Business Pitfalls – Shanti Overseas (India) Ltd.

Shanti Overseas (India) Ltd. (SOIL) is a microcap (INR 19 crores) based out of Indore, MP. It is a manufacturer of soymeal, refined soybean oil and is also a trader in agri commodities like chana, corn, lentils etc. Shanti’s USP is that it sells non GMO soybean meal to export markets like US and EU. …

City Union Bank Ltd.: Investment Thesis

Sector Unlike businesses that have outgrown the conventional accounting, which has led to large missing chunks of value from their Balance Sheets (land recorded at historical cost, absence of internally generated brand, expensing of brand Ad Spends), banking institutions probably have the most real time Balance sheets. Since a large component of the Asset side …

Disa India Ltd.: Investment Thesis

Disa India Ltd. is a small cap industrial MNC based out of Bangalore. It is a manufacturer of foundry equipment catering to ferrous (iron based) casting industries, which are used in automotive, agriculture and engineering industry. Disa provides complete foundry machines and solutions – integrating its range of moulding machines and sand mixers with combination …

Oriental Carbon & Chemicals Ltd.: Investment Thesis

Oriental Carbon and Chemicals Ltd. (OCCL) is a rubber chemicals company engaged in the manufacture of insoluble sulphur (IS, main product) and sulphuric acid, oleum (by-product). Insoluble sulphur is used as a vulcanizing agent in the production of tyres to improve their elasticity, resilience and tensile strength. Manufacturing insoluble sulphur since 1994, OCCL currently has …

Investing Learnings from 2021

This write up comes very late, as we are nearly at the close of 2nd month of 2022, in the midst of a humanitarian crisis that hopefully ends soon, and hoping against hope our portfolios don’t get nuked. For me, the investing learnings have been immense since Oct 2021, when I started looking at businesses …

Ultramarine & Pigments Ltd.: Investment Thesis

Ultramarine Pigments Ltd. is a chemicals small cap based out of Tamil Nadu and manufactures surfactants (53%) and pigments (37%). The company claims to be world’s 3rd largest manufacturer of ultramarine (blue shaded) pigment. In surfactants, its end user segments are Personal care, construction and fire safety. It also launched its own range of detergents …

MCX Ltd.: Investment Thesis

MCX (Multi Commodity Exchange of India Ltd.) is India’s largest commodity derivatives exchange primarily dealing in non agri commodities – Gold, Silver, Crude Oil, Natural Gas, Copper, Zinc, Nickel etc. It is perhaps a textbook Network Effects business – more participants bring in more liquidity, which further brings in even more participants, thereby perpetuating the …

Voltamp Transformers Ltd: Investment Thesis

Continuing from the previous post, I found Voltamp Transformers Ltd. to be an outlier and decided to study it further. Based in Baroda, the co. is focused on small transformers (upto 22kv) and mainly caters to the industrial segment (90%+ sales). In this post, we take a deep dive into the company.

Ambika Cotton Mills Ltd.: Investment Thesis

While looking at KPR Mills, I had come to a conclusion that a textile mill making yarn was a very risky business considering cotton prices, government policies and the commodity nature of the business. I looked at multiple listed cotton mills in India, and although things more or less corroborated, Ambika Mills was a happy …

CCL Products Ltd.: Investment Thesis – Part 2

CCL Products is world's largest private label B2B coffee manufacturer. please read part 1 first. Part 2 covers expansion forays, risks and open questions.