Daily Brief Equity Bottom-Up: Alibaba: A Mediocre Beat Won’t Nullify Escalating US-China Tensions & A Deteriorating Core Business and more

• Alibaba Group (9988 HK)‘s 3QFY23 results scheduled to release this Thursday is yet again going to be somewhat disappointing with our analysis indicating around RMB35.0bn OP cf. RMB49.7bn in 3QFY21.
• Nevertheless, 3QFY23 results could beat the conservative consensus revenue estimate by 2.8% while the OP is likely to be in line with consensus.
• Having risen 100%+ in few months, a small beat is unlikely to drive-up the share price any longer. Renewed US-China tensions are likely going to be a much bigger driver.

• Kuaishou Technology (1024 HK) will report 4Q2022 and full-year results on 23rd March 2023.
• The company’s livestreaming revenues have made significant progress since 4Q2021 while its domestic business reported an operating profit for the first time in 3Q2022.
• Though the company’s share price has not moved up yet, we think there is further upside to the current share price driven by improved earnings.

• Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. Ltd. (CATL), the world’s largest electric-vehicle (EV) battery-maker, is in talks to offer automakers steeply discounted prices in exchange for sourcing the vast bulk of their power cells from the company in a bid to stave off growing competition from smaller rivals, Caixin has learned.
• If the plan goes ahead, CATL will sell the strategic clients EV batteries made from self-manufactured lithium carbonate at a low price.
• In return, they will be required to sign a contract committing them to buy 80% of their EV batteries from CATL over the next three years, a person close to the company told Caixin on Sunday.

• Devyani International (DEVYANI IN)  has outperformed Jubilant in terms of growth, revenue, and EPS.
• Devyani International (DEVYANI IN)’s focus on KFC and Costa Coffee benefits from the “Dine In” trend, while Jubilant faces increased competition.
• DEVYANI’s plans to double store count and penetrate underrepresented categories justify its premium over Jubilant Foodworks (JUBI IN) .

• The balance sheet is in great shape and could fund a much more aggressive growth strategy (or higher shareholder returns)
• JT lags peers in the higher growth vape & oral markets. Ploom X needs investment to be a global hit. The balance sheet can easily fund both
• Why bullish? The stock is trading cheap and offering a higher yield than its five-year average

At its capital markets day (CMD) Molten Ventures highlighted its successful growth since it listed in 2016, having grown its gross portfolio value by a CAGR of 59% (supported by several capital raises). We note that Molten posted a six-year NAV total return (TR) to end-September 2022 of c 15% pa. Since IPO, Molten has deployed an average £133m in capital per year (excluding secondary investments) and received £452m in total realisation proceeds. Portfolio growth has been underpinned by the 24% pa growth in European venture capital (VC) series A, B and C deal volumes (Molten’s ‘sweet spot’) between 2015 and 2022 (based on PitchBook data).

• Mannkind Corp (MNKD US) has multiple revenue stream, with two marketed products. Flagship drug Afrezza, an inhaled insulin recorded 11% YoY revenue growth to $10.8M in Q3.
• Due to high R&D and SG&A expenses, Mannkind records operating loss. However, gross profit margin is improving, with Afrezza gross margin improving to 81% in 3Q22 from 61% in 3Q21.
• Mannkind’s inhaled clofazimine (MNKD 101) is advancing to Phase 2/3 study for potential treatment of nontuberculous mycobacterial (NTM) lung disease. ~86K people in US are living with NTM lung disease.

Respiri has announced the successful completion of the Michigan Children’s Hospital’s pilot programme assessing the wheezo SAAS (Respiri and partner Access Telehealth) platform. The initial March 2022 agreement enabled pulmonologists to employ wheezo to increase the engagement of paediatric patients with asthma. The hospital will include the wheezo RPM programme in its current standard of care for eligible asthma patients. We expect the paediatric population to be one of the cohorts to find the most utility from the wheezo monitoring protocol (given this population is not always able to self-identify and flag symptoms) and usage feedback from these patients is anticipated to be crucial for Respiri. We also note the Michigan Children’s Hospital is a part of the of the NYSE-listed Tenet Healthcare Corporation (over 60 hospitals across the US) and uptake, if encouraging, can support a broader roll out.

• General Mills continued to outperform the market, in spite of the sharp drop in share price in recent months.
• The company now trades closer to fair value, but weakness in the pet food segment was largely unexpected.
• The drop in volumes is unsettling, but the company now trading closer to a fair value.

• Since our last update in January 2023, Inter Parfums (IPAR) has released its preliminary fourth quarter sales results and there has been more data affirming consumer demand for fragrances
• The reopening of China was earlier than IPAR’s management’s forecasts, which could have a material boost to sales in 2023.
• The addition of Lacoste to the product portfolio remains the catalyst for 2024 sales growth