Smartkarma Daily Briefs

• In Smartkarma Corporate Webinar | Elite Commercial REIT: Essential Assets at an Attractive Yield we conducted a fireside chat with Elite Commercial REIT.
• Elite Commercial REIT is a Singapore real estate investment trust established with the investment strategy of principally investing, directly or indirectly, in commercial real-estate related assets in the United Kingdom.
• The company has recently expanded its strategy to look at other commercial assets in the UK, beyond its existing portfolio of assets rented by the UK government.

This Insight is part of the Smartkarma Corporate Webinar series, supported by SGX through the Investor Education Fund.

• Pasona (2168.JP) is a long investment opportunity due to its ownership of a majority stake in Benefit One (2412.JP), which is the subject of a bidding war between M3 (2413.JP) and Dai-Ichi Life (8750.JP).
• Potential bids for Benefit One could result in a significant cash windfall for Pasona, estimated at around 50% more than its current enterprise value, as well as an operating business valued at an additional 50% of its current EV.
• With the founder of Pasona being 71 years old, the bidding war could lead to a management buy-out or a substantial return of capital program for the company.

This content is sourced through publicly available sources and has been machine generated. Information displayed is for general informational purposes only. This article was originally published 3 months ago on Value Investors Club.

• Anta Sports Products (2020 HK), Li Ning (2331 HK), and Xtep International (1368 HK) have announced 1Q24 operational updates, with additional color given in post conference calls. 
• Anta: Retail sales started to accelerate in mid-March, and March were better than January and February. 
• Li Ning:  offline retail sales down low-single-digit in 1Q24, driven by wholesale down mid-single-digit, while retail grew mid-single-digit.  E-commerce grew 20-30% yoy.  

• Nidec reported a solid set of quarterly numbers, except for another huge structural loss in its EV business. 
• Nidec saw sales growth and operating profitability improvements in all other segments
• We continue to think that Nidec is attractively priced at under 20x EV/ EBIT given structural growth drivers

• At the end of 2023, Chokwang Leather owned 190.3 billion won worth of Berkshire Hathaway shares, which represents 56% of Chokwang Leather’s market cap. 
• Chokwang Leather also has 3.1 million treasury shares (46.6% of outstanding shares). It has the highest levels of treasury shares as a percentage of outstanding shares among Korean stocks.
• Chokwang Leather is likely to be one of the key companies to be targeted to improve its corporate governance as part of the Corporate Value Up program. 

• Lasertec has dropped more than 20% in the past week and a half, but is still selling at more than 60x EPS guidance for FY Jun-24.
• Weak orders at ASML, disappointing guidance from TSMC and doubts about Intel’s equipment purchases cast doubt on Lasertec’s growth potential.
• Between December 2021 and June 2022, Lasertec’s share price dropped by more than 50%. Wait for Q3 results before reaching for a falling knife. 

• Plunging sales & growing losses, severe price cuts & layoffs, failed FSD, M2 dropped for Robotaxi, and more, confirm that Elon Musk won’t fix Tesla’s most serious problems—which he created.
• He still demands his “unfathomable” pay package be restored, and his feckless, captured Tesla Board is doing exactly what he wants.
• But what Tesla’s Board should do, what it should have done years ago, is fire Elon Musk, the single greatest risk to Tesla’s future.

• Shimano continues to reel from a slowdown in bike and fishing tackle sales post Covid
• 1Q operating profit beat the analyst consensus, but the upward revision to full year is minor and falls short of street estimates
• The stock has priced in an improving outlook. However, valuations are now looking full compared to historical levels. 

• Again, Tesla reports a 1Q24 sales with 4% miss but post market share price up more than 10% for 6 reasons. 1. Gross margin was stable on 15% sales drop;
• 2. ASP was stable; 3. Affordable EV on track for 2025; 4. Factory expansion to slow; 5. Optimus to sell end of 2025; 6. 2024 EV shipment higher than 2023.
• Near term risks to remain: 1. When will margin trough? 2. Why bother to buy EV if 2nd hand market collapsing? 3. Will Robotaxi/FSD bring in meaningful sales/profits soon?

• On March 21st, Lululemon reported FY23 results. All things considered, the results were good. Guidance, however, caused some upset. Lululemon shares are down ~29% this year; after being down just 6% before the report, and is currently the 8th worst-performing stock in the S&P 500.
• Lululemon’s implied 11.5% revenue growth for 2024 is a notable deceleration from years prior; having averaged an annual revenue growth rate of 24.4% over the last 5 years.
• This year’s revenue guidance is closer to, but still behind, the 5 years before that; where Lululemon averaged 15.7% annual revenue growth.