Silver Point

Thomas J. Monaco

Independent Insight Provider

Silver Point is a boutique research firm that focuses on the broader financial services sector, with a particular focus on troubled institutions globally. 

Asia Ex Japan

Equity Bottom-Up

<p><strong><em>*CBA’s Foray Into BNPL Adds Pressure:</em></strong> Tencent Holding’s (700.HK) [Tencent] Afterpay Touch (APT.AU) [Afterpay] FY 1H21 Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) operating results have turned the corner and are close to break-even, by our calculation. The competition is noticing Afterpay’s performance.  Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA.AU) [CBA] has announced its own BNPL product beginning June 2021 which will pressure Afterpay in its home market; and</p><p><strong><em>*Tencent’s Midas Touch:</em></strong> Tencent continues to hit it out of the park with its Afterpay stake. In addition to its superb return on investment of nearly 390% over the past nine months since the stake announcement - -even after giving back some of its gains, this alliance with Australia’s premier financial technology Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) company is paying dividends to Tencent in numerous other ways. </p>

*CBA’s Foray Into BNPL Adds Pressure: Tencent Holding’s (700.HK) [Tencent] Afterpay Touch (APT.AU) [Afterpay] FY 1H21 Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) operating results have turned the corner and are close to break-even, by our calculation. The competition is noticing Afterpay’s performance.  Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA.AU) [CBA] has announced its own BNPL product beginning June 2021 which will pressure Afterpay in its home market; and*Tencent’s Midas Touch: Tencent continues to hit it out of the park with its Afterpay stake. In addition to its superb return on investment of nearly 390% over the past nine months since the stake announcement - -even after giving back some of its gains, this alliance with Australia’s premier financial technology Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) company is paying dividends to Tencent in numerous other ways. 

Tencent Holdings – Replication Is Flattery

APAC IPOs & Placements

Zhen Zhou, Toh

IPOs and Placements coverage across Asia Pacific

Aequitas Research

We cover all listing across the Asia Pacific along with follow-up placements. As of Dec 2020, our team had covered 539 IPOs with a hit rate of 73.5% and 685 placements with a hit rate of 66.8%.

We combine fundamental bottom-up views with our proprietary quantitative framework to provide a holistic coverage across new listings and placements. Our coverage includes pre-IPO notes before the deal is launched, follow-up analysis once the deal is live and post-listing trading analysis as well.

Equity Capital Markets

Aequitas Research puts out a weekly update on the deals that have been covered by the team recently along with updates for upcoming IPOs.
Hong Kong had a busy week. Bairong (1569395D CH) launched its bookbuild on Thursday this week and books were covered after the first day despite the lack of support from reputable names in the cornerstone list. 


Bairong Pre-IPO - PHIP and Valuation Updates - Better 4Q20, but Client Data Isn’t as Encouraging 

Bairong Pre-IPO - Earnings Forecast, Peer Comparison and Valuation 

Bairong IPO - Decent Valuation Probably Weighed Down by Regulation 

For secondary listings, Bilibili Inc (9626 HK) launched bookbuild to raise about US$2.8bn and books were covered,as per news reports. Baidu (9888 HK)'s secondary listing, which opened books last week, was said to be priced at HK$252 per share and will list this coming Tuesday.


Bilibili Secondary Listing - Volatile but Should Be Hot 
Bilibili Secondary Listing Early Look - Will Probably Be More like JD and NetEase

Bilibili Secondary Listing Early Look - 4Q20 Results Quick Note.

Baidu Secondary Listing - Smaller than Expected, Doing the Bare Minimum 

For other upcoming IPOs, Linklogis (LINK HK) is said to have won HKEX approval and will be starting its pre-marketing this coming Monday. We have covered the IPO earlier in:


Linklogis Pre-IPO - The Positives - Fast Growing Blockchain Driven Supply Chain Financier 

Linklogis Pre-IPO - The Negatives - Inconsistent Growth and Margins, Well Funded Competitors 

Linklogis Pre-IPO - Earnings Forecast, Peer Comparison and First Stab at Valuation 

We also initiated coverage on Monde Nissin Corp (0191881D PM)'s IPO, which is expected to raise about US$1bn.

Monde Nissin Pre-IPO - The Positives - High Market Share   
In the U.S., Tuya Inc (TUYA US) went through a speedy IPO process. It launched its books on Monday, closed it a day later, and was already listed by Thursday. Its successful debut continued the Asia ADR (including Coupang) win streak. It debuted 28% higher but closed just 19% above IPO price. The strong sentiment should bode well for other upcoming China ADRs like Zhihu Technology (ZH US) and Smart Share Global (EM US) (also known as Energy Monster).


Smart Share Global (怪兽充电) Pre-IPO - Growing Fast and Is Profitable but Competition Is Picking Up 

Zhihu (知乎): Censorship as Top Risk, May Follow Fate of Weibo 

Tuya (涂鸦智能) IPO Trading - Strong Momentum but Watch Out for the Post Debut Fizzle 

Tuya (涂鸦智能) IPO -  Pushing for a Pricey Connection 

Placements in Asia this week were scattered across different countries. There was a long-dated Japan international follow-on offering by Change Inc (3962 JP) and Carlyle's overnight partial selldown of their stake in SBI Cards &amp; Payment Services (SBICARD IN).
We also think that there will likely be blocks sold by shareholders of Tencent Holdings (700 HK), Ming Yuan Cloud Group (909 HK) and IDP Education (IEL AU).

Tencent Placement Lock-Up Expiry -  Block and Buyback Linked Holdco Trade Update 

IDP Education Placement Early Look - US$800m Block a Given in 2021 

Ming Yuan Cloud (明源云) Lock-Up Expiry Trade Idea - A Chunky Potential 

Change Inc. Follow-On Offering - Ambitious Change 

SBI Cards Placement - No Surprise 

Accuracy Rate:Our overall accuracy rate is 74% for IPOs and 67.4% for Placements (Performance measurement criteria is explained at the end of the note)New IPO filings this week  
UNQ Holdings (Hong Kong, re-filed)Below is a snippet of our IPO tool showing upcoming events for the next week. The IPO tool is designed to provide readers with timely information on all IPO related events (Book open/closing, listing, initiation, lock-up expiry, etc) for all the deals that we have worked on. You can access the tool here or through the tools menu.  
News on Upcoming IPOs  

Adani Wilmar plans IPO in India
Indo-MIM plans Rs15bn IPO
Emcure Pharma plans up to US$500m IPO
Aditya Birla AMC considering IPO, may join fund houses in opting to list
Esco Group plans US$500m HK IPO
Tencent-backed Medbanks mulls US$1bn HK IPO
Tencent-backed Linklogis wins approval for US$1bn HK IPO
Didi accelerates IPO plans, targeting valuation above US$62b
Pathology Asia hires banks for S$500m IPO
PEXA finalises four bank float syndicate; Barrenjoey nabs a slot
Bigger, leaner Pepper courts investors for IPO 2.0
China's DMall hires three banks for over $500 million
Philippines’ NGCP Is Said to Tap Banks for $1.5 Billion IPO
Dating App Soul Preparing for U.S. IPO
Food delivery startup Zomato plans IPO filing next month
Analysis on Upcoming IPOs

Name
Insight

Hong Kong

Betta Pharma
Betta Pharma (贝达医药) A+H: Tier 2 Player Struggled to Break Out 


ByteDance
ByteDance (字节跳动) IPO: How Jinri Toutiao Paves The Way for a Bigger Empire (Part 1)


ByteDance
ByteDance (字节跳动) Pre-IPO: Why Facebook Should Worry About TikTok 


ByteDance
ByteDance (字节跳动) IPO: Tiktok the No.1 Short Video App for a Good Reason (Part 2)


ByteDance
ByteDance (字节跳动) Pre-IPO: How Has It Done in 1H? 


ByteDance
ByteDance: The Unlisted Company’s Video Apps Leading the Market and Threatening Internet Giants 


ByteDance
ByteDance (字节跳动) Pre-IPO: Why Facebook Should Worry About TikTok 


ByteDance
ByteDance (字节跳动) Pre-IPO - Globally the Most Downloaded App for Jan 2020 Driven by India 


ByteDance
ByteDance (字节跳动) Pre-IPO: Global Ambition Meets Regulatory Challenges 


Chaoju
Chaoju Eye Care (朝聚眼科) Pre-IPO: Growth Prospect Far from Being Impressive 


Dida
Dida Pre-IPO - Making Hay While Big Brother Retreats 


Dida
Dida Pre-IPO - Earnings Forecast and First Stab at Valuation 


Dida
Dida Pre-IPO - Peer Comparison - Lagging in Scale, Leading in Profitability 


Intco Med
Intco Medical (英科医疗) A+H: From China No.1 to Global No. 1 


Kilcoy
Kilcoy Global Foods Pre-IPO - Rapid Earnings Growth on the Back of Margin Improvement 


Kilcoy
Kilcoy Global Foods Pre-IPO - A Lot of Things Still Remain Unexplained 


Linklogis
Linklogis Pre-IPO - The Positives - Fast Growing Blockchain Driven Supply Chain Financier 


Linklogis
Linklogis Pre-IPO - The Negatives - Inconsistent Growth and Margins, Well Funded Competitors 


RemeGen

RemeGen (荣昌生物) Pre-IPO: Thoughts on Valuation of RC18 and RC48 


Toplist

Toplist China Pre-IPO - Overwhelmingly More Negatives than Positives 


Tasly

Tasly Biopharm (天士力生物) IPO: Visible Growth from Approved Drug but Lacks Blockbusters 


WeDoctor

WeDoctor (微医) Pre-IPO -App Walk Through - The Online Medical Directory and More 


WeDoctor

WeDoctor (微医) Pre-IPO - A More Focused Online Medical Svc Provider than Ping An Good Doctor 


Youran Dairy

China Youran Dairy(悠然牧业) Pre-IPO - A Leader Pulling Ahead in a Fragmented Market 

India

Aadhar Housing

Aadhar Housing Finance Pre-IPO - Decent past Growth but Comes with Weird Disclosures 


ASK

ASK Investment Managers Pre-IPO - Riding on a Wave of Wealth 


Anmol Ind
Anmol Industries Pre-IPO Quick Take - No Growth, Generous Payments to Founders


Bharat Hotel
Bharat Hotels Pre-IPO - Catching up with Peers 


Bajaj En
Bajaj Energy Pre-IPO - Supposed to Deliver Steady Performance if Only Its Sole Client Would Let It 


CMS Info
CMS Info Systems Pre-IPO - When a PE Sells to Another PE... Only One Gets the Timing Right


Crystal Crop
Crystal Crop Protection Pre-IPO - DRHP Raises More Questions than in Answers


ESAF SFB

ESAF Small Finance Bank Pre-IPO - Growing Fast but Remains Highly Dependant on a Related Party 


Flemingo 
Flemingo Travel Retail Pre-IPO - Its a Different Business in Every Country


Emami Cem

Emami Cement Pre-IPO - Still in Ramp Up Phase but Shares Pledge Might Lead to an Early IPO 


NSE
NSE IPO Preview- Not Only Fast..its Risky and Expensive


NSE
National Stock Exchange Pre-IPO Review - Bigger, Better, Stronger but a Little Too Fast for Some


LIC

Life Insurance Corporation of India Pre-IPO - Early Take on India's Largest IPO 


Penna Cem

Penna Cement - Aggressive Expansion Plans Even Though Past Performance Has Been Tepid 


PNB Met
PNB Metlife Pre-IPO Quick Take - Doesn't Stack up Well Versus Its Larger Peers


Samhi Hotels

Samhi Hotels Pre-IPO - Assets and Borrowings Are Growing, but Earnings Haven’t Kept Pace 

Malaysia

QSR
QSR Brands Pre-IPO - As Healthy as Fast Food

Singapore

ThaiBev Beer

ThaiBev BeerCo Pre-IPO - Declining Rev and Mkt Share Concerns but Good Cost Control 


ThaiBev Beer

ThaiBev BeerCo Pre-IPO - Thoughts on BeerCo and ThaiBev HoldCo Valuation 

The U.S.

Smart Share

Smart Share Global (怪兽充电) Pre-IPO - Growing Fast and Is Profitable but Competition Is Picking Up 


Zhihu

Zhihu (知乎) Pre-IPO - In the Early Stages of Monetization 


Zhihu

Zhihu (知乎): Censorship as Top Risk, May Follow Fate of Weibo 



ECM Weekly (21st March 2021) - Bairong, Bilibili HK, Energy Monster, Zhihu, IDP Edu, Ming Yuan Cloud

Head of Research, IPOs & Placements, Aequitas Research

Sumeet Singh

Head of Research, IPOs & Placements

<div><p>Linklogis, a technology solution provider for supply chain finance in China, is aiming to raise over US$500m in its Hong Kong IPO. Its investors include Tencent, GIC and Standard Chartered Bank.</p></div><div><p>Linklogis’ cloud-native solutions optimize the payment cycle of supply chain transactions and digitalize the entire workflow of supply chain finance. As per CIC, Linklogis was the leader among technology solution providers in China in terms of supply chain finance transactions processed over 9M20, accounting for 20.5% market share.</p></div><div><p>Linklogis overall revenue grew by 83% YoY in FY19 and was up another 52% over 9M20. While its core function of Supply Chain finance has been registering strong growth of 64.4% YoY in FY19 and 53.8% in 9M20, revenue from its Emerging solutions was up nearly 6x in FY19 and grew by another 38% over 9M20.</p></div><div><p>We have covered the positive aspects of the deal in our earlier insights, <a href="https://www.smartkarma.com/insights/linklogis-pre-ipo-the-positives-fast-growing-blockchain-driven-supply-chain-financier" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Linklogis Pre-IPO - The Positives - Fast Growing Blockchain Driven Supply Chain Financier </a>and <a href="https://www.smartkarma.com/insights/linklogis-pre-ipo-the-negatives-inconsistent-growth-and-margins-well-funded-competitors" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Linklogis Pre-IPO - The Negatives - Inconsistent Growth and Margins, Well Funded Competitors</a>. In this note, we'll talk about earnings forecast and valuations.</p></div>

Linklogis, a technology solution provider for supply chain finance in China, is aiming to raise over US$500m in its Hong Kong IPO. Its investors include Tencent, GIC and Standard Chartered Bank.Linklogis’ cloud-native solutions optimize the payment cycle of supply chain transactions and digitalize the entire workflow of supply chain finance. As per CIC, Linklogis was the leader among technology solution providers in China in terms of supply chain finance transactions processed over 9M20, accounting for 20.5% market share.Linklogis overall revenue grew by 83% YoY in FY19 and was up another 52% over 9M20. While its core function of Supply Chain finance has been registering strong growth of 64.4% YoY in FY19 and 53.8% in 9M20, revenue from its Emerging solutions was up nearly 6x in FY19 and grew by another 38% over 9M20.We have covered the positive aspects of the deal in our earlier insights, Linklogis Pre-IPO - The Positives - Fast Growing Blockchain Driven Supply Chain Financier and Linklogis Pre-IPO - The Negatives - Inconsistent Growth and Margins, Well Funded Competitors. In this note, we'll talk about earnings forecast and valuations.

Linklogis Pre-IPO - Earnings Forecast, Peer Comparison and First Stab at Valuation

Pan-Asia Catalysts/Events, Quiddity Advisors

Travis Lundy

Pan-Asia Catalysts/Events

Quiddity Advisors

Quantitative Analysis

<div>
<p>Spreads narrowed sharply this week with 68 of 100 liquid spreads narrowing, 32 widening. The big winner on the week was Consumer narrowing 2.46% as every spread in the space narrowed despite five of six stocks falling in Hs (i.e. As fell even more). </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.smartkarma.com/entities/shandong-chenming-paper-h" target="_blank" data-smartkarma-citation="entities:13775:1" rel="noopener">Shandong Chenming Paper H (1812 HK)</a> situation intruded on the H/S spreads this week as the decision to convert the B shares to Hs (described by <a href="https://www.smartkarma.com/profiles/david-blennerhassett" target="_blank" data-smartkarma-citation="accounts:840" rel="noopener">David Blennerhassett</a> in <a href="https://www.smartkarma.com/insights/shandong-chenming-paper-1812-hk-the-h-b-convergence-trade" target="_blank" data-smartkarma-citation="insights:49247" rel="noopener">Shandong Chenming Paper (1812 HK): The H/B Convergence Trade</a> mid-week) caused ructions in the H/A spread.</p>
<p>But overall, it was a decent week. Only two sectors saw spreads widen (Energy and Utilities), both accompanied by net southbound selling in the week to Wednesday (the last day to which we have granular name-by-name data).</p>
<table class="table table-striped"><tbody>
<tr>
<td><p>Sector</p></td>
<td style="text-align: right;"><p>Last Week</p></td>
<td style="text-align: right;"><p>Previous Week</p></td>
<td style="text-align: right;"><p>3wks Ago</p></td>
<td style="text-align: right;"><p>4wks Ago</p></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><p>Consumer</p></td>
<td style="text-align: right;"><p>+ 2.46%</p></td>
<td style="text-align: right;"><p>+ 0.74%</p></td>
<td style="text-align: right;"><p>-  0.14%</p></td>
<td style="text-align: right;"><p>-  1.65%</p></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><p>Energy</p></td>
<td style="text-align: right;"><p>-  0.39%</p></td>
<td style="text-align: right;"><p>-  0.56%</p></td>
<td style="text-align: right;"><p>-  0.36%</p></td>
<td style="text-align: right;"><p>+ 0.67%</p></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><p>Financials &amp; Real Estate</p></td>
<td style="text-align: right;"><p>+ 0.92%</p></td>
<td style="text-align: right;"><p>+ 0.53%</p></td>
<td style="text-align: right;"><p>+ 1.19%</p></td>
<td style="text-align: right;"><p>-  1.12%</p></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><p>Health Care &amp; Info Tech</p></td>
<td style="text-align: right;"><p>+ 1.50%</p></td>
<td style="text-align: right;"><p>+ 2.29%</p></td>
<td style="text-align: right;"><p>-  0.54%</p></td>
<td style="text-align: right;"><p>-  2.86%</p></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><p>Industrials</p></td>
<td style="text-align: right;"><p>+ 1.19%</p></td>
<td style="text-align: right;"><p>+ 0.15%</p></td>
<td style="text-align: right;"><p>-  0.42%</p></td>
<td style="text-align: right;"><p>-  1.20%</p></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><p>Materials</p></td>
<td style="text-align: right;"><p>+ 1.42%</p></td>
<td style="text-align: right;"><p>+ 0.61%</p></td>
<td style="text-align: right;"><p>-  0.33%</p></td>
<td style="text-align: right;"><p>-  0.84%</p></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><p>Utilities</p></td>
<td style="text-align: right;"><p>-  0.91%</p></td>
<td style="text-align: right;"><p>-  0.87%</p></td>
<td style="text-align: right;"><p>-  1.25%</p></td>
<td style="text-align: right;"><p>-  0.14%</p></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><p><strong>Sector Average</strong></p></td>
<td style="text-align: right;"><p><strong>+ 0.88%</strong></p></td>
<td style="text-align: right;"><p><strong>+ 0.41%</strong></p></td>
<td style="text-align: right;"><p><strong>-  0.26%</strong></p></td>
<td style="text-align: right;"><p><strong>-  1.02%</strong></p></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><p><strong>All Market Average</strong></p></td>
<td style="text-align: right;"><p><strong>+ 0.96%</strong></p></td>
<td style="text-align: right;"><p><strong>+ 0.59%</strong></p></td>
<td style="text-align: right;"><p><strong>+ 0.05%</strong></p></td>
<td style="text-align: right;"><p><strong>-  1.22%</strong></p></td>
</tr>
</tbody></table>
</div><div><div></div></div><p><span>10-day cross-market spread volatility continues to fall. This past week ended at 20% down from 23% in the ten days to 12 March. This is down off highs in the low 30s a couple weeks ago, but the long-term average is still under 20%.</span></p><section class="figure"><figure class="editor-figure mceNonEditable"><img src="https://static-prod.smartkarma.com/images/media/000/195/770/original/Screenshot+2021-03-20+at+8.25.25+PM.png?1616243179" class="editor-image img-responsive" data-smartkarma-image-id="195770"></figure></section><div><div>
<hr>
<h3>The H/A Spread Market</h3>
</div></div><div><p>The past week has seen H-shares come off, but spreads narrow as Hs outperformed their As pretty dramatically. Interestingly, the narrower the spread, to start with, the better the performance on the week. Ideally, spread players want to see that red line sloping downward from upper left to lower right because even a big spread movement for a 70% discount stock means very large performance is needed to catch up. </p></div><div><section class="figure"><figure class="editor-figure mceNonEditable"><img src="https://static-prod.smartkarma.com/images/media/000/195/724/original/Screenshot+2021-03-20+at+5.41.02+PM.png?1616233277" class="editor-image img-responsive" data-smartkarma-image-id="195724"></figure></section></div><div>
<p>The average discount has started tightening again and we are at 38% which is where the spread rebounded to un Q2 of 2020 after widening in the Covid-crash. </p>
<p>In 2019, spreads spent a fairly long time in the 34-36% average. </p>
</div><section><section class="figure"><figure class="editor-figure mceNonEditable"><img src="https://static-prod.smartkarma.com/images/media/000/195/728/original/Screenshot+2021-03-20+at+5.44.03+PM.png?1616233457" class="editor-image img-responsive" data-smartkarma-image-id="195728"></figure></section></section><hr><div><div><h2>Last Week's Recommendations</h2></div></div><div><ul style="list-style-type: disc;">
<li>There were 81 recommendations last week.</li>
<li>Positive alpha returned. There were 49 long spreads and 32 short spreads which gained on average 27bp against the delta-neutral gain of 0.20%, indicating spread alpha of 7bp on the week. This is back to a good trend after a horrible week the week before.</li>
<li>There are <em>nearly</em> 80 recommendations this week (turnover remains low).  </li>
</ul></div><hr><div><div><h2>Consumer Sector</h2></div></div><div>
<p>The first sector discussed is Consumer. It was a complex week there. </p>
<ul>
<li>Five out of six H-shares were down on the week. <a href="https://www.smartkarma.com/entities/tsingtao-brewery-co-ltd-h" target="_blank" data-smartkarma-citation="entities:1296:1" rel="noopener">Tsingtao Brewery Co Ltd H (168 HK)</a> was up 10.6%.</li>
<li>All six spreads narrowed with the average H-share outperformance of A at 2.46%. It was a strong week for every spread in the group. </li>
<li>Normally when this happens, there is significant net selling by Southbound. This week saw net buying of HK$270mm to Wednesday, halting four straight weeks prior of net selling. </li>
</ul>
</div><div></div><div><div><div class="content-highlight">
<p>Last week, I recommended keeping the shorts (<a href="https://www.smartkarma.com/entities/byd-co-ltd-h" target="_blank" data-smartkarma-citation="entities:20962:1" rel="noopener">BYD (1211 HK)</a> and <a href="https://www.smartkarma.com/entities/fuyao-glass-industry-group-co-ltd" target="_blank" data-smartkarma-citation="entities:330:1" rel="noopener">Fuyao Glass Industry Group (3606 HK)</a>) and the long in <a href="https://www.smartkarma.com/entities/guangzhou-automobile-group-co-ltd" target="_blank" data-smartkarma-citation="entities:11082:1" rel="noopener">Guangzhou Automobile Group (2238 HK)</a> and adding a long on <a href="https://www.smartkarma.com/entities/hisense-home-appliances-group-co-ltd-h" target="_blank" data-smartkarma-citation="entities:20107:1" rel="noopener">Hisense Home Appliances Group Co., Ltd. H (921 HK)</a> H vs A.</p>
<p>Those trades lost an average of 0.51% last week in spread terms after losing 29bp the week before, and 16bp the week before that. Despite three losing weeks in a row, positioning in the sector is still up 262bp in four weeks. </p>
<p>This week's trade recommendations are below the fold.</p>
</div></div></div><div><section class="figure"><figure class="editor-figure mceNonEditable"><img src="https://static-prod.smartkarma.com/images/media/000/195/729/original/Screenshot+2021-03-20+at+5.44.45+PM.png?1616233498" class="editor-image img-responsive" data-smartkarma-image-id="195729"></figure></section></div><div><section>For this week's recommendations on Consumer, and discussion of the Energy, Financials &amp; Real Estate, Health Care, Tech, Industrials, Materials, and Utilities sectors, and all trade recommendations, please read on.</section></div>


Spreads narrowed sharply this week with 68 of 100 liquid spreads narrowing, 32 widening. The big winner on the week was Consumer narrowing 2.46% as every spread in the space narrowed despite five of six stocks falling in Hs (i.e. As fell even more). 
The Shandong Chenming Paper H (1812 HK) situation intruded on the H/S spreads this week as the decision to convert the B shares to Hs (described by David Blennerhassett in Shandong Chenming Paper (1812 HK): The H/B Convergence Trade mid-week) caused ructions in the H/A spread.
But overall, it was a decent week. Only two sectors saw spreads widen (Energy and Utilities), both accompanied by net southbound selling in the week to Wednesday (the last day to which we have granular name-by-name data).


Sector
Last Week
Previous Week
3wks Ago
4wks Ago


Consumer
+ 2.46%
+ 0.74%
-  0.14%
-  1.65%


Energy
-  0.39%
-  0.56%
-  0.36%
+ 0.67%


Financials &amp; Real Estate
+ 0.92%
+ 0.53%
+ 1.19%
-  1.12%


Health Care &amp; Info Tech
+ 1.50%
+ 2.29%
-  0.54%
-  2.86%


Industrials
+ 1.19%
+ 0.15%
-  0.42%
-  1.20%


Materials
+ 1.42%
+ 0.61%
-  0.33%
-  0.84%


Utilities
-  0.91%
-  0.87%
-  1.25%
-  0.14%


Sector Average
+ 0.88%
+ 0.41%
-  0.26%
-  1.02%


All Market Average
+ 0.96%
+ 0.59%
+ 0.05%
-  1.22%


10-day cross-market spread volatility continues to fall. This past week ended at 20% down from 23% in the ten days to 12 March. This is down off highs in the low 30s a couple weeks ago, but the long-term average is still under 20%.

The H/A Spread Market
The past week has seen H-shares come off, but spreads narrow as Hs outperformed their As pretty dramatically. Interestingly, the narrower the spread, to start with, the better the performance on the week. Ideally, spread players want to see that red line sloping downward from upper left to lower right because even a big spread movement for a 70% discount stock means very large performance is needed to catch up. 
The average discount has started tightening again and we are at 38% which is where the spread rebounded to un Q2 of 2020 after widening in the Covid-crash. 
In 2019, spreads spent a fairly long time in the 34-36% average. 
Last Week's Recommendations
There were 81 recommendations last week.
Positive alpha returned. There were 49 long spreads and 32 short spreads which gained on average 27bp against the delta-neutral gain of 0.20%, indicating spread alpha of 7bp on the week. This is back to a good trend after a horrible week the week before.
There are nearly 80 recommendations this week (turnover remains low).  
Consumer Sector
The first sector discussed is Consumer. It was a complex week there. 

Five out of six H-shares were down on the week. Tsingtao Brewery Co Ltd H (168 HK) was up 10.6%.
All six spreads narrowed with the average H-share outperformance of A at 2.46%. It was a strong week for every spread in the group. 
Normally when this happens, there is significant net selling by Southbound. This week saw net buying of HK$270mm to Wednesday, halting four straight weeks prior of net selling. 


Last week, I recommended keeping the shorts (BYD (1211 HK) and Fuyao Glass Industry Group (3606 HK)) and the long in Guangzhou Automobile Group (2238 HK) and adding a long on Hisense Home Appliances Group Co., Ltd. H (921 HK) H vs A.
Those trades lost an average of 0.51% last week in spread terms after losing 29bp the week before, and 16bp the week before that. Despite three losing weeks in a row, positioning in the sector is still up 262bp in four weeks. 
This week's trade recommendations are below the fold.
For this week's recommendations on Consumer, and discussion of the Energy, Financials &amp; Real Estate, Health Care, Tech, Industrials, Materials, and Utilities sectors, and all trade recommendations, please read on.

Quiddity Weekly H/A: Consumer Strong, Spreads Narrowing Masks A-Share Weakness

IPOs and Catalysts/Events, Global Equity Research Ltd

Arun George

IPOs and Catalysts/Events

Uncompromised, Independent, Conflict-Free Research

Global Equity Research Ltd

Global Equity Research was started in 2017 by a group of experienced research professionals. It was founded on a passionate belief in the importance and the need for uncompromised, independent, conflict-free research. We aim to provide differentiated and actionable primary and bottom up fundamental research.

Zhihu Technology / Equity Capital Markets

<div><p><a href="https://www.smartkarma.com/entities/zhihu-technology-ltd" target="_blank" data-smartkarma-citation="entities:32185:1" rel="noopener">Zhihu Technology (ZH US)</a> is the largest Q&amp;A-inspired online community and one of the top five comprehensive online content communities in China, both in terms of average mobile MAUs and revenue in 2020, according to CIC. Zhihu is acknowledged as the first choice among all online content communities in China where people look for information to make decisions or find answers, according to CIC. Zhihu is backed by <a href="https://www.smartkarma.com/entities/tencent-holdings-ltd" target="_blank" data-smartkarma-citation="entities:26:1" rel="noopener">Tencent Holdings (700 HK)</a>, <a href="https://www.smartkarma.com/entities/beijing-kuaishou-technology-co-ltd" target="_blank" data-smartkarma-citation="entities:29725:1" rel="noopener">Kuaishou Technology (1024 HK)</a> and <a href="https://www.smartkarma.com/entities/baidu-inc" target="_blank" data-smartkarma-citation="entities:179:1" rel="noopener">Baidu (BIDU US)</a>.</p></div><div><p>At the mid-point of the proposed IPO price range of $9.50-11.50 per ADS, Zhihu will have a fully diluted market cap of $6.2 billion. Zhihu will also raise an additional $250 million in a concurrent private placement to <a href="https://www.smartkarma.com/entities/alibaba-group-holding-ltd" target="_blank" data-smartkarma-citation="entities:787:1" rel="noopener">Alibaba Group (BABA US)</a>, <a href="https://www.smartkarma.com/entities/jd-com-inc-adr" target="_blank" data-smartkarma-citation="entities:446:1" rel="noopener">JD.com Inc (ADR) (JD US)</a>, Tencent and Lilith Games. At the mid-point of the IPO price range, the net proceeds including the concurrent private placement are $801.3 million. </p></div><div><div class="content-highlight"><p>In <a href="https://www.smartkarma.com/insights/zhihu-ipo-initiation-question-time" target="_blank" data-smartkarma-citation="insights:48928" rel="noopener">Zhihu IPO Initiation: Question Time</a>, we opined that as the largest Q&amp;A-inspired online community, Zhihu is well-positioned to benefit from favourable industry trends. We concluded that Zhihu’s fundamentals are attractive. Our valuation analysis suggests that the IPO price range is attractive. Overall, we would participate in the IPO. </p></div></div>

Zhihu Technology (ZH US) is the largest Q&amp;A-inspired online community and one of the top five comprehensive online content communities in China, both in terms of average mobile MAUs and revenue in 2020, according to CIC. Zhihu is acknowledged as the first choice among all online content communities in China where people look for information to make decisions or find answers, according to CIC. Zhihu is backed by Tencent Holdings (700 HK), Kuaishou Technology (1024 HK) and Baidu (BIDU US).At the mid-point of the proposed IPO price range of $9.50-11.50 per ADS, Zhihu will have a fully diluted market cap of $6.2 billion. Zhihu will also raise an additional $250 million in a concurrent private placement to Alibaba Group (BABA US), JD.com Inc (ADR) (JD US), Tencent and Lilith Games. At the mid-point of the IPO price range, the net proceeds including the concurrent private placement are $801.3 million. In Zhihu IPO Initiation: Question Time, we opined that as the largest Q&amp;A-inspired online community, Zhihu is well-positioned to benefit from favourable industry trends. We concluded that Zhihu’s fundamentals are attractive. Our valuation analysis suggests that the IPO price range is attractive. Overall, we would participate in the IPO. 

China

Alibaba Group Holding Limited provides online sales services. The Company provides internet infrastructure, electronic commerce, online financial, and internet content services through its subsidiaries. Alibaba Group Holding offers its products and services worldwide.

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Alibaba Group Holding (9988 HK)

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52-week Range

Market Cap (USDm)

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