5.3 trillion cigarettes are sold each year to 1 billion smokers. Would be unwise to exclude the industry from your universe just because of ESG / unpopularity.
While volumes have dropped globally, retail value has stayed flat. It would have increased was it not for the stronger dollar since 2014.
Volumes are weak in Japan and flattish in Asia EM
Vaping is to a large extent banned across Asia. Heated tobacco products rule, but only in South Korea / Japan where consumers can afford them. NGPs have no impact on Asian EM tobacco markets.
In Asian EMs on the other hand, what matters is tax policy. It's been a headwind in Malaysia, and to some extent also India and Sri Lanka.
Having the combo of a supportive tax policy, low risk of competition from NGP, low consumption per capita and rising incomes helps catapult earnings growth forward.
It also helps if the multiple is low. But almost the entire industry trades at low teens P/E if not lower.
Here is a map of the major listed tobacco companies in Asia.
I just wrote a post on the Asian tobacco industry on my Substack. Free trial link here:
How to brainwash someone:
• Compel the person to make an inconsequential statement
• Dig deeper and ask the person to make other related statements that are increasingly at odds with the person's beliefs
• Constant repetition until the person's self-image has changed
I think a question many of us are asking right now, is how nervous should be we as investors in Chinese equities.
Here is a story that might provide an answer. About how Victor Sassoon moved to China and ultimately fled the country in the 1940s.
// Thread // 👇
Victor Sassoon was a Jewish businessman from the wealthy Sassoon family, originally from Baghdad, Iraq.
The Sassoon family made its fortune in the opium trade, transporting India-made opium to China. But by the turn of the century, it was mostly a textile operation.
Victor was born in 1881 raised in England, where he attended Harrow and Trinity College, Cambridge.
At six feet tall and with broad shoulders, he had been a college swimmer at Cambridge as well as a boxer.
You should think of me as an "outsourced analyst":
• I provide institutional grade investment ideas that you won't find anywhere else
• You can bounce ideas with me anytime via DM or e-mail
If your portfolio is over $100,000 then the yearly price would be equivalent to <0.3% of the portfolio. With over 20 ideas per year, it should be easy to earn back the cost.
Here is an idea that I published before starting the service:
I've also started responding to reader questions about their portfolio holdings. So if you have a stock that you want me to take a look at, just let me know and I will spend 2 days on it (subject to a backlog).