Investing sometimes is a tight rope walk between what we think might be true based on our outside in knowledge and what the promoters think is true based on their inside out understanding of the opportunity in hand. In investing in small caps the walk become interesting as the companies one is dealing with are low on public information, and often not clear about the opportunity in hand due to their niche business or their rank in the supply chain. To add to the ambiguity, analysts often seek QoQ guidance from these companies, leading to often heartburn and random pump and then dump decisions.
This blog was triggered by one such discussion on a company that overachieved its growth projections by 18 months. The founders are not super communicative, but are very conservative. As investors, we often tend to stick to a number shared by a founder, and when the company over or underachieves that number, we are in unknown waters. Not many sophisticated market estimate studies or projections can help: A) due to the lack of availability of market data for such small niches or B) just too many moving parts in the business for anyone (including the founders) to understand it linearly.
Such a situation triggers two behaviours amongst us, and this note is more a self-reflection:
We think we know this better and start fitting conservative projections and valuation. For me, 4–5 years back, the perfect way to find an entry multiple for such a situation was to project the earnings of the company 3–5 years hence and then back calculate an entry price for a 3x return. Surprisingly enough, that entry price was always 20–30% lower than the current market price, no matter if I do this assessment over a gap of 1–3 years.
We shorten our investment horizon to hedge our risk from such ups and downs in the performance.
What I have realised from such mistakes of selling early or not buying at all is that I was not willing to give time/rope to my winners. This is where the non-quantitative part of investing kicks in. I have tried to counter (still learning) such behaviour by asking myself some questions:
The promoter is more aggressive than you and will find opportunities beyond the current expansion/ product segment to grow over the longer term. In the longer run, great promoters always pleasantly surprise you.
Also ask yourself, given today’s day and age, how can someone small have an insight to his business beyond a 2–3 year horizon. This leads me to ask myself, is this question appropriate for the scale of a business? Can I invest without knowing the answer to my question?
It also sometimes helps to start with a little lower allocation to such companies but not shy away from averaging up as more answers come our way. Have learnt this the right and wrong way, your winners ought to be >15% of your cost allocation over time. Else, stop wasting your time romanticizing that some company in your portfolio became a multi-bagger with a 5% allocation. Or you lost a multi bagger, but you would have only put 5% of your capital in it.
Lastly, a bit of sanity check is the balance sheet prudence. Even during these periods of ups and downs/consolidation, promoters who do not lose their balance sheet prudence, get a much longer rope than those who don’t.