River Valley Asset Management

10/07/2026

The narrative on AI is moving from the build-out of infra and models to actual monetisation of these investments in the real world. In our newsletter this quarter, we analyse the data on AI spend in the FMCG sector across the world, including food, personal care and household products. This is a sector in which AI spend is becoming a basic requirement, not a competitive advantage.

Specifically, we examined ten top companies in this sector, all of which use AI extensively in core operations, and looked closely at their disclosures to draw inferences. We analysed the impact of AI across two heads: (1) revenue growth, and (2) cost saving. The strategic question is no longer whether AI works in FMCG, but where it creates measurable value.

The aim of our analysis was to gain a big picture view of AI-impact in the FMCG sector as well as company-specific conclusions. We find that the evidence shows a clear asymmetry of near-term benefits and those that are still in the early days of being realized. We present our findings as well as provide the sources and details of each company’s experience and competitive edge.

We observe that the proven, near-term value of AI in this industry is a cost-and-productivity story with three legs, content, R&D speed, and forecasting, reinforced by broad enterprise-productivity gains. The revenue story is real but still in the early days.
https://www.rivervalleyasset.com/ai-investments-in-consumer-businesses-are-the-benefits-showing-up/

09/04/2026

Our newsletter this month covers an interesting stock we exited about two years ago that we have continued to monitor closely. MMYT's stock has declined steeply since the beginning of 2025 and, we believe, is now soldoff beyond what the numbers and its prospects indicate.

In our newsletter we present a full analysis of MMYT, including its business mix, its market shares in various segments and its total addressable market opportunity. We evaluate its compounding growth prospects in the light of growth in the Indian economy and concomitant rise in travel, growing online pe*******on of travel bookings as well as MMYT’s current market dominance. We also point out a growth dynamic playing out in several other categories that the company is in. We address the risks the company faces, including AI, and explain why some of these are overblown in MMYT’s case. Finally, we look at its changing financials and valuation of the stock.

We believe we now have a valuable opportunity to own part of a genuinely good business at a price that reflects the negative mood of the market rather than what the underlying company is worth.
https://www.rivervalleyasset.com/indias-travel-behemoth-makemytrip/

Patterns in early outcomes of various countries’ COVID-19 strategies, specifically India v/s Indonesia. We say take a tortoise’s measured approach

11/03/2026

This month we have conducted an analysis of AVs, specifically robotaxis. While we discuss stock opportunities in this space later in the piece, we intend it as an overall analysis of this sector and its prospects.

We explain why commercialisation of this technology has taken so long and discuss how the software landscape is converging while the hardware and supply chain differences are creating huge cost gaps across geographies. We discuss why the robotaxi business is so compelling and assess the vast total addressable market that players are competing for. We also analyse the changes that have taken place in the regulatory environment.

We enumerate our conclusions on where the opportunities lie in this sector and explain what makes us genuinely excited about this space over a longer-term period.
https://www.rivervalleyasset.com/avs-the-idea-that-was-a-long-time-coming/

Patterns in early outcomes of various countries’ COVID-19 strategies, specifically India v/s Indonesia. We say take a tortoise’s measured approach

26/01/2026

Our fund had its strongest year in absolute terms in 2025 on the back of a strong reset of asset prices in Asia and especially in China, our core market. As we begin a new year, this is a good time to take a wider view of the long-term drivers of China at the macro, industry, regulation and company levels. We believe China’s 5-year plans, sometimes mistakenly regarded as anachronisms carried forward in socialist China, hold valuable indications of long-term changes in the government’s focus areas. In the newsletter this quarter, we explain the reasons why the 5-year plans are a very good source of insights.

This time, we used ChatGPT as a starting point to throw up the salient features of the 13th, 14th and 15th 5-year plans. We then performed a detailed analysis on its output to gain insights into trends and aspects that have been emphasized, de-emphasized or are new areas of emphasis. We identify a few broad trends, such as the material changes in policy since post-Trump America. We also explain in detail (in a list of twelve points) our understanding of the trends in the Chinese government’s focus areas and the implications for investors.

We believe this is a great foundation for investors to base their China portfolio on for the next five years. We identify some of the areas in which investors will have a tailwind in China in the coming years - we will be looking for stocks in all these areas.
https://www.rivervalleyasset.com/the-chinese-5-year-plans-direction-and-strategy-insights-for-investors/

Patterns in early outcomes of various countries’ COVID-19 strategies, specifically India v/s Indonesia. We say take a tortoise’s measured approach

09/10/2025

In our September (Q3) newsletter, I summarise some of the takeaways and insights from a Deep Tech group visit to China in September 2025, to add a layer of understanding to the China investment story.

I discuss humanoid robots and explain how their rapidly improving functionality and open software platforms mean they are moving beyond specialised, industrial-use to having a very large variety of capabilities and wider commercial uses. I explore the deep tech fundamental research happening in China today as well as the hugely impressive manufacturing capabilities now equal to the best in the world and with extremely competitive pricing. The availability of cheap, long-term capital with high risk appetite (both government as well as private) and an infinite supply of good quality engineering talent has enabled China to move fast on all fronts - technology, regulation and business structures.

While China’s technical and manufacturing capabilities are mindboggling, it is important for investors to also keep in mind that competition is cut-throat and omnipresent, due to low entry barriers, so one must tread carefully in picking the winners.
I also make some broader societal observations covering the cost competitiveness of China compared to developing as well as emerging markets, the increasing return home of many highly-qualified overseas Chinese as well as possible opportunities for India.

Our view is that China’s deep tech capabilities would upend the global economic order and this continues to be a big opportunity for investors in this market.
https://www.rivervalleyasset.com/china-deep-tech-trip-a-preview-of-the-future-of-china/

Patterns in early outcomes of various countries’ COVID-19 strategies, specifically India v/s Indonesia. We say take a tortoise’s measured approach

16/07/2025

In our data-rich quarterly, we present a detailed analysis identifying a sector in China which we believe is at a tipping point for strong earnings inflection – the securities sector. The Chinese government has laid the ground, through a series of wide-ranging and sweeping policy announcements in 2024, to re-direct capital from individuals and corporates into financial markets, including equities.

We go into an in-depth explanation of the regulatory announcements that have been made in 2024 in relation to the A-share equity markets. These directly engage capital market participants, including individual investors and the “National Team” (key big institutions of China’s financial system). The aim is to create a wealth effect and a virtuous cycle of further investments and conspicuous consumption in the economy over time and also make financial markets safer and less volatile and to attract long term “patient” investment capital.

To assess the impact of these policy changes, we present our analysis of the starting market conditions – the trends of household asset allocation over time, the growth of the household cash hoard, the low returns from other asset pools, the low institutional investment in the A-share market, etc. We show detailed charts for all of these. We also show the revenue stream data and list the reasons why we believe that, among the various segments in the capital markets, the Chinese securities brokering sector is the one that would most benefit from the changes.

We believe there has been a fundamental shift in a long-term trend line and that this will be a very strong driver of wealth creation through strong equity market returns over the next 5-10 years.
https://www.rivervalleyasset.com/the-tipping-point-chinas-push-to-increase-wealth-through-financial-assets/

16/04/2025

In our quarterly, we examine the bigger reason underlying the tariff and trade reset that the US is attempting. The US trade deficit is just one side of the coin. The other side is the US capital surplus. The ballooning US debt and its debt service load have reached a dangerous level. We believe the debt service cost is approaching a level where the US could be in a debt trap within the next five years. We present the data supporting our observations – the stock of debt and its rising levels, an analysis of the expenses and revenues in the US budget and the projected interest burden by 2030.

We show numerical evidence of lenders moving away from the US by referring to various factors such as central banks’ gold allocation, China’s reducing holdings of US treasuries and the rising share of global trade done in non-USD currencies. We also scrutinize the trend in the spread of borrowing costs of the rest of the world vis-à-vis that of the US and draw conclusions from this.

The ongoing generational change in the structure of global economic and financial interconnections is the new regime in which we will need to construct our portfolio. Our conclusion is that there is a high likelihood of the relative market performance of the 2000-2010 period repeating itself. This was when US markets gave zero returns while the rest of the world (especially EM) gave a double-digit compounding.

Patterns in early outcomes of various countries’ COVID-19 strategies, specifically India v/s Indonesia. We say take a tortoise’s measured approach

23/01/2025

In our newsletter for Q4 2024, we take a closer look at the stark outperformance over the past 10-15 years of the US market compared to the rest of the world, specifically China, India, Europe and Japan. We examine the underlying drivers of this exceptionalism to answer the question of what is the principal predictor of market return and valuation over the medium to long term.

Using Bloomberg data, we conduct a thorough analysis of the five markets over the past 20-year period, based on a set of identified parameters - nominal GDP growth, revenue growth and EPS growth (in USD) – observed against market return and end of period P/E. We present a list of our observations. Each of these markets has a unique profile and we compare their market returns to gain insights on the influence on it of particular factors. Our broad conclusion is that market returns have a strong connection to earnings growth over a longer period of time. Also, markets with strong historic earnings growth tend to steadily re-rate up.

We also analyse the power of the owners of capital by considering and contrasting the corporate profit to GDP ratios in the US and China. We do this in order to assess if the earnings growth trajectories in the two countries could be extrapolated into the future and be shown to be directionally inflecting. Our analysis of these markets shows which could have medium-term returns much below their long-term averages and in which the risk-return is favourable.

23/01/2025

In our newsletter for Q3 2024, we cast the spotlight on an investment space that has been exciting for us – a collection of companies across the world that we classify as growth monopolies. They are in a variety of verticals including travel, accommodation, ride share and delivery. To explore this space further, we present a writeup on Grab, which we believe will be one of these fast-growing profitable monopolies with deep moats.

Grab is a leading super-app in Southeast Asia, operating in over 500 cities across eight countries and offering a wide range of essential services including on-demand and scheduled deliveries of food and groceries, ride-hailing through private cars, taxis, and motorcycles, as well as digital payment solutions, lending, insurance and wealth management. We present a detailed investment thesis on this stock and enumerate the reasons why we are positive on Grab as a leading play in the market it is active in.

Our analysis includes the company’s competitive positioning in Southeast Asia, changes in the Mobility/ Delivery markets, a history of Grab’s growth, fund raise and, now, industry consolidation, its particular focus on profitability, the potential upsides of its financial services business and its valuation. We believe Grab offers an interesting investment opportunity.

Patterns in early outcomes of various countries’ COVID-19 strategies, specifically India v/s Indonesia. We say take a tortoise’s measured approach

18/07/2024

In our newsletter for this quarter, we look at a category of businesses operating across the world that investors have traditionally associated with deep moats and perpetual strength: consumer staples. Some of the old brand leaders in this sector trade at unsustainably high valuations while the long-term structural change in the industry is going unnoticed.

We have looked at the consumer staples sector broadly and included stocks in FMCG, food, sportswear, alcohol, etc. We compared growth across two 10-year time frames - 2003-2013 and 2013-2023 – and across five broad geographies – the U.S., Eurozone, Japan, China and India. Additionally, we looked at growth in revenue, earnings and EPS and compared these to the nominal GDP growth over the same time frame. The conclusion is unequivocal: these businesses have slowed down dramatically. Our data is presented in the newsletter.

We examine the varied reasons for this slowdown including lack of innovation, hollowing out of the middle market and the online revolution and explain how each of these have impacted the former sector leaders. We caution investors to be wary of investing in these old brand leaders based just on their brand strength and growth of the early 2000s.

Patterns in early outcomes of various countries’ COVID-19 strategies, specifically India v/s Indonesia. We say take a tortoise’s measured approach