Anurag Singh Profile picture
Jun 29, 2022 20 tweets 10 min read Read on X
#Blinkit & #Zomato – Long thread:

1/n
Blurred to Opaque to Muddy
How to leverage a listed company to recover losses from failed ventures/adventures?

Danny DeVito famously said in namesake movie – There is only one thing I love more than my money -
"other people’s money"
2/n
Zomato announced that it plans to acquire Blinkit for a “consideration” of $ 578 Mn. We will revisit valuation later. Below is the snapshot of financials.

Who pays $578 Mn on unaudited financials of just 2 mths ? Not even even 1 quarter nos are provided.
@SEBI listening?
3/n
Is the company really growing topline at 162% as claimed ? This invites some curiosity. Where are the past YoY nos ?
I tried to dig out what I could with public reported info. Here is what the past looks like for #Blinkit .Revenues touched Rs 177 Cr in FY 2020 before covid
4/n
As quoted by the founders, pandemic “accelerated path to profitability” for Grofers & it was planning a listing by FY 2021.
No surprise the Rev. grew in FY’20, never mind the loss of Rs 637 Cr to “earn” a revenue of Rs 177 Cr.
5/n
Building narratives is a part of startup playbook. Delivering on guidance…. not important. After all who’s tracking ?
Have a glimpse of the narratives built for planned listing:
2019 – “We’re on track to deliver GMV of Rs 5000 Cr in FY’20”
Actual number ? Try searching !
6/n
2020 – Another bullish guidance:
“Grofers aims to reach $ 1 BN (Rs 7800 Cr) GOV by end of 2020”.
Actual achievement ? Try searching !
They haven’t achieved even half of this in latest reported numbers for 2022.
7/n
2021 – Another year, another guidance.
“Grofers is expecting to touch Rs 10,000 Cr by March 2021 as covid accelerated shift to e-commerce”.
Actual numbers ? Try searching !
Who's tracking?
8/n
2022 – the bull takes a breather. So it scaled down to its earlier projection of $ 1 BN GMV.
Dec 2021 – “Current GMV run rate is $ 600 Mn(Rs 4680 Cr) & aiming to hit annualized GMV of $ 1 BN for FY'22”
Notice that it is “monthly run rate”, not actual sales for the year.
9/n
Enter June 2022.
May be it was time to disclose something in “actual numbers” since Blinkit is getting acquired by a listed company. What does the company disclose ? Jan & May’22 nos only.
Why do you need anything more for "just" $ 578 Mn acquisition?
10/n
Let’s save that trouble for #Zomato. Here is how the YoY financial snapshot looks like:
Extrapolating Jan 2022 financials for the year, we see:

Revenues grew 50% in FY’22 after years since FY’20
#Blinkit is spending Rs 2713 Cr (Jan nos. x12) to "sell" orders of Rs 3546 Cr
11/n
More importantly, Blinkit is spending Rs 2448 Cr to “earn” a revenue of Rs 265 Cr. This for a company started in 2015.

2020 – Grofers says “it turned operationally profitable in 27 cities” with 2.6 Mn new customers.
2022 Jan - Blinkit has just 1.6 Mn active users
12/n
2021: Grofers now says “it plans to achieve profitability in 2021”. Roadmap to list in 2021 is intact, so of course are the stories that need to go along.
Actual profitability numbers for FY 21 ? Not disclosed
13/n
2022 June: Post acquisition plan, the tone is much subtle.
#Zomato CFO says “Given the early stage of business, it is very hard to commit a timeline for profitability……..it is possible in next 3 yrs, but it is an educated guess, not a guidance”.
Bravo !
14/n
Where does this brazen confidence come from ? This is where it turns from opaque to muddy.

#Zomato says the acquisition price is $ 578 Mn. Really ?

Zomato already had 9% stake. So valuation of Blinkit is higher.
Add to this another $ 150 Mn “loan” given in March 2020.
15/n
So what does the valuation of Blinkit add up to?
$578 Mn +57 Mn +150 Mn – cash on B/S)
Total = $ 720 Mn.
This is the actual price paid by Zomato for Blinkit.

Do you now how much money has been raised & spent by Grofers & Blinkit since 2015 ?
You guessed it : $ 700 Mn.
16/n
So how was the valuation of Blinkit arrived at ?
$ 700 Mn has been sunk in Grofers/Blinkit since inception. All that money has to be recovered by VCs. Since listing plans got derailed, plan B is to take money out from one of their own listed entities.
Welcome #Zomato
17/n
You don't even need hard cash. Bonus shares of Zomato are issued with share dilution of ~8%.
$ 700 Mn of losses in a failed venture Grofers (#Blinkit) is recovered in one shot in form of shares of the listed entity #Zomato.
Well played !!
18/n
Conclusion:

My concern is not with the promotors or VCs of #Zomato. After all they are in the business to make money & recover losses where they can.
My question is to the mutual funds who are investing retail money in such muddy ventures.
19/n

#DoorDash in US is valued at $ 28 BN in a $ 25 TN economy. An Indian replica venture with much poor metrics can’t be worth $ 8 BN. Zomato looks overpriced by 3x.
See comparison below:
n/n

Mutual funds who bought #Zomato are saying out loud –
We love to play with “Other people’s money”

I said this about #Paytm IPO in Nov'21. And it is worth repeating here:

If your mutual fund is still holding #Zomato
STOP that #SIP

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More from @anuragsingh_as

Mar 30
LONG POST: #EconomicTimes article
Why does the India bull look tired?

Over the past week, Indian equity markets are up almost 2% with the Nifty trending at 23,589. Retail investors are happy and renowned experts are going out and claiming it to be the ‘start of a new bull run’. However, there are a few who feel the next 10 years will be different from all the past boom periods that India has witnessed so far.

In the past two decades, the #Nifty50 has returned 12% annually. Smart investors believe the country can do far better than this number in the coming decade. But markets are cyclical in nature. There is a high chance that we might actually get lower annual returns compared to the past.

Markets have had a sizeable correction from the highs seen in last September peak. It has been a painful grind in the last six months for investors. For nearly 80% of them, the correction is somewhat a new phenomenon, and totally unexpected. These new investors had come in for linear returns and were trained to ‘buy the dips’. They had the best for the past 5 years, up until now.

When the story was about demographic dividend and companies rising to fulfill the unsatiable demand from young India, why should that come to a halt? Why do stocks correct after all when the going is so good? And why would foreign investors want to leave in such a hurry?

All great questions. For those who started after 2020, there are some valuable lessons to learn here. Well before they prepare for the next bull run.

What was driving the rise?
When you buy a stock, you buy a share in its earnings. The earnings per share (EPS) decides the price it should trade at (at least some of it). The other element comes from the market sentiment, which relies on future prospects for the current earnings. What India witnessed last five years was the boost on both these elements. Let us look at earnings first.

Nifty EPS was around INR430 by end of 2019. During the next 4 years, by the end of 2023, it rose to INR950. That is an astounding CAGR of 22%. If you looked at the historical 10-year trend till 2019, the range was much below 10%. This earnings surprise increased valuations. Common sense would tell you that Nifty should double too. And it did. From 12,500 to neat 25,000 rise was largely justified. At least in theory!

If we broaden this story and look at the entire listed corporate space, corporate profits jumped from around INR4 lakh crore (USD45 billion) to INR16 lakh crore (USD170 billion) during the same duration. This was nearly 4.8% of GDP. No wonder, we saw a bump in valuations across Nifty 500 Index.

Markets assumed the similar rate of growth and priced the stocks accordingly. Not to forget, the flow of domestic money to mutual funds provided more gas to stocks outside of Nifty 50. The mid- and small-cap stock prices grew significantly higher, at almost 30% CAGR for 4 years. This was far in excess of the EPS growth in these stocks.

This super growth phenomenon however is always shortlived. We’ve had these phases before. There is nothing new about this.

Look at the above chart for corporate earnings to GDP ratio, which is a very reliable indicator of how well the listed market is doing within the larger economy. We see that corporate earnings grew from 2.1% of GDP to 4.8% of GDP between 2020 and 2024. However, we can also see a similar rise to peak between 2003 and 2008, after which a period of slowdown began till 2019. While this doesn’t imply that the path will exactly be the same now, the key message is that earnings are cyclical. And so is the Indian economy.

Why did the markets fall and why now?
Though the market had accounted too much exuberance in 2024, it failed to recognise this EPS growth was never sustainable.

So, why did the earnings spike post 2020?
A confluence of factors resulted in earnings growth post 2020. Firstly, banks’ balance sheets were already clean after years of NPA write-offs post 2014. After pandemic, we had a sudden demand surge — IT services got huge demand boost from US, there was discretionary revenge spending by consumers & finally the govt capital expenditure increase 4 times to INR11 lakh crore (USD125 billion). All of this happened within 3 years. Indian retail credit penetration increased from 20% of GDP to 43% of GDP. So much of the consumer spending was done with credit binge too.

All that spending is behind us now. So, unless you have a reason to believe that the economy has drastically improved after 2020, it is safe to assume that the earnings growth will also correct. And this is already underway since 2024. Estimates for Nifty 500 companies is at 7% topline growth. This is just about keeping up with inflation.

For context, look at the topline growth for #Nifty500 companies below. It tells a similar story since 2010 where sales growth slowed after 2009. And then the huge spike after 2020.

While sales growth slowed by 2022, margins expanded, which concealed the slowing topline. That provided some cushion to the EPS story for a year. However, EPS can’t grow continuously if topline stagnates.

When will markets capture previous peaks?
Depends on your outlook on earnings and India’s economic growth. It is worth noting that after 2009, corporate earnings grew at single digits for next 10 years. Nifty 50 and Nifty 500 returns were in the range of 8% and 7%, respectively for the next decade.

The situation was not exactly the same then, and reasons may be different now. But the economy does go through a period of moderation after every exuberant cycle. So do markets.

The current correction should not be seen as a minor blip that recovers fast. It is unlikely to be a V-shaped recovery because it is not driven by a special event. It is a sales slowdown which has been in the making for 18 months now. Just that the earnings took some time to reflect that.

Thus, the recovery may take as much time as it takes for the consumer to recover. Also remember, the market slowdown impacts gross spending levels too. If you don’t have stock buoyancy, you are unlikely to buy bigger homes or take that exotic holiday. As government tries to contain fiscal deficit from 4.8% to 4.4% of GDP this fiscal year, the spending boost from the Centre may become difficult.

With history, it is safe to assume that junk stocks will not gain the glory they did. But eventually, markets do recover if the economy continues to march forward. That is the key here. If the GDP growth stays in 6% range, corporations will figure out a way to come out of the earnings stagnation. And some new winners will emerge.

My sense is that next 5 years may be a period of moderate growth in #India , wherein market absorbs the current high valuations. They may appear cheap on current earnings but are probably not accounting for likely slower growth in future.

Eventually, the returns from Nifty 500 are likely to be around 10% for the decade between 2021 and 2031. So, you will be fine as long as your portfolio is well balanced. Ignore the noise and get back to work. If you were expecting this to be a linear rise, then that assumption was never right to begin with.

One last thing
The comparisons that forever bullish gurus quote from US markets don’t apply to any other country. If you pick a historical point from US markets, you can prove almost anything. India story works differently too, unless the economy undergoes a drastic transformation, something like China had for last 30 years. While that is possible, it is also extremely rare.

And this is exactly where the bulls and the bears begin to differ substantially. You can take your pick. The perma-bulls continue the story of India imitating China growth. The story has been alive for 25 years now. Evidence and experience do not justify this thesis.

A healthy dose of realism is always good in investing. Else, you end up buying expensive con stories from faceless sellers who get rich with your money. Some of you may have realised that by now.

The India bull ran fast as it could. But it needs some well-deserved rest. Let it rest for now.Image
The chart is “corporate earnings to GDP”. Pls ignore the header. Numbers are fine.
Corporate Earnings to GDP over the years Image
Read 4 tweets
Feb 14, 2024
Follow up Thread 🧵: Farmers Protests:
They’re back!
If Karl Marx were to hear about the farmers protests today, there is a chance that he would be back too. Just like the farmers are back with the same old MSP demand, that is not only un-justified but unethical too.#FarmerProtest2024Image
See the picture above Does the farmer in the picture needs a govt subsidy or support?
The gentleman circled in red is a typical rich farmer. What about those circled in blue, that are almost forgotten in background. Now who needs govt support? Who needs the MSP?
Marx would define these farmers as classic “Bourgeoise” that us “Proletariats” should fight against. But there is something that either motivates them or keeps them dis-satisfied.
What forces the wealthiest (Yes) ones to come out, protest for higher prices for farm produce?
Read 26 tweets
Jan 30, 2024
Short Thread: HDFC BANK
Why are the FIIs selling the largest bank?

A classic case of different paradigms – You have a framework of valuation & begin to wonder why the world is not getting it? There are 2 options – Either understand the other paradigm or change yours. #HDFCBankImage
I’m not sure if you will change your valuation framework. But at the end of this post, you will definitely understand why FIIs may be selling.
I’ve always been perplexed by this comparison that I’ll share now. Let's take a quick dive -
Book size:
Look at the top 3 US banks that collectively control 45% of assets & lending amongst US banks. Compare the size & scale.
HDFC bank is appx 1/10th of a Bank of America(BOA) in assets. JP Morgan is 12x & Wells Fargo is 6x of HDFC in assets.Image
Read 15 tweets
Dec 27, 2023
LONG THREAD: SBI Cards IPO Follow-up:
Revisiting the #SBIcards IPO thread (Mar-2020). IPO price - 755, price today - 768.
In Mar'20, I quoted "They say market is a great teacher. If this one makes money for investors, I definitely would have missed some lecture in investing".Image
Well, looks like some of us did learn something. Markets at all time highs, SBI cards is still flat since 3 years. I don’t want to sound arrogant claiming victory. We are all learning here. So let's revisit what SBI cards promised (or implied) & what it delivered. Here we go -
Cards in force & spends:
We see glossy numbers again in FY23 annual report: 22% YoY growth in cards,30% YoY in receivables. What is the benchmark? Is it good enough vs IPO projections? Why are the graphics starting from 2019, exactly when the pre IPO disclosures end ????Image
Read 21 tweets
Sep 19, 2023
LONG THREAD: Golden Era for Indian Equities - Behind or Ahead ?
As Nifty crossed 20K, time to take stock of what returns to expect in future?
Examine the journey so far & a critical analysis on CAGR returns which are not quite the story we’re sold. Let’s go for a ride:
1/n Image
We’ve all heard this story. Had you invested in Sensex at inception in 1979, you got 660x returns, CAGR of ~17% . Simple math- Sensex started at 100 & now is hovering at 66,000.
If only making money was that easy. Argument is not that strong if we scratch below the surface.
2/n
I’ll make an effort to validate if there is more to this story than meets the eye. And there is.
As most funds like to present the market returns since inception in 1979, it is important to see the Indian stock market history in 4 distinct decades.
3/n
Read 25 tweets
Dec 23, 2022
The golden era of Indian stock markets - Behind or Ahead of us?

My piece for ⁦⁦@EconomicTimes⁩ analysing Indian markets since inception in 1979.

economictimes.indiatimes.com/prime/money-an…
I’ll post a thread later if you can’t read behind the paywall.
Here is the detailed article in 10 tweets thread if you were unable to read behind paywall -
1/10
Read 13 tweets

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