The Battle of Dragons – Recent Acquisitions and Investments in China amid the Rivalry between Alibaba and Tencent

Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. (NYSE:BABA) – market cap as of 20/04/2018: $462.0bn Tencent Holdings Ltd. (HKG:0700) – market cap as of 20/04/2018: HK$3,780bn Introduction The first two weeks of April 2018 have seen a string of aggressive acquisitions and the announcement of financing rounds by companies backed by the Chinese Read more…

Transaction cleared: consolidation trend in the Payments Processing sector

Introduction The payment processing industry has witnessed sincere interest from strategic and financial investors. Low barriers to entry have enabled newcomers to quickly establish themselves and net high valuation multiples. As a result, the sector is currently highly fragmented and presents good consolidation opportunities. What do we mean by Payment Read more…

The future of gold: the full hedge role is at risk

Historically, correlation among different risky assets has increased during periods of financial crisis: losses in one market spread to others, thus creating “contagion”. The increased correlation phenomenon is confirmed by our previous analysis on the topic (https://bsic.it/new-old-high-correlation/). Furthermore, there is also the so-called “flight to quality”, meaning that investors move Read more…

Ferrari: too fast outside the circuit?

[edmc id= 3236]Download here the Ferrari Pitch[/edmc] After having covered the IPO of Ferrari (https://bsic.it/wanna-flawless-ferrari-52-now-feasible/) in detail a couple of weeks ago, we are now trying to identify RACE’s market positioning in terms of multiples. The structure of the analysis is as follows: firstly, we plot Ferrari’s positioning against major automakers Read more…