We are living in a personalized world
“Consumer expectations have sky-rocketed to the point that hyper personalization is no longer optional for brands, it’s imperative,” said Adobe’s Aseem Chandra this week. This is a clear trend we have been observing for some time. Consumers demand tailored experiences to their individual preferences. And this is dividing the consumer-facing business landscape into two groups: […]
At Google, look at the incremental economics
When Alphabet (NASDAQ: GOOGL) reported its 2Q17 result this week, its shares immediately dropped 3 percent in after-hours trading. While company revenues were largely in-line with the market’s expectations, its operating income fell short by more than 20 percent. Said another way, Alphabet’s profit margins came in at levels below the market’s expectations. There is […]
St James’s Place is the wealth(y) platform you never noticed
Platforms: the usual suspects We view the platform business model as one of the greatest business models for investors to own. Platform businesses provide the necessary common infrastructure upon which an ecosystem of businesses, products and services can be accessed by users, customers, vendors and partners. They benefit from advantages related to scale, access to […]
Underestimating the Power of Compounding
“We always overestimate the change that will occur in the next two years and underestimate the change that will occur in the next ten.” – Bill Gates This pithy quote by Gates touches on an important shortcoming many of us face, either knowingly or unknowingly: our brains are not very good at accounting for the […]
Amazon’s great conditioning experiment
Jeff Bezos has been very busy wreaking havoc in the retail space lately. His company, Amazon, recently announced that it will acquire Whole Foods Market for $13.7 billion. Amazon also announced the launch of Prime Wardrobe, a service that allows Prime members to try on clothes before they buy. Finally, news emerged that Amazon and […]
Jupiter reaching for the stars
We were recently asked about Jupiter Fund Management (LSE: JUP), a stock that has been added to our global portfolios. Without giving away our entire analysis, the following note seeks to lay out, in simple terms, why we believe this is a high quality business that is currently undervalued.
Take-Two Powers On
We have written about Take-Two Interactive (Nasdaq: TTWO) on a number of occasions in the past (here, here and here), given that the stock has been in the Montaka portfolio since the inception of the fund. This article will explore what initially drew us to TTWO, as well as how things have panned out with […]
Why do we own Facebook?
Readers of this blog will know by now that we believe the online technology platform is a special business model that, if successful, will deliver owners supernormal returns for a long period of time. As positive network effects compound the value of the platform’s ecosystem for all users, the ecosystem grows, and with it does […]
Long synergies from the short side
Readers will be aware that Montaka’s short portfolio provides the strategy with an additional channel to generate returns as well as downside protection when markets fall. These benefits are direct and clear. Less obvious to readers however may be the benefits that the short side research process provides the long portfolio of Montaka in the […]
When non-recurring revenues recur
One of the ongoing debates about Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) has been with respect to its persistently low price-to-earnings (P/E) multiple. At just 12.8x (excluding its lazy US$160 billion of net cash sitting on the balance sheet), Apple seems unusually cheap for such a high-quality business. And it is, in our view. But in the eyes […]