2023
January
In January, we started a research trip to Latin America to meet with the CEOs of over a dozen companies in Mexico, Colombia and Chile, and undertake multiple site visits to assess their assets and operations.
Our first rendezvous was with our second-largest portfolio holding, a $4b regional commercial bank in the Mexican state of Guanajuato whose stock price increased by 73% since we invested in July 2022. We spent an entire day with the bank’s executive team and had 5 meetings (one-on-one with the CEO; executive team lunch; meetings with the digital transformation, SME, and agriculture teams) as well as two site visits. We toured the bank’s headquarters in Leon and were impressed by the employee amenities: free on-site childcare, affordable cantine, petting zoo, recreation rooms. Guided by the ex-governor of Guanajuato and ex-mayor of Leon, we also visited an industrial park in the logistically advantaged state of Guanajuato and witnessed the massive “nearshoring” unfolding in Mexico as many major global conglomerates are building new plants or relocating production facilities from Asia to Mexico. Our bank benefits from this nearshoring trend – on top of its stellar organic growth through digital initiatives – and conservatively guides its 2023 earnings growth at over 30%, all at a valuation of only 10x LTM P/E.
We continue our trip and will provide another update next month.
February
In February, we finished our trip to Latin America, meeting over a dozen companies in Mexico, Colombia and Chile.
This month, the world witnessed a tragic earthquake in southeastern Turkey. Our fund owns four portfolio companies in Turkey, and right after the earthquake we reached out to all four to express our condolences and asked if there was any impact on their operations. We were relieved to learn that besides one portfolio company which had to close 5 shops out of 118 (representing only 1% of its annual sales) there was no impact on our holdings as they largely operate in Istanbul and globally, and from February 6th (earthquake date) to the end of the month they all had positive returns of up to 7%.
To avoid a panic sell-off and to boost stock prices, Turkish capital markets authorities and the government implemented a highly substantial support package: the stock market was closed for trading for 5 days; pension funds were mandated to increase their exposure to Turkish equities from 10% to 30%; a special government fund was set up to buy Turkish stocks; tax waivers on share buybacks were enacted (which led to dozens of companies buying back shares); and short selling was banned on dozens of stocks. This effectively helped calm the panic in the market. We believe the government will continue doing whatever it takes to support equities this election year.