China Macroeconomics & Academia

Christopher Balding

Thematic (Sector/Industry)

<ol><li>Given the available data, we believe it indicates that Chinese consumer growth remains positive but significantly weaker than headline official numbers indicate.</li><li>Large retailers appear to be suffering near zero growth across a variety of products.</li><li>Online retailing is still growing rapidly but its rate of growth is slowing and remains responsible for only 10.6% of spending.</li><li>Due to the weakness in large retailers and strong but small market share of online retailers, this leaves only small and medium size retailers as driving official retail sales numbers. We find this a dubious conclusion.</li><li>The combined retail sales and physical output of consumer product data implies that retail and consumer spending is growing much closer to the 3-6% range than the official 11% retail sales growth.</li><li>Related services like transport and hotel is showing significant weakness that is more reflective of an overall weak retail and services sector.</li></ol>

Given the available data, we believe it indicates that Chinese consumer growth remains positive but significantly weaker than headline official numbers indicate.Large retailers appear to be suffering near zero growth across a variety of products.Online retailing is still growing rapidly but its rate of growth is slowing and remains responsible for only 10.6% of spending.Due to the weakness in large retailers and strong but small market share of online retailers, this leaves only small and medium size retailers as driving official retail sales numbers. We find this a dubious conclusion.The combined retail sales and physical output of consumer product data implies that retail and consumer spending is growing much closer to the 3-6% range than the official 11% retail sales growth.Related services like transport and hotel is showing significant weakness that is more reflective of an overall weak retail and services sector.

Global Head of Research, Smartkarma

Mark Artherton

Global Head of Research

Ecstrat

Ecstrat is a consultancy advising on asset allocation between global equity markets, with a focus on the intersection of governments, geopolitics, governance and markets.
 
Over the past few years and more especially since the Great Financial Crisis (GFC), investors have become more focused on short-term market movements and real-time returns and have consequently neglected the analysis of the underlying structural themes that underpin longer term performance.
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More specifically we believe that the evolution of governance-based relationships between investors, controlling shareholders, labour and the state is one of the primary determinants of both relative and absolute performance between individual equity markets.
 
We will endeavour to provide investors with some of the context surrounding governance-related issues which encompass many different disciplines including history, economics and political science, as well as the financial metrics which are the most obvious manifestation of the structural characteristics of each market.
 
We will pay particular attention to the shifts and potential inflection points for governance in individual markets as these are often the best lead indicators for both economic and market performance.

Macroeconomics

<p style="text-align: justify;">Ecstrat were amongst the first to highlight the explosive growth of working capital in non-financial companies in China. We monitor over 3,000 listed Chinese corporates and with 20% of those having now reported for 2015 we can start to draw some conclusions.</p><div class="content-highlight"><ul><li><em><strong>The 'cash flow recession' in corporate China continues.</strong></em></li></ul></div><div class="content-highlight"><ul><li><em><strong>Almost all sectors have experienced a rise in receivable days when comparing 2015 to 2014.</strong></em></li></ul></div><div class="content-highlight"><p><em><strong>Almost all sectors have seen an even larger increase in payable days, suggesting that the listed</strong></em>…</p></div>

Ecstrat were amongst the first to highlight the explosive growth of working capital in non-financial companies in China. We monitor over 3,000 listed Chinese corporates and with 20% of those having now reported for 2015 we can start to draw some conclusions.The 'cash flow recession' in corporate China continues.Almost all sectors have experienced a rise in receivable days when comparing 2015 to 2014.Almost all sectors have seen an even larger increase in payable days, suggesting that the listed…

Large Caps Squeezing SMEs in Early Reading of FY2015 Chinese Working Capital

Korea/Asia, Events, IPOs, Douglas Research Advisory

Douglas Kim

Korea/Asia, Events, IPOs

Equity Bottom-Up

Inner Mongolia Yili Industrial Group (A) / Equity Bottom-Up

<ul>
<li>In this insight, we discuss a pair trade involving going long on Inner Mongolia Yili Industrial Group (A) (600887 CH)("Yili") and going short on China Mengniu Dairy Co (2319 HK).</li>
<li>Yili has more impressive financial metrics than China Mengniu Dairy in terms of ROE, operating margins, and sales growth. However, Yili is trading at lower EV/EBITDA than China Mengniu Dairy.</li>
<li>Yili should be trading at premium valuation than China Mengniu Dairy. Therefore, we believe Yili is well poised to outperform China Mengniu Dairy's share price in the next 12 months. </li>
</ul>


In this insight, we discuss a pair trade involving going long on Inner Mongolia Yili Industrial Group (A) (600887 CH)("Yili") and going short on China Mengniu Dairy Co (2319 HK).
Yili has more impressive financial metrics than China Mengniu Dairy in terms of ROE, operating margins, and sales growth. However, Yili is trading at lower EV/EBITDA than China Mengniu Dairy.
Yili should be trading at premium valuation than China Mengniu Dairy. Therefore, we believe Yili is well poised to outperform China Mengniu Dairy's share price in the next 12 months. 


China Dairy Sector: Long Inner Mongolia Yili and Short China Mengniu Dairy

China

Inner Mongolia Yili Industrial Group Co., Ltd. produces milk, powdered milk, ice cream, and other dairy products.  The Company also produces frozen food and noodles.

Inner Mongolia Yili Industrial Group (A) (600887 CH)

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Inner Mongolia Yili Industrial Group (A) (600887 CH)

Retail and Consumer Activity in China

Given the available data, we believe it indicates that Chinese consumer growth remains positive but significantly weaker than headline official...

Christopher Balding

Large Caps Squeezing SMEs in Early Reading of FY2015 Chinese Working Capital

Ecstrat were amongst the first to highlight the explosive growth of working capital in non-financial companies in China. We monitor over 3,000...

Mark Artherton

China Dairy Sector: Long Inner Mongolia Yili and Short China Mengniu Dairy

In this insight, we discuss a pair trade involving going long on Inner Mongolia Yili Industrial Group (A) (600887 CH)("Yili") and going short on...

Douglas Kim

Price Gauge

52-week Range

Market Cap (USDm)

P/E

Dividend (Yield)