Daily Brief Consumer: Fujitsu General, New Oriental Education & Techn, Patek Philippe , Hyundai Motor, Cello World Limited, Haier Smart Home , FirstCry, Whirlpool Corp, Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings, TSE Tokyo Price Index TOPIX and more

• Fujitsu General (6755 JP) came out with an ugly Q3 and ugly full-year forecast change. It appears there is lots of inventory-clearing in the channel in addition to macroeconomic headwinds. 
• The split is a little difficult to discern, but the reason for channel-clearing makes a lot of sense from the distributor side. How long it lasts hard to know.
• This creates the impetus for more cost-cutting/restructuring measures before a delayed v-bound to March 2025. Fujitsu STILL wants to sell. It may make extraordinary proposals to get it done.

• New Oriental Education & Techn (9901 HK) reported better than expected FY2Q24 results last night, with sales up 36% yoy and net profit up 183% yoy.
• The company further guided a 42-45% sales growth in FY3Q24, well above market consensus. 
• The visibility for the next 2-3 years is actually quite high post-“double reduction” policy.

• Investment firms are using ten east to diversify their personal portfolios
• Business Breakdowns is a series of conversations with investors and operators diving deep into a single business
• John Reardon from Collectibility discusses what makes Patek Philippe such a special brand, including its history, craftsmanship, and exclusivity.

This podcast is sourced from an online content aggregator through publicly available sources and is displayed below for general informational purposes only.

• Yesterday, five companies disclosed dividend record dates and amounts. Hyundai Motor set record dates before March futures expired. Hyundai Motor offers single stock futures, presenting arbitrage opportunities.
• Daily updates and monitoring of dividend arbitrage spread are crucial. Despite limited English support, KLCA webpage proves effective with prompt updates, simplifying the process.
• KLCA webpage offers real-time updates and intuitive layout, ideal for dividend arbitrage trading preparation in the Korean market.

• Cello World Limited (CW IN) is a renowned company in the consumer products market. The company primarily operates in houseware, stationary and moulded furniture industry.
• The promoters recently undertook a major corp. restructuring post which several promoter entities were acquired by CWL. This has led to abnormally high ROCEs.
• Other forensic takeaways pertain to RPT, poor cash management, mysterious sale proceeds of PPE, subsidiaries audit, etc.

• Haier Smart Home (6690 HK)‘s management is confident about the FY24 outlook, with net profit growth of 12-13% can be sustained.  
• Casarte will continue to lead with 10-15% revenue increase. There is room for further margin expansion led by overseas markets and process optimisation in the domestic market.
• The plunge in real estate market does not have a material impact on sales and HSH is positive on replacement/upgrade demand. Its FY24F PER of 10.1x is undemanding.

• FirstCry (0172540D IN), India’s largest multi-channel retailing platform for mothers’, babies’ and kids’ products, has filed for a US$700 million IPO. 
• The substantial shareholders are Softbank Group (9984 JP) Vision Fund (25.55% of shares), Mahindra & Mahindra (MM IN) (10.98%), Premji Invest (10.36%) and Supam Maheshwari – founder and CEO (5.95%).
• The bull case rests on growing addressable markets, strong market positioning, robust GMV growth and strong organic growth.   

• This is our first report on electronics major, Whirlpool Corporation.
• The company delivered a solid third quarter performance in a challenging macro environment, supported by satisfying North American growth and improved cost-management measures.
• The company also successfully achieved $300 million in cost takeout actions, a performance that charts Whirlpool on course to deliver over $800 million of cost takeout actions in 2023.

• This is our first report on cruise operator, Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings.
• The company achieved record revenue, meeting or exceeding the guidance on all key metrics.
• In this report, we have carried out a fundamental analysis of the historical financial statements of the company.

• It is premature to start discussions on stopping raising the hurdles of the Corporate Governance Code when Japan’s boards are not dominated by a majority of independent directors.
• If listed companies are left to voluntarily improve their corporate governance practices, differences in corporate governance practice efforts among listed companies are expected to widen.
• Companies with high percentage of foreign shareholders, primarily those with large market capitalization, are expected to continue to improve their corporate governance practices through engagement by overseas investors. vice versa