Tag: ipo

On Valuing Zomato, But Don’t Stop There

If you are a student of economics, you should be able to understand the basics of valuation. It is up to each one of us to determine our level of expertise, but at the very least, we should be able to understand valuations that others have arrived at.

And a great way to learn this is to devour, as greedily as possible, every single blog post written by Professor Aswath Damodaran.

Here’s an excerpt from his blogpost on valuing Zomato:

Eating out and prosperity don’t always go hand in hand, but you are more likely to eat out, as your discretionary income rises. Thus, it should come as no surprise that the number of restaurants increases with per capita GDP, and that one reason for the paucity of restaurants(and food delivery) in India is its low GDP, less than a fifth of per capital GDP in China and a fraction of per capital GDP in the US & EU.

http://aswathdamodaran.blogspot.com/2021/07/the-zomato-ipo-bet-on-big-markets-and.html

Read the whole thing, and if it is your first time reading about this topic, read it three times. I’m quite serious! Also download the spreadsheets, and play around with the assumptions in them. It is a great way to teach yourself Excel and valuations at the same time. Excel and valuations is also a great way to understand the concept of complementary goods, and I’m only half joking.

So, ok, you have now got a little bit of a grip on valuation. That’s great, but you shouldn’t stop there. Valuing a company is fine, but how does one think about the valuation of this company (Zomato) in the context of this sector (online food delivery)?

Here are some facts. Zomato raised $1.3 bn through an IPO which was oversubscribed 38 times and which valued it at $14.2 bn. At about the same time, its competitor Swiggy raised $1.25 bn in a Series J fund raise which gave it a post-money valuation of $5.5 bn.
The post-IPO public market price discovery of Zomato shows that Swiggy is 2.6 times under-valued.

https://gulzar05.blogspot.com/2021/07/some-observations-on-zomato-and-swiggy.html

Also from that post, a great way to understand how to start to think about the price one can get in the market. That is, you can learn all the theory you want about valuation, and pricing and what not. At the end of the day, the price you command in the market is about so much more than that:

4. But, if markets stay as frothy as it’s now, Swiggy’s promoters and investors need not worry. Unlike Zomato’s promoters who, judging from the first day pop left huge money on the table, Swiggy’s promoters could rake in much more by pricing its IPO closer to the comparator market price. Swiggy and other could benefit from the later mover advantage.
5. There appears to have been a first mover disadvantage for Zomato in leaving money at the table and not maximising its IPO takings. Conversely there may have been a first mover advantage for its investors in maximising their returns.

https://gulzar05.blogspot.com/2021/07/some-observations-on-zomato-and-swiggy.html

And you shouldn’t stop there either! Valuing a company is fine. Thinking about that company in the context of its competitors is great. Thinking about the IPO rush in the start-up world, and what it means in the context of the overall economy is fantastic.

The Indian startup scene has been set ablaze by the spectacular IPO of Zomato. In a largely conservative market this constitutes a huge collective leap of faith since the company has consistently made increasing losses and several questions hang on its profitability. With some more blockbuster IPOs lined up, the party is likely to go on for some time. Some high-profile boosters even think of it as a new dawn in risk capital raising. The problem is with those left standing when the party ends, as it must. And it’s most likely to be not pretty.

https://gulzar05.blogspot.com/2021/07/the-startup-ipo-bubble-reaches-india.html

The world’s unicorn herd is multiplying at a clip that is more rabbit-like. The number of such firms has grown from a dozen eight years ago to more than 750, worth a combined $2.4trn. In the first six months of 2021 technology startups raised nearly $300bn globally, almost as much as in the whole of 2020. That money helped add 136 new unicorns between April and June alone, a quarterly record, according to cb Insights, a data provider. Compared with the same period last year the number of funding rounds above $100m tripled, to 390. A lot of this helped fatten older members of the herd: all but four of the 34 that now boast valuations of $10bn or more have received new investments since the start of 2020.

https://www.economist.com/business/2021/07/19/technology-unicorns-are-growing-at-a-record-clip

Why is this happening now? Is it because of loose monetary policy the world over? Is it because of optimism about what the world will look like post-covid? Neither, and something else altogether? Or both and something else also? What might the ramifications be? How should that influence your thinking about the next three to five years in your life – when it comes to going abroad to study, or starting an MBA, or being in the job market?

Note the chain of thought in this blogpost: valuing a company, thinking about that specific sector, thinking about IPO’s in general, thinking about the overall economy… and getting all of that back to your life. Apply this to all of the news you read, everyday, and you’ll soon start to build your own little picture of the world. That is, you’ll start to see the world like an economist. And trust me, that is a superpower. 🙂

Links for 13th May, 2019

  1. “There should be limits, too, on the rights investors can sign away. In recent years, some companies — such as Smartsheet and Twilio — have done dual-class issues in which the extra voting rights expire after a certain number of years. These sunset provisions preserve the potential benefits of leaving initial control in the hands of founders, while avoiding the risk of creating a dynastic birthright. That’s a sensible compromise. The Securities and Exchange Commission, or the exchanges it oversees, should make such provisions mandatory.”
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    A very useful article to help understand how to think about IPO’s, Uber, Lyft valuations, mandatory disclosures from firms and how they try to get around the issue – and the excerpt above is yet another example of a favorite adage of mine: the truth always lies in the middle.
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  2. “We find that between 1300 and 1400 a 10 percentage point higher Black Death mortality rate was associated with a 8.7 percentage point fall in city population, but between 100 and 200 years later, the impact of mortality was close to zero. When we examine the spillover and general equilibrium effects of the Black Death on city populations, we similarly find negative effects in the short run, and no effects in the long run. Cities and urban systems, on average, had recovered to their pre-Plague population levels by the 16th century.”
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    A worrying article, especially towards the end, but two major takeaways for me: cities matter, and trade matters. But my major takeaway is there is (yet more) cause for worry.
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  3. “Unfortunately, the world’s most prominent specialists are rarely held accountable for their predictions, so we continue to rely on them even when their track records make clear that we should not. One study compiled a decade of annual dollar-to-euro exchange-rate predictions made by 22 international banks: Barclays, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, and others. Each year, every bank predicted the end-of-year exchange rate. The banks missed every single change of direction in the exchange rate. In six of the 10 years, the true exchange rate fell outside the entire range of all 22 bank forecasts.”
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    Forecasts are useless. I cannot be more serious when I say this. Forecasts are useless. But foxes are better at the impossible then the hedgehogs – this article helps you understand these terms, and their usefulness. This blog is about becoming a better fox!
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  4. “Again, one can argue that the amount of redistribution should be larger. But it would be untrue to argue that a significant amount of redistribution–like doubling the after-taxes-and-transfers share of the lowest quintile–doesn’t already happen. ”
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    The always informative Timothy Taylor on taxes, their composition, their effectiveness and the resulting redistribution in the United States of America. Also, read the book that is reviewed in this article – the entire book is worth your time, but the chapter on income tax is what I was reminded of.
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  5. “When Paul Romer expresses an opinion, it is always worthwhile to listen because it is always well-considered. In an opinion piece in the New York Times, he puts forward a proposal to restore what he terms is the “public commons” of the provision of information in support of democracy. He actually puts forward two linked proposals: one for a target on targeted ads by digital platform companies and a proposal that the tax is progressive (which may be a check on dominance). The latter is interesting but I will just focus on the former here.”
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    I do not recollect if I linked to the Paul Romer piece that is linked to in the excerpt above – in case I did not, please go ahead and read it. The rest of the current article speaks about why Romer’s proposal is a good idea, but not necessarily implementable right away.

Links for 3rd May, 2019

  1. “So in the end what we get for policy to decide is whether the Indian aviation business should comprise large, medium or small oligopolies. If resolved sensibly it yields a solution to the problem of cross-subsidisation: the larger the number of firms, the greater will be the need for intra-firm cross-subsidisation as firms focus on a variant of the Ramsey Rule which says that network firms must maximise revenue instead of profits.This is best achieved via a public monopoly which far from reducing output, raising prices and making excessive profits as monopolies are expected to, can do the opposite just as Air India and Indian Railways do. In short, if we want to avoid a return to public sector transport monopolies, we must decide on the size of the oligopolies in the sector.”
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    A very short article, but an immensely interesting one, talking about airlines, India, monopoly, oligopolies, and regulation and policy in India.
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  2. “All that said, zero is still the best price. I think it’s appropriate for foundations or other funding sources to support a multiplicity of free textbook options. (I’m not looking at you, Bill Gates.) INET has done this with its CORE project, but no one else. I don’t think funding is the whole story, however. Economics needs to regard pedagogy as one of its central missions. This is not only a matter of having more panels about it at the national meetings; there needs to be more disciplinary reward for putting one’s time and energy into the development of strategies and materials for the classroom. This means promotion, prizes and esteem, and it would require a substantial cultural shift. Where to begin? I suspect we have a vicious circle that could well become virtuous. Today we have a bleak landscape of minimal innovation in pedagogy and little institutional recognition for those who do this work. In a world well-populated with innovative experiments in teaching and learning, it would be natural to reward the most successful or even just provocative projects. So again the next step seems to belong to the funders.”
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    A fairly interesting take on textbooks (econ textbooks, to be clear), what they cover, what they should cover, and what the price should be. Meta, but out of necessity.
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  3. “We find that the probability of seeing an outcome within 180 days from the date of admission is less than 5%. However, it picks up once the 180 day deadline is passed. Within 270 days, the chances of case closure are between 10 to 30% depending on the bench and case characteristics (e.g., creditor type). We observe high closure rate just past the 270 day period. Within 360 days of admission, the probability of seeing an outcome is significantly higher (30 to 70%). Quicker outcomes (liquidation or resolution) are observed for resolution proceedings triggered by the debtors themselves. Similarly, proceedings triggered before some benches result in resolutions speedier than those before some others.”
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    On the impact of the IBC on dealing with bankruptcies in India. Visit the link to find a link to a fairly good data-set pertaining to the issue being discussed.
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  4. “So buying shares of an IPO could be rational or irrational depending on your time horizon…and how lucky you are with what happens on the first day of trading.”
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    An interesting analysis on IPO’s and why they tend to be oversubscribed. Fairly well known, I’d say, if you’re a student of finance – but interesting nonetheless.
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  5. “The estimated cost of NYAY is substantial – Rs. 3.6 trillion a year. It would be broadly six times what has been allocated to MNREGA (Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act) in the interim budget presented in February 2019. It is also nearly 13% of total central government expenditure for the fiscal year 2020. It is hard to see how such a large incremental spending programme can be funded through cuts in other expenditure items alone, including non-merit subsidies. That will be a very difficult political economy call, given that non-merit subsidies mostly benefit vocal interest groups. There thus has to be either fiscal expansion or an increase in tax collections. The latter could – but need not – entail higher tax rates. India could be at an inflection point at which its tax-GDP (gross domestic product) ratio begins to grow rapidly, but that is a guess rather than a hard fact. In short, there is ample reason to worry about the fiscal burden of NYAY. ”
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    Niranjan Rajadhakshya on the economic feasibility of NYAY. Students of public finance especially should read this to get a sense of how to judge questions such as the ones put forth in the interview.