Kuroto Fund, L.P. - Q1 2005 Letter
Dear Partners and Friends,
Kuroto Closes to Existing Investors, July 1
As discussed in previous letters, Kuroto Fund will no longer accept capital contributions from new or existing partners after our quarterly opening of July 1, 2005.
Asia’s Retail Financial Businesses
In the six years since the Asian Crisis, much of Asia’s financial system has been restructured. Despite that restructuring, which has been generally successful, valuations of Asian financial businesses remain undemanding. More importantly for discriminating stock pickers, markets have barely begun to make appropriate qualitative distinctions among financial companies. For example, defensible franchises are often valued similarly to commodity-like businesses, and inadequate premiums are being paid for financial businesses with demonstrably superior management teams. Over the past few years, Kuroto has assembled a collection of outstanding insurance companies, brokers, investment managers and lending institutions. As of the writing of this letter, approximately twenty-eight percent of our portfolio is invested in financial companies.
One of the more constructive changes to emerge from the Asian banking calamity of the late 1990's was a new found focus on return on invested capital. Bankers, now paying more attention to measures of their own profitability, are developing an appreciation for the economics of consumer finance. Consumer lending can provide banks with highly profitable, low-risk growth, provided the banks can make reasonable assessments of an individual’s creditworthiness (a big caveat). Prior to the recent reforms, the Asian consumer was systematically denied credit. Consequently, the still unlevered consumer is a good credit risk as well as a potential source of sustained credit demand for many years to come. Furthermore, Asian bank balance sheets have substantial excess capacity. From both a capital adequacy and a liquidity (loan/deposit ratio) perspective, these lenders are ideally positioned to take advantage of the consumer finance opportunity.
India’s government controlled banks represent an excellent case in point of the improvements wrought by financial sector reform. Historically, the vast majority of these lenders were essentially in the business of funding large nationally owned corporations and government deficits. Credit analysis was almost non-existent and political corruption rampant. These institutions regularly suffered from unmanageable duration mismatches, out of control expense ratios, and huge non-performing loans. In recent years, much has changed. Symptomatic of the new attitude toward banking is the recent legalization of employee stock options--a significant step forward in the alignment of the interests of shareholders and management. As bank managements make their banks more meritocratic, their lending culture and operating efficiency are also improving. In sum, India’s public sector banks have gone from tragic to tolerable.
Progressing from tolerable to well run, Indian privately owned finance companies are perhaps best positioned to take advantage of the coming growth in consumer credit. Many already have the systems and culture necessary to properly underwrite this type of credit as well as the foresight and flexibility to introduce products individuals demand. In other words, they are developing valuable consumer franchises in a market that is growing at thirty percent a year. Despite several years of rapid growth, consumer lending still represents less than a quarter of overall system lending, and mortgage debt equals just a few percentage points of GDP. Insurance and other retail financial service products are expanding even faster than consumer lending.
Retail financial businesses are one of the best ways to participate in Asia’s economic progress. With modest multiples and rapidly progressing earnings, we believe this industry will provide excellent risk-adjusted returns going forward. By owning the best managed and most profitable firms within this industry, we expect to do significantly better than the industry as a whole.
Sincerely,
Sean Fieler
William W. Strong











