Hoosik Min of Pine Investment Advisory discussed the value and quality investment opportunity in Korea at Asian Investing Summit 2026. Hoosik also presented four case studies, including Seers Technology (Korea: 458870).

Session summary:

Hoosik Min expects improving ROE across Korean companies as industrial structure and capital-market reforms take hold. The KOSPI rose ~110% from early 2025 to March 2026 (2,400 to 5,052 points). Pine targets businesses with strong cash generation and reinvestment-led growth, run by managements with sound capital allocation, acquired at undervalued or fair prices. Roughly 20-30% of Korean listings recently traded below 1.0x PBR. KOSPI’s ten-year ROE has ranged 6-12%; Hoosik estimates that if ROE reaches 10-15% and OP margin expands to 14-16%, PBR could re-rate from 0.9-1.5x to 1.5-2.5x.

Korea carries real cost-of-equity risks: the North Korean border sits ~50 km from Seoul, chaebol governance opacity in a market just ~2% of global capitalization, and a super-aged demographic with a 0.8 fertility rate. Offsetting factors are accumulating: May 2024 Value-Up guidelines, a July 2025 amendment expanding directors’ duty of loyalty to shareholders, January 2026 treasury-stock disclosure tightening, and pending rules requiring cancellation of treasury stock within one year. Net cash is ~25% of KRX market cap; Samsung Electronics, SK Hynix, and SK announced Q1 2026 buybacks of KRW 15.7, 13.5, and 5.0 trillion, respectively.

Pharma Research (214450), a medical-devices and cosmetics business, is anchored by the Rejuran brand (PN technology IP) in skin beauty. From 2020 to 2025, sales grew ~36% per year, net profit ~46%, and OP margin ran 30-40%; the stock rose 12x to KRW 403,000 at end-2025. After a recent correction, Hoosik views the shares as priced in a low range versus intrinsic value. Management emphasizes cash profits, has trimmed low-margin channels, and pursued small-scale M&A (Healer, Botox) for diversification. Risks include new entrants, compression of the 40% OP margin, and global-expansion costs.

Samyang Foods (003230), a Korean consumer-goods company, has ridden Buldak Ramen through five years of reinvestment-led growth. From 2021 to 2025, revenues grew ~29% per year, net profit ~42%, and OP margin expanded from 10% to 22%; the stock rose 13x to KRW 1,231,000 at end-2025. Exports moved from 10% of sales in 2015 to 80% in 2025. The Miryang factory (2020-2022) delivered operating leverage; a China facility starts in 2027. Global share is 3-4%. Risks include new competitors, trend durability, and a thin second growth engine.

Leeno Industrials (058470) supplies Pin & Socket components for semiconductor test equipment. Over 2011-2025, sales grew ~13% per year and net profit ~16%; the stock rose 35.8x over 15 years to KRW 60,500 at end-2025. By company estimate, Pin share runs 60-70% globally, with end clients including Apple, Qualcomm, TSMC, and Samsung Electronics. A new factory twice the size of the current one begins operations in 2026, extending capacity from customer-specific R&D to mass production. The principal risk is valuation.

Seers Technology (458870) is Hoosik’s newest case — an early-stage medical-equipment company focused on hospital operational efficiency. Consensus expects sales to grow ~78% per year and net profit ~99% over the next two years, with OP margin near 45% in 2026-2027E. Mobiecare (2020) is an AI arrhythmia diagnostic; ThynC (2024), ~90% of revenue, is a Bluetooth bedside monitoring gateway now expanding into the Middle East. Of Korea’s ~700,000 hospital beds, ~300,000 are addressable; ThynC sits near 10% penetration. Risks include low entry barriers, limited domestic TAM, and overseas software-security validation.

Hoosik frames the thesis as “South Korea Investment Season 2” — Season 1 being Warren Buffett’s 2002-2003 Korean purchases at 3-4x P/E after the IMF bailout. Season 2 centers on creative innovation and differentiated business. Capital-heavy industries are restructuring; shipbuilding, defense, and energy infrastructure have shifted from general-purpose to custom-order output, as HBM and server memory have in semiconductors. Korean brands are converting 20-30 years of cultural accumulation — PSY, BTS, Parasite, Squid Game, Han Kang’s 2024 Nobel — into price premium, with cosmetics exports compounding at a 16% CAGR. Hoosik likens the arc to Japan’s Value-Up program 14 years prior.

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About the instructor:

Hoosik (Michael) Min is the CEO of Pine Investment Advisory, based in Seoul, South Korea, a position he has held since August 2010. As a dedicated value investor, his investment philosophy focuses on incremental intrinsic value with sustainable ROE/ROIC. At Pine Investment Advisory, his management team specifically targets companies possessing excellent business structure expansion capabilities alongside unique and sustainable competitive advantages.

Prior to his current leadership role, Mr. Min gained significant experience in the financial sector, serving as a Senior Analyst covering the Tech Sector at Korea Investment & Securities Co., Ltd from March 2004 to May 2007. Before that, he was the Head of Equity Research at TONGYANG Investment & Securities from April 2002 to March 2004. With core expertise in financial services, hedge funds, and general finance, Mr. Min holds an MBA in Finance from the University of Denver’s Daniels College of Business and earned his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from Hankuk University of Foreign Studies.

Omar Malik of Hosking Partners presented his in-depth investment thesis on Hikari Tsushin (Japan: 9435) at Asian Investing Summit 2026.

Thesis summary:

Hikari Tsushin is a Japanese holding company comprising three arms — a core distribution business, a listed equity portfolio, and opportunistic M&A — described by Omar of Hosking Partners as an outlier within corporate Japan. Founded by Yasumitsu Shigeta, who rebuilt the firm after a 99% drawdown in 2000, the group pivoted in 2010 toward in-house recurring-revenue products and a Berkshire-inspired capital-allocation framework. Over 15 years, Hikari has compounded operating profit above 20%, book value and dividends at 17% each, maintained ROE above 16%, and reduced share count by 18%.

The core business distributes essential services — electricity and gas, telecom lines, office water, and smartphone and home-appliance insurance — through roughly 1,000 agency partners housing 20,000 salespeople who sit on agency P&Ls rather than Hikari’s. Reach extends to 1.3 million corporate customers, or 20-30% of all Japanese corporates, and 4 million individuals; group churn runs under 2%. A low fixed-cost base allows Hikari to undercut incumbents and consolidate distressed peers, while a 200% five-year return hurdle on recurring revenue divided by CAC imposes discipline across channels. Outcomes include 30% share in office water, 80% in mobile device insurance, and the #2 position in independent electricity.

The culture — frugality, meritocracy, decentralized capital allocation, and mandatory after-tax share ownership — underpins these advantages. President Wada, who joined out of university, has purchased roughly $100 million of stock personally. Between 2017 and recent years, management borrowed about $6 billion of long-dated Japanese debt near zero rates and deployed it into 500-600 undervalued Japanese equities plus an $800 million Berkshire Class A position (Hikari is the 10th-largest Class A holder). Portfolio cost of ~830 billion yen sits on a $4 billion gain, with an eight-year IRR of 18% versus 11% for TOPIX.

The shares recently traded at roughly 1.5x book — the low end of the range since 2022 despite 17% book CAGR — implying a core EV near 900 billion yen, or 8x reported operating profit and 5x on owner earnings. Management guides to 10% recurring operating-profit CAGR plus another 5% from M&A. On conservative assumptions — 10% core growth, a steady-state 10x terminal multiple, and a 50% portfolio uplift over five years — Omar estimates roughly 100,000 yen per share, implying 150% upside or a ~20% CAGR.

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About the instructor:

Omar Malik is a Portfolio Manager at Hosking Partners, a London-based boutique investment management firm specializing in a capital cycle approach to global equities. Prior to joining Hosking Partners, he served as an equity analyst at Wellington Management. Omar began his career on the buy-side at PIMCO, followed by the graduate programme at M&G Investments. An active voice in the value investing community, he spoke at the 22nd Annual Value Investor Conference in Omaha, Nebraska, and has been notably engaged in corporate governance and active ownership initiatives, particularly concerning Japanese equities. Omar holds a Bachelor’s degree in Philosophy and Economics from the London School of Economics (LSE) and is a CFA charterholder. Outside of his professional endeavors, he enjoys exploring new countries and continuously adding to his reading pile.

Jiro Yasu of Varecs Partners presented his investment thesis on Oro Inc. (Japan: 3983) at Asian Investing Summit 2026.

Thesis summary:

Oro is a Tokyo-listed software company whose high-quality Cloud Solutions ERP franchise is obscured by a struggling Marketing Solutions segment, a cash-heavy balance sheet, and a resulting conglomerate discount. Jiro of VARECS Partners sees an opportunity to own a founder-led Japanese compounder at an attractive price, with catalysts tied to a potential Marketing Solutions divestiture and further capital-allocation improvement. Founders Atsushi Kawata (CEO, 37.67% ownership) and Yasuhisa Hino (17.02% ownership) started the company in 1999 and, per Jiro, engage openly on shareholder-return and portfolio-optimization topics.

Cloud Solutions, which serves project-based businesses such as IT services, system development, advertising, and consulting, contributes 68% of revenue and 94% of operating profit at segment OPM above 40%. FY2025 segment revenue was 5.6B yen and operating profit 2.5B yen, with 10-year revenue and profit CAGRs of 14.9% and 20.8%. Growth is being driven by new customer additions of 80–90 per year against a base of 1,100 clients, rising licenses per client, NRR of 116%, churn of 0.3%, and the January 2023 shift to SaaS-only contracts, which Jiro expects to support further margin expansion. Management targets 4,000 clients against an estimated 44,000 domestic targets.

Marketing Solutions — concentrated on Nissan and Aeon — generated 2.6B yen of revenue but only 0.1B yen of operating profit in FY2025, with a 10-year profit CAGR of negative 5.6%. Jiro believes a sale for 2–3B yen is plausible, removing a visible drag and allowing the market to reprice the Cloud franchise on its own.

Capital allocation has inflected. Net cash has grown from 1B to 10B yen, or 70% of total assets. Buybacks have stepped up from 500M yen in 2024 to 1B yen in 2025 and another 1B yen announced for 2026, with payout exceeding 40% and a 2.5% dividend yield. Jiro believes Oro should distribute more than 100% of profit going forward given the modest capital needs of the business.

Oro recently traded at 6.7x EV/EBITDA and 15.7x P/E, or roughly 10x ex-cash — a discount to Japanese software peers trading at a median 13.5x EV/EBITDA and 23.4x P/E. VARECS’ three-year base case assumes a 7.6x EV/EBIT multiple on FY2028E EBIT of 4.6B yen and a 10% share-count reduction, yielding ~66% upside from a recent 1,900 yen. A spin-off plus multiple expansion to 10x implies 104% upside; combined with a 25% buyback, upside reaches 145%.

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About the instructors:

Jiro Yasu has three decades of investment experience in the Japanese equity markets including at Varecs Partners, First Eagle Investment Management and Daiwa Securities America. As the Representative Director of Varecs Partners, Jiro spearheads the investment firm’s efforts to identify mid-sized listed Japanese companies where corporate value can be realized for all stakeholders by working together with management. Jiro holds a BA in economics with a specialty in econometrics from Keio University.

Peter Kennan of Black Crane Capital presented his investment thesis on G8 Education (Australia: GEM) at Asian Investing Summit 2026.

Thesis summary:

G8 Education is Australia’s largest listed childcare provider, operating ~400 centres with ~36,000 children enrolled across all major states and generating revenue of ~A$950 million. The Australian childcare model is government-supported, with roughly half of fees paid through a cost-share scheme (CCS) that enjoys bipartisan backing. Peter characterises the business as a network of local childcare monopolies within a subsidised system — individual centres are geographically captive assets whose economics are driven almost entirely by utilisation, since pricing is stabilised by regulation and subsidy.

The investment opportunity reflects a cyclical earnings compression, not a structural decline. Over the past twelve to twenty-four months, occupancy has fallen from ~70% to the mid-60s, with spot levels near 54%. Operating EBIT has declined from ~A$115 million in CY24 to ~A$93 million in CY25, and operating NPAT from A$72.4 million to A$59 million. The weakness stems from cost-of-living pressure, work-from-home behaviour, declining birth rates, and new supply that has outpaced demand. Net supply growth is now decelerating, from a peak of 3.9% in Q4 CY24 to 2.7% in Q4 CY25.

Peter argues the structural demand drivers remain intact. Long-term female workforce participation continues to rise, dual-income households face ongoing economic pressure, and government subsidies are firmly embedded. The business is fixed-cost, so a return to even partial utilisation recovery would translate directly into operating leverage. The balance sheet carries minimal financial leverage, although long-term operating leases limit flexibility.

Risks include a more permanent WFH-driven shift in demand, persistently low birth rates, and pockets of structurally impaired centres whose catchment demographics have deteriorated. Regulatory pressure following child-safety incidents is pushing the industry toward video and AI-based monitoring, an area where G8 is working with Intelligent Monitoring Group on rollout.

The shares recently traded at A$0.23, down from A$0.70–0.80 earlier this year (-66.67% YTD), implying a market cap of ~A$177 million. Annualising H2 CY25 EBIT puts the stock at 3–4x depressed earnings, a multiple that discounts further deterioration and permanent impairment. Peter views stabilisation alone as sufficient to earn an acceptable return, with a partial cyclical rebound over a two- to three-year horizon providing the upside.

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About the instructor:

Peter Kennan is the founder of Black Crane Capital a catalyst/activist, deep value investment manager. Black Crane has a strong track record of creating value by actively engaging with under valued listed companies including the successful restructuring turnarounds of Elders, Emeco and MMA Offshore. Prior to founding Black Crane in 2009, Peter was a leading corporate financier with UBS Asia Pacific where he was Head of Asian Industrials Group, a team covering energy, infrastructure, resources, consumer/retail and general industrial companies. Prior to that, Peter was Head of Telecoms and Media for UBS Australia. Before UBS, Peter spent seven years with BP in a variety of engineering and commercial roles.

Hitesh Kumar of Kosha Capital Advisors presented his in-depth investment thesis on Sasken Technologies (India: SASKEN) at Asian Investing Summit 2026.

Thesis summary:

Sasken is a ~$200 million market cap Indian embedded engineering firm with a 30-year heritage turning silicon into intelligent devices. Hitesh frames it as a turnaround building a differentiated “Chip-to-Device” platform — spanning silicon design, embedded software, OS/platform, and device ODM — a combination no Indian ER&D peer matches. The business has absorbed multiple platform cycles (TI OMAP, Symbian, semiconductor consolidation) by investing in R&D and won a Rs 2.76 Bn IP arbitration in FY16. FY26E revenue of Rs 6,980 Mn (+27% YoY) brings organic scale back to the FY09 peak, now on a more diversified book.

The 60x4x3 strategy — grow 60 marquee accounts to $4M+ revenue each within three years — is reshaping the customer mix. Top 2 customer concentration has fallen from 50% in FY09 to 17% in FY25, while $4M+ accounts rose from 1 to 5. Headcount grew 54% between Q2 FY24 and Q3 FY26, temporarily compressing EBITDA margins from 27% to sub-5%; the latest quarters show recovery to 12–17% as utilization normalizes toward 80%.

Two acquisitions totaling ~Rs 400 Cr over 18 months completed the stack. Sasken Silicon (60% for Rs 33 Cr in FY24, led by ex-Qualcomm engineer Dr. Anup Savla) adds custom ASIC, RF/mmWave, and power-management IC capabilities with TSMC/GlobalFoundries/UMC foundry ties. BORQS Technologies ($40M, FY25) contributes end-to-end Android ODM, 130+ patents, and a 200+ member Qualcomm ODC. Combined with Sasken’s existing 100+ member Qualcomm ODC, the merged team engineers >85% of Qualcomm’s chipsets, positioning Sasken to ride Qualcomm’s $45 Bn SDV design-win pipeline, NTN satellite, IoT, and XR.

Corporate governance reads like a large-cap: 75% independent board, fully independent audit committee, zero audit qualifications across FY03–FY25, and a 20-year uninterrupted dividend with ~80% of the FY16 IP windfall returned to owners. Rs 300+ Cr of cash (~15% of market cap) provides downside protection.

The shares recently traded at ~30x FY26E P/E, a depressed-earnings year. On conservative FY28E assumptions — $150M revenue (only 11% CAGR versus recent 30–35% organic growth), services EBITDA at the low end of 14–17% management guidance, and no new ODM wins — EBIT could re-rate 3–4x and ROE (ex-cash) from 3% to ~24%. That implies ~12x FY28E P/E, ~7x EV/EBITDA, and 2.0x P/B versus peer medians of ~20x, ~13x, and 5.8x — a 40–65% discount for a business with visible order-book conversion, Qualcomm entrenchment, and tier-1 governance.

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About the instructor:

Hitesh (Jain) Kumar is a seasoned investor and CFA Charterholder with nearly two decades of experience in the financial and technology sectors. After a decade in corporate roles — including software engineering at Sasken Technologies, credit ratings at CRISIL, and global infrastructure investments at a $150 million hedge fund — he transitioned to fund management. He spent four years as the co-founder of an Indian long-short fund before taking over the management of his family’s equity portfolio. An avid endurance athlete, Hitesh has run nearly 10,000 km in marathons and ultramarathons and is a devoted father.

Huy Nguyen of Sen Capital presented his in-depth investment thesis on PVI Holdings (Vietnam: PVI) at Asian Investing Summit 2026.

Thesis summary:

PVI Holdings is Vietnam’s leading professional non-life insurer, with dominant positions in industrial, energy, and marine P&C segments. Founded in 1996 as PetroVietnam Insurance, the company pivoted to a joint-stock structure in 2011 and attracted German insurance conglomerate Talanx Group as a strategic foreign investor. Talanx now controls roughly 57% of the shares through HDI Global SE (42.4%) and Funderburk Lighthouse (12.6%) and holds a board majority, while Petrolimex retains a 35% stake it is mandated to divest starting in 2026. Huy views PVI as a hybrid model combining German underwriting precision with Vietnamese growth dynamism, and treats it as a core position in the Lotus Asia Selection Fund with a holding horizon beyond five years.

The thesis rests on the power of float applied to Vietnam’s rate and growth environment. Premiums collected upfront against claims paid months or years later generate a capital pool that can be reinvested — the mechanism Warren Buffett exploited at GEICO. Vietnam’s combination of 7%+ GDP growth and elevated rates (5-year government bonds at 3.2%, 10-year at 3.8%) makes this float structurally more valuable than in developed markets. Underlying demand is supported by a 100 million-plus population, a rising middle class, and low P&C penetration, while Vietnam’s anticipated FTSE emerging-market reclassification in Q3 should accelerate corporate risk-management adoption.

Talanx’s governance footprint is central to Huy’s conviction. The German shareholder imported Solvency II discipline into PVI’s asset valuation, risk management, reinsurance, and underwriting, and sends PVI staff to Germany for training. The result is underwriting restraint and avoidance of price wars, reflected in a 5-year average combined ratio below 95%. PVI also operates Vietnam’s only domestic reinsurance capability, which is expanding into Cambodia and select African markets. Huy characterizes Talanx’s treatment of minority shareholders as diligent and trustworthy, with consistent dividend payments that also accrue to the German parent.

Over the next three to five years, Huy identifies four drivers: rising Vietnamese interest rates favoring short-duration P&C portfolios over life insurers; the Petrolimex 35% divestment, which could trigger a Talanx buyout or a re-rating around the transaction price; expansion of the reinsurance franchise backed by Talanx’s technical capabilities; and the build-out of the nascent asset management arm (two funds today) along GEICO/Markel lines. Huy estimates ~15% top-line and bottom-line CAGR, a 3% dividend yield, and total returns of roughly 15% per year.

PVI recently traded at a USD 700 million market cap — mid-cap in Vietnam, small-cap globally — on 14x P/E and 2.5x P/B, with a combined ratio of 95% in 2025 (44% loss ratio, 51% expense ratio). The shares have pulled back more than 25% from their high on Asian market volatility and war-related risk aversion, which Huy characterizes as fair value rather than outright cheap for a long-term entry. 2026E net profit of USD 54 million on net insurance revenue of USD 400 million implies EPS growth of 10–12% YoY.

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About the instructor:

Huy Nguyen is the Fund Manager and founder of the Lotus Asia Selection Fund at Sen Capital. Based in Zurich and Ho Chi Minh City, he focuses on long‑term investments in high‑quality companies with sustainable growth across the Asia‑Pacific region. Alongside his role at Sen Capital, Huy has been a Senior Consultant at Morningstar since October 2011, a position in which he specializes in fund screening and fund selection. Before joining Morningstar, his career included international sales and business development for Daimler AG across many Asian markets, through which he gained deep insights into a wide range of businesses and local cultures. He is fluent in English, Vietnamese, and German.

Kimi Venkataraman and Sidd Thomas of India Intrinsic Value Consultants presented their investment thesis on Lycopodium Ltd (Australia: LYL) at Asian Investing Summit 2026.

Thesis summary:

Lycopodium is a Perth-based engineering and project delivery services firm serving the resources sector, founded in 1992 and listed on the ASX in 2004. Sidd and Kimi describe a 30-plus-year-old business that derives roughly 94% of revenue from miners in gold, copper, lithium, rare earths, uranium, titanium and mineral sands, with no equity raises since listing. The three founders — Rodney Leonard, Michael Caratti and CEO Peter De Leo — remain involved and collectively own about 30% of the equity, aligning management with outside shareholders. Market cap recently stood at about A$530 million (about US$365 million) at a share price of A$13.30.

The core of the thesis rests on Lycopodium’s predominantly EPCM (engineering, procurement and construction management) model, which Sidd and Kimi contrast with the lump-sum EPC model that dominates listed peers. In EPCM, the owner bears cost-overrun risk while Lycopodium earns a cost-plus professional services fee, making the business capital-light, free of balance-sheet exposure, and capable of generating 30%-plus ROE (FY25). Today roughly 80%-plus of revenue sits in EPCM, with the EPC-heavier exposure largely ring-fenced via a 40/60 JV with Monadelphous. Kimi emphasizes a “study-to-EPCM flywheel”: the firm runs 40-plus scoping, PFS, FS and DFS studies at any point, and miners who use Lycopodium for feasibility almost always award it the EPCM, which in turn feeds recurring optimization work. Committed contracts stood at A$415 million with a A$1.3 billion opportunity pipeline as of December 2025.

Competitive strengths include on-time, at-budget delivery track record, two-thirds of revenue from repeat clients, a client list that includes Newmont, Rio Tinto and Anglo American Platinum, and 30-plus years of metallurgical and process data that is not replicable by new entrants. About 57% of FY25 revenue came from Africa, an area of relative strength given few established peers. In 2024, Lycopodium entered the Americas through its acquisition of Argentine firm SAXUM, which management estimates expands its TAM by about 40%. Tailwinds include high gold prices (six-plus active gold EPCM projects), a looming copper deficit driven by the energy transition, and battery-mineral demand (lithium, nickel, graphite, rare earths). The principal risk, as highlighted by the 2013-2017 commodity downturn and reinforced by Kimi, is a mining capex cycle that compresses miners’ access to financing, which historically forced Lycopodium to take on EPC risk and produced its only loss year (FY15).

Revenue grew from A$162 million in FY21 to A$340 million in FY25 (about 20% CAGR), while NPAT grew from A$14 million to A$42 million (about 31% CAGR), with net income margins expanding from 8.8% to peaks of 14.5% before softening to 12.4% in FY25. The balance sheet carries A$79 million of net cash and zero debt. The payout ratio averaged in the high 60s until FY25, when management cut payout to 33% to fund SAXUM — an unusual attribute of a business that has compounded earnings while distributing two-thirds of profits. Over the 20 years since listing, revenue compounded at 8.2%, net income at 10.8%, dividends at 11.3%, and total shareholder return (including dividends reinvested) at 14.9% CAGR.

Kimi and Sidd frame valuation by projecting the past 20-year track record forward 20 years. Starting from a current market cap of A$531 million, they estimate cumulative dividends reinvested at 3% of A$1,795 million, terminal NPAT of A$262 million, and apply a deliberately conservative terminal P/E of 7x (compared with a trailing P/E of about 15x today and peer multiples of 17-40x trailing) for a terminal value of A$1,837 million. Total expected value of A$3,632 million implies an expected return of about 10.1% CAGR over two decades. The shares recently traded at a trailing P/E of 15x against a depressed FY25 earnings base; Kimi notes that low near-term earnings — with FY26 expected roughly flat to FY25 — are precisely what create the current opportunity as feasibility projects convert into EPCM delivery and SAXUM contributes to the Americas pipeline.

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About the instructor:

Krishnaraj (Kimi) Venkataraman serves as a Director of Intrinsic Value Consultants Pte. Ltd., Singapore. He ran multiple investing partnerships in India delivering market beating returns consistently. Kimi started his career with Tata Steel and later Procter & Gamble, turned into an entrepreneur and ran several businesses. The last one, Marketics, was successfully sold to WNS. Kimi has been an investor for more than 30 years. In 2001 he stumbled upon the letters of Warren Buffett and nothing else was needed. Kimi is glad that Mr Buffett does not charge a royalty on returns made from his teachings.

Siddharth (Sidd) Thomas serves as a Partner of India Intrinsic Value Consultants. He founded Beaconsfield Investment Management in 2010. Prior to that he worked as an analyst covering Asian equities at Fairfax Financial Holdings and as an associate analyst at Credit Suisse equity research. Born and raised in Chennai, India, Siddharth completed his bachelor’s of science degree from Purdue University.

Michael Fritzell of Asian Century Stocks presented his in-depth investment thesis on Freee (Japan: 4478) at Asian Investing Summit 2026.

Thesis summary:

Freee is a Japanese cloud-native software platform that functions as a back-office operating system for small and medium-sized enterprises, founded in 2013 by ex-Google executive Daisuke Sasaki and CTO Ryu Yokoji. Often described as the Japanese analogue of Australia’s Xero, Freee began as an accounting tool and has expanded into HR, payroll, tax filing, expense reimbursement, electronic signatures, invoicing, sales management, and a third-party app store with integrations including Rakuten, Amazon, and Line. The platform serves roughly 500,000 businesses and, together with Money Forward, holds about 15% of the Japanese accounting software market, with legacy desktop incumbents such as Yayoi lagging behind. Michael views Freee as the true disruptor because its automated bank and credit card linkages generate entries with minimal manual input, positioning it to take share as Japanese SMEs digitalize from a base of Excel and paper.

The core of Michael’s thesis is that the market has wrongly extrapolated generative-AI commoditization risk onto enterprise SaaS. Japanese software stocks are down sharply, and Freee itself has fallen roughly 30% YTD and about 50% from its 2025 peak, with some Japanese portfolio managers reportedly barred from touching the sector. Michael argues that enterprise systems of record are structurally different from point solutions: AI remains probabilistic and unsuitable for mission-critical accounting work, distribution and trust matter more than raw code, and Freee sits on proprietary transactional data from its half-million customers with more than 1,000 banking and financial integrations that are not replicable by vibe-coded alternatives. Monthly overall churn has declined to 1.1% in 2025 (corporate churn 0.5%, lower than Money Forward’s), and learning costs, limited data migration, and a growing app store bolster the moat.

The growth algorithm has compounded revenues at a 39% CAGR since 2019, driven by a 25% CAGR in paying customers (from 160,000 to about 607,000) and a 9% CAGR in ARPU (to roughly JPY 56,700). With Japanese cloud accounting penetration at only ~25-30%, Michael sees room for penetration to triple toward Australian and US levels, supporting sustained 30% top-line growth. Management has guided to 26% revenue growth in the current fiscal year and has historically beaten its targets, recently posting close to 30%. Share-count dilution is near zero, unlike typical US SaaS peers, so organic growth accrues cleanly to minorities.

Michael believes long-term operating margins can exceed 30% and potentially reach 40%, consistent with Xero at ~55% EBITDA margins in Australia/New Zealand, Fortnox at ~50% EBIT margins in Sweden, and Intuit’s SME segment at ~50%. ARPU of roughly $30-40 per month is low for the value delivered, and modest pricing uplift would convert the existing cost base into substantial leverage, analogous to Netflix’s pricing journey a decade ago. Catalysts include Money Forward’s September 2025 price hike (driving prospects to Freee), Freee’s December 2025 launch of consolidation accounting and manual double-entry bookkeeping (closing the feature gap), and accelerated AI product rollouts led by newly appointed Chief AI Officer Ryu Yokoji, including automated receipt capture, a ChatGPT tax guidance mini-app, an AI website builder, and a business-succession matching tool. Daisuke Sasaki, founder-CEO, is described as serious, non-promotional, and fully focused on building the business.

The shares recently traded at 2.3x EV/Sales, roughly half the multiple of industry peers and meaningfully below Money Forward. Freee is around GAAP breakeven with capitalized software costs, and Japanese retail investors appear to discount the delayed profitability inherent in the SaaS model. On Michael’s numbers, EV/Sales compresses to 2.0x in FY2027, then 1.7x, 1.4x, and 1.2x, with P/E falling below 10x by 2030 as margins scale into management’s long-term 30% operating margin guidance. Using conservative margin and exit-multiple assumptions, Michael arrives at an IRR of about 25%, with no dividend — the return is entirely a function of growth continuing from the guided 26% toward the high teens over several years. Some sell-side targets (Macquarie among them) sit at roughly double the recent share price, consistent with Michael’s view that the current multiple reflects near-term AI disruption fears rather than the underlying economics of a dominant, compounding Japanese SME platform.

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About the instructor:

Michael Fritzell is a Singapore-based analyst and the author of Asian Century Stocks. He has worked as an analyst and co-portfolio manager in Asia for well over a decade.

Rajeev Agrawal of DoorDarshi Advisors presented his in-depth investment thesis on Five-Star Business Finance (India: FIVESTAR) at Asian Investing Summit 2026. Rajeev’s son Rishi participated in this session.

Thesis summary:

Five-Star is an NBFC providing secured loans to small business owners and self-employed individuals in India. The company targets a customer segment lacking formal income, relying on in-house sourcing and surrogate appraisal methods such as lifestyle and asset checks. Loans average 0.4 million rupees and are 100% backed by property collateral, with 95% secured against self-occupied residential property. This focus on underserved borrowers in tier 4-6 towns allows the firm to generate yields near 23% and net interest margins around 16%.

The company has demonstrated a robust financial profile, delivering an ROE of 16.4% and an ROA of 7.3%. AUM grew at a 33% CAGR between FY19 and FY25. Five-Star maintains a CAR of 51.6%, well above the regulatory requirement of 15%, alongside a low D:E ratio of 1.2x. This capital structure positions the firm to fund future growth organically without the need for shareholder dilution. Management plans to drive further expansion by increasing the branch network into adjacent states and gradually raising the average ticket size.

Recently, management purposefully decelerated loan book growth and disbursals to address rising stress and over-leverage in the broader borrower ecosystem. This macro environment caused GNPA to reach 3.2% and NNPA to hit 1.9% in FY26. Rajeev expects these asset quality issues to resolve over the coming quarters, supported by conservative 40% LTV ratios on residential properties. As the macro stress subsides, the firm is prepared to re-accelerate growth, having continued to invest in new branches and personnel.

The shares recently traded at 357 rupees, giving the company a market capitalization of roughly 1.13 billion dollars. At this level, the stock trades at 9.5x trailing earnings and 1.5x book value, which represents a discount to its historical median P/E of 25x and P/B of 4x since its November 2022 listing. Rajeev models a 20% or higher AUM CAGR going forward as asset quality normalizes. Assuming a 13x multiple on FY28 earnings, the valuation could approach 210 billion rupees, suggesting a 37% CAGR over a 2.2-year horizon.

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About the instructor:

Rajeev Agrawal, CFA, is the Founder and Managing Partner at DoorDarshi India Fund. DoorDarshi India Fund is a US-domiciled fund that invests in listed Indian equities. Rajeev looks for compelling opportunities with a growth kicker and run by trustworthy management. Since its inception in April 2021, the fund has outperformed both the S&P 500 and the Indian indices by more than 10%. Prior to starting DoorDarshi, Rajeev was a Technology executive focusing on the Financial Industry. Rajeev has worked with Goldman Sachs, S&P Global, JP Morgan, Bank of America, and Dresdner Bank. Rajeev holds a B.Tech from IIT Bombay and an MBA from IIM Calcutta.