Monday morning links
I recommend Noahpinion’s take on the Omicron variant. We don’t know much about it yet, though there are some reports of high transmissibility.
I spent most of last week digging into Hong Kong’s restaurant industry. It suffered a double-whammy from a drop in tourism following the anti-government protests and then from COVID-19. But now, the Hong Kong-mainland China border is finally opening up.
Out of this week’s buybacks and insider buys, Sumitomo Osaka Cement and Bank of Nagoya stand out with their low valuation multiples.
$ = behind a paywall
I wrote a report on Hong Kong fast-food operator Fairwood (52 HK — US$279 million) ($)
Malaysia’s Value Investing Substack on local conglomerate Berjaya (Part 1) (BC MK — US$305 million)
Giles Capital on West Japan Railway (9021 JP — US$10.7 billion)
nipponNugget on Japanese software company Appier (4180 JP — US$1.4 billion)
(Largest new programs as % of market cap; min market cap: US$50m)
Sumitomo Osaka Cement (9%) (5232 JP — US$1.2 billion)
Citizen Watch Company (8%) (7762 JP — US$1.5 billion)
Japan Creative Platform Group (4%) (7814 JP — US$158 million)
Bank of Nagoya (3%) (8522 JP — US$344 million)
Top Engineering Company (2%) (065130 KS — US$103 million)
(Largest over past 7 days; min market cap: US$50m)
CSPC Pharma: US$7.2 million (1093 HK — US$12.7 billion)
Gelex Group: US$5.9 million (GEX VN — US$1.6 billion)
Xinyi Glass: US$5.2 million (868 HK — US$10.2 billion)
Licogi 16: US$3.0 million (LCG VN — US$154 million)
Thai Union Group: US$0.9 million (TU TB — US$2.7 billion)
(estimated reading time) ($ = behind a paywall)
Noahpinion had a decent write-up on what we know about Omicron (10 mins)
An introduction to the global fertilizer market (7 mins)
Richard Aston of CC Japan Income & Growth Fund on Japan’s ongoing corporate governance reforms (4 mins)
Verdad Research on whether Chinese equities are attractive or not (6 mins)
China’s independent directors are quitting en masse after Kangmei Pharma’s directors were fined for signing off fraudulent accounts (2 mins)
Sinocism on the new restrictions imposed on private media companies in China (scroll down) (3 mins)
On the potential introduction of a wealth tax in Singapore (4 mins) ($)
For fun: Seven Taiwan startups on the rise (9 mins)
(listening time)
Russell Napier on his career and the Asian Financial Crisis (53 mins)
Sebastian Mallaby describes his book More Money than God (1:09 hours)
Mike Green: The impact of passive investments on markets (56 mins)
Joe Bauernfreund of AVI Japan Opportunity Trust (July interview) (29 mins)
Matthew Ruber of Australia’s Enlihtan Capital discussing his blend of quantitative and qualitative analysis (48 mins)
Singapore prime minister Lee Hsien Loong on the US-China conflict (20 mins)
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