Kuroto Fund, L.P. - Q2 2010 Letter
Dear Partners and Friends,
PERFORMANCE & PORTFOLIO
Kuroto Fund, L.P. appreciated 4.7% in the quarter ended June 30,
2010. As of August 31, 2010, our fund was up 25.4% for the year-to-date.
Our Asia Portfolio Remains Attractively Valued
Despite rising through the fund’s 2007 high watermark, Kuroto remains attractively valued. Our portfolio is trading at 11.9x this year’s earnings and just 9.5x 2011 estimates. These low multiples are particularly surprising given the proven resilience of the superior, rapidly growing businesses that we own. Even in a year like 2008, our current holdings were able to basically maintain their profitability. In 2008 the look-through earnings of the companies we now own declined just 3%. Moreover, these companies recovered quickly, growing 10% in 2009 and are on track to post 24% earnings growth in 2010. While we realize that the 2010 rate of earnings growth is not sustainable in the long-run, we do expect our Asian holdings to generate earnings growth of close to 20% in 2011.
At times, our portfolio’s combination of low earnings multiples and rapid growth strikes us as almost too good to be true. So, in the interest of intellectual rigor, we thought it a worthwhile exercise to critique the portfolio to the best of our ability. In this spirit, we came up with five serious criticisms. While none of these points holds water, each is worth addressing. The five points are as follows: 1) we are overestimating earnings growth; 2) we have downgraded the quality of the companies we own; 3) the nominal earnings growth of our companies incorporates a substantial amount of inflation; 4) our portfolio is heavily weighted towards financials which should trade at low valuations; and 5) small caps, which tend to trade at a discount, make up a disproportionate fraction of our portfolio. We’ll address each criticism in order.
1) With two thirds of 2010 over, we’re confident that we’re not missing the mark on 2010 earnings by much. Even though we don’t see any indication of second half weakness in Asia, our estimates incorporate second half figures that are conservative given the strength of the first half results. As for 2011—assuming continued economic growth in Asia—we believe our estimates are on the conservative side.
2) Our companies are more profitable, less leveraged, and better managed than they have ever been. The average return on equity of the companies we own is 21%. This compares with an average return on equity of 18.5% for the two years prior to the 2008 crisis. Furthermore, our operating companies have no net debt on average, and our financials are levered just 8.6x on average and just 5.9x on a weighted average. Finally, and most importantly, we continue to place a greater emphasis on management with each passing year. The crisis of 2008 gave us a perfect opportunity to evaluate the managements of our businesses in a high stress environment. Having learned from this real world stress test, we’ve further concentrated our holdings in the best performing managements while selling out of the few companies that made poor decision in the crisis.
3) Approximately 5% of our portfolio’s 24% earnings growth this year can be attributed to inflation. That said, with Asian currencies still so undervalued against the US dollar, we expect these nominal growth rates to translate into equal or even higher US dollar growth rates until such time as Asian currencies revalue upwards. Take the case of Indonesia as an example of this dynamic. Indonesian inflation is running at 6% in comparison to just 1% here in the States. Despite this inflation differential, the Indonesian Rupiah has already appreciated 10% over the last year against the US dollar, a trend which looks likely to continue for now. In the long term, however, we acknowledge that inflation in Asia may pose a risk.
4) 35% of our portfolio is invested in financials, and the financials in our portfolio trade at just 9.7x this year’s earnings. This compares to current year PE of 14.1x for our non-financial holdings. Because of their high financial leverage, financials as a group tend trade at a discount to operating businesses. The financials we own, however, are very well capitalized. In fact, our largest financial position is levered only 2 to 1, assets to equity. This contrasts favorably with the 20 to 1 leverage that is still common for banks in the US. So, while we are heavily invested in financials, we are not taking the risk properly associated with financial businesses in the developed world.
5) The stocks we own that trade less than one million dollars a day trade at 11.2x this year’s earnings while those that trade more than one million dollars a day trade at 12.8x earnings. Clearly there is a tension between liquidity and valuation. When it comes to managing the liquidity of our portfolio, we’ve always erred on the side of caution. 2008 was a true test in this regard. Our portfolio declined by 52% that year and more than 20% of capital was redeemed. Happily, even in that extreme situation, we had ample liquidity to meet these redemption requests.
A brief glance at the average multiples in the Asia region reveals just how exceptional our portfolio is. This gap in multiples is even more impressive given that our holdings are not concentrated in the low multiple, low growth markets. In fact, our largest country weightings are Indonesia and India, two of the most highly valued markets in the region, with the Jakarta Composite Index and the Indian SENSEX respectively trading at 16.4x and 19.0x this year’s earnings. Given the disparity between the multiples of the indexes and the multiple of our holdings, it may become difficult for us to reinvest the capital we generate from sales in our portfolio. While we hope that through diligence and company specific analysis we will continue to uncover great values in the region, we concede that this process will become more and more difficult if valuation levels continue to rise.
Distribution of Securities to the General Partner
In response to potential changes in the taxation of hedge fund General Partner distributions, we are considering taking future redemptions in the form of securities as opposed to cash. We want to assure our limited partners that if we do make in-kind redemptions, we will do so in a way that neither alters the partnership’s portfolio nor impose extra costs on limited partners.
Sincerely,
Sean Fieler
William W. Strong









