Sri Lanka's Healthcare Industry: A Futuristic Play that Has Fared Well Amid Recent Economic Setbacks

Hemas Holdings PLC: Safest Bet in Sri Lanka?

Sri Lanka's Healthcare Industry: The Price Is Right

Frontier and emerging markets (Vietnam)

Dylan Waller

Equity Bottom-Up

The relative improvement in Sri Lanka's economic outlook this year will provide support for Sri Lanka's stock market, as the shock of 2016-2017 begins to normalise.  Though consumer sentiment has become worse since 2016, <a href="https://www.smartkarma.com/entities/23635" target="_blank" data-smartkarma-citation="entities:23635">Hemas Holdings (HEMS SL)</a> has been able to outperform based on the following factors: 1) its leading market share for all of its products 2) Its focus on defensive products 3) Its expansion into other market such as Myanmar and Bangladesh 4) strategic acquisitions 5) strong capex for new projects. Consumer: The consumer segment had favourable performance, driven by its continued expansion into Bangladesh, and its acquisition of the country's leading school supplies company ( 40% market share).  Key risks include the fact that consumer sentiment became worse in 2018, which caused consumers to decrease spending and focus on defensive items. 
Healthcare: Revenue growth has been spearheaded by the strong performance of its healthcare segment, which has benefited from government support, its strong existing market share, and its recent decision to expand into Myanmar.  Key risks include consumers switching to the public sector, the poor performance of the Sri Lankan rupee, and price controls on pharmaceutical products. Previous insights related to Hemas Holdings include my recent macro insight (<a href="https://www.smartkarma.com/insights/sri-lanka-economic-update-imf-led-economic-reforms-continue-growth-is-still-lagging-behind-4" target="_blank" data-smartkarma-citation="insights:24508">Sri Lanka Economic Update: IMF Led Economic Reforms Continue/Growth Is Still Lagging Behind 4%</a>) and an insight on the healthcare industry (<a href="https://www.smartkarma.com/insights/sri-lanka-s-healthcare-industry-a-futuristic-play-that-has-fared-well-amid-recent-economic-setbacks" target="_blank" data-smartkarma-citation="insights:24813">Sri Lanka's Healthcare Industry: A Futuristic Play that Has Fared Well Amid Recent Economic Setbacks</a>.  I will provide an overview of some points from these insights, as they both impact the company's stock price performance.

The relative improvement in Sri Lanka's economic outlook this year will provide support for Sri Lanka's stock market, as the shock of 2016-2017 begins to normalise.  Though consumer sentiment has become worse since 2016, Hemas Holdings (HEMS SL) has been able to outperform based on the following factors: 1) its leading market share for all of its products 2) Its focus on defensive products 3) Its expansion into other market such as Myanmar and Bangladesh 4) strategic acquisitions 5) strong capex for new projects.  Consumer: The consumer segment had favourable performance, driven by its continued expansion into Bangladesh, and its acquisition of the country's leading school supplies company ( 40% market share).  Key risks include the fact that consumer sentiment became worse in 2018, which caused consumers to decrease spending and focus on defensive items. 
Healthcare: Revenue growth has been spearheaded by the strong performance of its healthcare segment, which has benefited from government support, its strong existing market share, and its recent decision to expand into Myanmar.  Key risks include consumers switching to the public sector, the poor performance of the Sri Lankan rupee, and price controls on pharmaceutical products.  Previous insights related to Hemas Holdings include my recent macro insight (Sri Lanka Economic Update: IMF Led Economic Reforms Continue/Growth Is Still Lagging Behind 4%) and an insight on the healthcare industry (Sri Lanka's Healthcare Industry: A Futuristic Play that Has Fared Well Amid Recent Economic Setbacks.  I will provide an overview of some points from these insights, as they both impact the company's stock price performance.

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