion spends has gone from 27 cr in Fy19 to 238 crores this year. They can easily show significantly higher profits by cutting this marginally but its more about land grab at this point. Market should recognise that and value accordingly.
Gaming Vs Movies vs Music, although Movies get most attention due to glamour. But Gaming is bigger than movies and Music combined. Image
Read 27 tweets

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