A Hong Kong and OTBT RoW (Off-The-Beaten-Track, Rest of World) exclusive post…

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One of the most amazing things about investing... The attractiveness or ugliness of a stock can be plainly obvious. Even clearly in sight, and yet… hoards of investors simply choose to ignore what is right in front of them. They simply CANNOT see or believe what’s there. Sometimes, it’s even worse. They believe the opposite of what is right in front of them… because of some wild over-hyped narrative, a conspiracy theory, whatever… Kazakhstan is un-investable, China is un-investable, Herbalife is a pyramid scheme. It happens time and time again.

Weight loss products company Herbalife has been suffering from various headwinds ever since the end of the covid pandemic. I see indications that these headwinds are subsiding and even reverting. If they do, then the current sub USD 10 share price is a bargain relative to the USD 2 - 3 EPS.

Last Summer, Herbalife was trading sub-US$10 when I bought them (again), while earning trough EPS of US$2-3. Nobody was interested…

This Thursday, alone, the stock jumped 20% to US$20. A double in less than a year.

The results this week were not spectacular. There was a revenue beat helped by India lowering sales taxes… in response to Trump’s tariff war.

The results did again demonstrate that things are slowly improving for the business… slowly lending more credibility to the debt reduction target, lowering gross debt to US$ 1.4bn (implying net debt of cUS$ 1bn) by the end of 2028. By that time it looks quite likely that Herbalife will do over US$ 300m in free cash flow (just from re-tiring and re-financing 10%+ yielding debt). Imagine when the company just continues to grow sales, … earning 15%+, perhaps 20%+ incremental EBIT-margins on those additional sales… The product innovation journey just seems to be starting here, with the rollout of personalized nutrition offerings, supported by a step-up in digitization (new distributor & consumer apps). Ronaldo is excited by it…

Even after doubling since last summer, the market cap is still only USD 2.2bn. A double digit % FCF yield, just looking 2+ years out, is still a very moderate valuation for a growing staples company with solid returns on invested capital.

What drove the re-rating in Herbalife shares, with a 20% gain on Thursday alone? Was it the news on another Cristiano Ronaldo collaboration?

Was it the gold Olympics medals from another Herbalife athlete, Xandra Velzeboer?

Was it the 2026 guidance with POSITIVE sales growth? Positive sales growth? How is that possible? Wasn’t Herbalife supposed to be a dying company, getting destroyed by the craze for GLP-1 weight loss drugs that can be consumed like candies?

Was it just the slow progression of the company… slowly building credibility in the financial objectives and the (under)valuation of the company? It doesn’t really matter…

What matters is… that this is yet another example that good things can happen while investing in cheap, neglected stocks. All it takes to invest in them, is to read, read, read. Read lots and lots and lots. I had not expected to ever return as a Herbalife shareholder. Luckily, I did go through the effort of reading some transcripts to get/stay up to date on the company. The value was obvious. The narrative was simple; business was stabilizing, and management would reduce debt aggressively. Why was the market still treating this company as if it was going to die? It did not make sense.

All it takes to earn a double or more in investing, is often just…

1. Read, read, read and/or Listen, listen, listen

2. Find obvious value

3. Buy the shares

4. Remain patient.

That’s what is about. I turn loads and loads of rocks, to look for the cheap, ignored ones. Herbalife this week was very gratifying, after a bit of a frustrating start…

That’s one of the toughest things… Hold on to the stock. Remain patient, even when it takes (much) longer for others to see the obvious attractions… for the stock to get a bit of love.

It just happens time and time again. Sometimes Mr. Market picks up on attractive stocks very quickly. Sometimes it takes a bit longer. And of course, sometimes I just get it wrong. 😬😳

I am pretty pleased with the number and quality of some of the (absurd-)cheap and ignored stocks we found thus far… Just a little selection of the stocks I bought and where they are now…

… and the additional beauty is, that almost all of these stock pay considerable divies on the h(istoric purchase) prices. Halyk’s annual divi is now running around US$ 4. That alone provides a tremendous double digit % return CAGR on the investment cost. The company will soon have paid back my entire investment cost.

Another beauty is… that now that larger-cap, former darling stocks have been de-rating for months, sometimes already a few years… I can already smell a new batch of (absurd-)cheap and ignored stocks coming up…

Among the stocks I have been frequently mentioning already, I am slightly surprised about…

• Chinese People Holdings 🏷️; The stock has hardly budged in recent months despite that the company will 🤞🤞🤞 show the best annual profit in years, when it reports next month, … putting the stock at a P/E of perhaps as low as c2x for 2025. And this is a boring gas distributor. Loads of repeating/recurring revenues. AND… the company holds more than 2x its entire market cap in net cash!

Definitely a stock that investors CANNOT see, despite the obvious ABSURD-CHEAP value. Something that investors also still CANNOT see… and is probably a bit more masked from plain sight is the attractiveness of …

• ClearPoint Neuro 🏷️; This medtech company is critical for the success of dozens (perhaps already hundreds) of therapies that are currently being developed to cure neurological diseases like Huntington’s, Parkinson’s, et cetera. ClearPoint is the toll booth to deliver these therapies in the exact right spot in the brain, where the therapy needs to be delivered to be effective. There’s only one FDA-approved drug (for the rare disease, aromatic L-amino acid decarboxylase (AADC) deficiency) on the market right now that can ONLY be delivered with ClearPoint technology (Upstaza from PTC Therapeutics PTCT.us, marketed in the US under the name Kebilidi). By the time that therapies against large disease areas hit the market, ClearPoint will be a much, much larger company.

  Late September, early October 2025, investors suddenly became aware of the tremendous potential of ClearPoint when its biopharma partner/customer, uniQure, announced strong clinical results for its AMT 130 program against Huntington’s Disease.

  

  Sadly, the near tripling of ClearPoint’s share price almost completely reversed upon regulatory unclarity from the side of the FDA.

  That share price correction now provides a wonderful new chance for investors, because…

  There still is a decent chance for an accelerated FDA decision (and approval) timeline for uniQure’s AMT-130 program, after all.

  uniQure has scheduled a Type A meeting to discuss the fate of the AMT-130 program. News about that meeting should be coming out in one of these weeks. Recent developments coming out of the FDA, suggest a rising likelihood that it is going to provide a favorable decision for AMT-130. Case in point, the 2026/02/18 news from Moderna…

  Today we announced that, in response to a prior Refusal-to-File letter, we engaged with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in a Type A meeting and proposed a revised regulatory approach for our investigational seasonal influenza vaccine candidate, mRNA-1010.

  

  After an initial negatively-perceived response from the FDA, Moderna had a constructive Type A meeting to advance its application. Recently there have been several indications that the FDA aims to improve the way innovative new treatments are assessed...

  

  CNBC interview 2026/02/18…

  Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Marty Makary warned that the U.S. is falling behind China in early-stage drug development and called for reforms that could streamline the process for starting trials on new treatments.

  In an interview with CNBC on Wednesday, Makary specifically pointed to three bottlenecks: hospital contracting, ethical reviews and approvals, and the process for submitting and clearing so-called Investigational New Drug applications, which companies submit to test a product in humans.

  The challenge at the moment is that the reforms that FDA Commissioner Makary calls for are creating increased uncertainty among investors about the way the FDA is going to assess therapies that are currently in development. To me, recent developments point to an increased likelihood that uniQure’s AMT-130 program is going to receive a favorable decision by the FDA. The process is just going to be reformed. Peter Mantas has done a phenomenal job in describing this issue, on twitter and substack; Back of the Napkin Bios. You can check this 👉 referral link, if you want to learn more about Peter’s work.

In the next post I will go into more detail on a HK-listed staples company that recently UN-negative-enterprise-valued itself with a highly accretive acquisition. That should lead to a hsd % divi yield.

Conviction Level Meter

Finally, as mentioned in the chat, I did take some profits from the table with Herbalife this week, as I love to retain lots of liquidity for wealth preservation and new opportunities.

Jaminvest resources

Some useful links to key resources on Jaminvest.

• 🏷️ - Financial models/templates/et cetera (f🔐)

• 🏷️ - Hong Kong (sub-)portfolio posts

• 🏷️ - Portfolio posts (f🔐)

• » » - Stock/Company list (2026), alphabetical lists of many of the stocks mentioned

• 🏷️ - Tutorials including Excel sheets

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Always good to listen when great investors, like , share their success formula. Personally, I just hit the Buy-button when I see an absurd-cheap stock of a company operating in an industry and with a business & economic model I feel comfortable with, …especially, when I also see a path towards a juicy dividend yield. That suits me just fine, cuz I am terrible in chasing trains when they have already left the station. Moreover, if I don’t buy right away, I may just forget about an attractive-looking stock altogether. Who knows if I would have bought Halyk Bank sub US$ 12 if I had not bought it before stock sentiment turned more positive. Same with First Pacific around HK$ 3. Acomo sub EUR 18, et cetera… but yeahh…. seeing the consistent HUGE investment returns of Floebertus, his strategy does make a world of sense. The downside of my strategy is that I have been too early on many occasions, diluting returns with ‘dead money’ in my portfolio. C’est la vie.

Going through my list… what stocks fit the Floebertus formula of still being (absurd-)cheap AND demonstrating improving stock momentum?

• Acomo 🏷️; Ideally this boring food company would have stronger growth, but other than that…

  • ✅ Valuation: c10x P/E, 5%+ divi yield

  • ✅ Stock momentum: Just finished the week at a multi-year high

  

  … and who knows, perhaps the bolt-on acquisition strategy will drive the topline growth in a higher gear. On the down-side, dollar weakness is a negative here on the topline development.

• Chinese People Holdings 🏷️; Another boring company (city gas distribution), again lacking strong growth… but there is the profit inflection after years of depressed earnings… and there has been insider buying for about two years now.

  • ✅ Valuation: Absurd-cheap valuation: 2-4x P/E, net cash covers 2x the market cap

  • ✅ Stock momentum: New 2+ year high just over a week ago

  

• Halyk Bank 🏷️; A boring bank stock. Did you discover any theme here? ;-)

  • ✅ Valuation: sub 4x guided earnings for 2026, double digit % divi yield

  • ✅ Stock momentum: Setting all-time highs

  

As I said, personally I don’t like chasing trains that have already left the station. Chinese People Holdings seems very early-days to me, still.

Links, references & more

» Inspur Digital Enterprise Technology

With everybody looking at the slaughtering of data and software stocks, it doesn’t hurt to monitor some interesting names. highlighted $0596.hk - Inspur Digital Enterprise Technology to play one of my favorite themes for Hong Kong stocks; Chinese domestic companies taking share from the foreigners.

From his 2026/01/31 write-up…

Inspur benefits tremendously from China’s push for technology self-reliance, which mandates SOEs to replace international ERP systems such as SAP and Oracle with homegrown alternatives by 2027. The company’s GS Cloud has already replaced SAP in 12 central SOEs, with a pipeline of 30+ pending replacements as of H1 2025, unlocking a multi-billion RMB addressable market and reducing reliance on foreign software vendors.

What I also find fascinating about Inspur is…

The Board proposes the Company to apply to the Companies Registry for re-domiciliation from the Cayman Islands to Hong Kong

… that the company is coming home to Hong Kong. It does not hurt to appease the local authorities. Not sure if this step is also intended to help the qualification process to be included in the Stock Connect program.

Jaminvest resources

Some useful links to key resources on Jaminvest.

• 🏷️ - Financial models/templates/et cetera (f🔐)

• 🏷️ - Hong Kong (sub-)portfolio posts

• 🏷️ - Portfolio posts (f🔐)

• » » - Stock/Company list (2026), alphabetical lists of many of the stocks mentioned

• 🏷️ - Tutorials including Excel sheets

Table of contents

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Quiet periods such as the days around X-mas and New year’s tend to provide some unusual opportunities on the stock markets. Around X-mas 2022, for instance, I noticed an opportunity to buy Autoscope Technologies AATC.us at a steep discount…

A new owner/operator decided that the official stock market listing did not make economic sense anymore for this tiny business. AATC ended its official listing. Consequently, many (institutional) shareholders were obliged to sell. That forced selling - in a very low-trading-liquidity period - provided a wonderful entry point for me.

Share price chart: Autoscope Technologies…

I did not have the problem of not being allowed to hold Over-The-Counter (OTC) stocks, and… I actually rather liked the full-scope of the transition plan for AATC. On top of that, I did not at all mind the proposed dividend - which implied a c14% yield - either.

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In this post, you (amongst others) find some of my notes from looking into bad-performing HK IPO’s, and US staples stocks.

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The encore is that I also wrote some thoughts on Aegon and some more on Herbalife this week. These are “leverage restoration trades”… to be followed by “share cannibalization trades”… 🤞 Not sure if that’s proper English... Anyway, Herbalife used to champion share buybacks… I think it’s fair to say that, given that the share count shrank from 290m to 100m… and it seems likely to me that it will pick up that habit once again in the medium-term.

Chart Herbalife - Diluted weighted average shares outstanding vs Share price…

Aegon has already been in the second stage for a while, doing considerable buybacks… in part funded by business disposals. With the Capital Markets Day next week we will likely get a glimpse on further disposal activity and share buybacks to come. See the post-link a bit further below.

Chart Aegon - Diluted weighted average shares outstanding vs Share price…

Links, references & more

» Shout-out

• Just a gentle SHOUT-OUT to , who is doing wonderful work highlighting absurd-cheap Japanese stocks, like this one…

  Altay Capital - Mostly Value Investing

  Isamu Paint (TYO 4624) - A $43m Double Net Net Automotive Paint Co Trading at 12x P/E with 30 Years of Consistent Profitability

  Read more

  4 months ago · 18 likes · 6 comments · AltayCap

Jam would love to invest in absurd-cheap Japanese stocks… IF ONLY…

1. he was not concerned about the sinking JPY currency (which results from the (?unsustainable?) elevated government debt in combination with a shrinking population?), and

2. the dividend yields (and overall cash distributions to shareholders) would be more juicy.

Yep, I am sorry to say it; Japanese Boards are just too stingy towards shareholders for my taste, and Japan as a country is living to lavishly.

The lavish lifestyle has of course been popular in more countries…

…

» Leverage restoration trades

I wrote a bit about two stocks that fit this description for me…

These particular stocks are Aegon and Herbalife, and you can read about them here…

NB, normally, I would properly link to the author that provided the quote above… but he choose privacy on twitter. So, I kept it anonimous. 🤞

Jaminvest resources

Some useful links to key resources on Jaminvest.

• 🏷️ - Financial models/templates/et cetera (f🔐)

• 🏷️ - Hong Kong (sub-)portfolio posts

• 🏷️ - Portfolio posts (f🔐)

• » » - Stock/Company list, alphabetical lists of many of the stocks mentioned

• 🏷️ - Tutorials including Excel sheets

Table of contents

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This week offered several !!A-MA-ZING!! news days. The most exciting development without a doubt is the progress being made on the front of fighting neurological diseases. Recently, Bayer (‘s subsidiaries) already reported the launch of a Phase III clinical trial against Parkinson’s, and…

… now we also received a wonderful update around Huntington’s disease, which dramatically increased the likelihood of FDA approval for uniQure’s therapy against this disease in the back half of 2026. A phenomenal boost for patients and their loved ones, and… not at all bad for uniQure (up 270%+ for the week) and ClearPoint Neuro (up 70%+ for the week) shareholders either.

EXCITING TIMES! … and that’s not just thanks to the medical advancements being made. There’s still tons and tons of exciting opportunities to go around. This N&I post goes through another couple of examples of that, with amongst others…

• A company benefiting from the Singaporean construction boom trading at less than half its Financial Assets value

• A stock that seems to be getting close to offering very FAT divies again… a strong double digits divi yield potentially, and of cuz…

• The company with massive growth potential, ClearPoint Neuro

.. and since it was a week with GREAT news, this post is a light-hearted one with lots of bad humor…

… especially in the footnotes and fineprint… which are ALWAYS the best.

Ooohhh, and I almost forgot… Did I already mention that HK 第部分 are up +80% in the past two years? What A Week!

Links, references & more

» TRIAL PERIOD NOW AVAILABLE

For a limited time, I brough back the ‘monthly’. If you wanted to do a trial… this is the time.

Join Jam TRIAL

It will only be annual access again, soon. Moreover, Jam will probably do something about the pricing decline of this substack in EUR currency…

Pricing in USD, with a costbase in EUR… Jam is going Europoor.

Jaminvest resources

Some useful links to key resources on Jaminvest.

• 🏷️ - Financial models/templates/et cetera (f🔐)

• 🏷️ - Hong Kong (sub-)portfolio posts

• 🏷️ - Portfolio posts (f🔐)

• » » - Stock/Company list, alphabetical lists of many of the stocks mentioned

• 🏷️ - Tutorials including Excel sheets

Table of contents

Remember; the website version contains an interactive Table of contents accessible on the left side of the screen.

1. Hidden gems

   1. ClearPoint Neuro; A massive growth opportunity

2. HK 第部分

   1. Miscellaneous;

      1. HK-listed firms rush for the 2025/09/30 reporting deadline

      2. Benefit from the Singaporean construction boom and pay only half of Financial Assets Value!

   2. TI Cloud; Did the retail mob just discover it does SaaS + AI?

   3. Tianjin Development; Minority buy-out in the Ports group

3. Odd lots

   1. Gulf Keystone Petroleum; Signs are turning greener for a return to FATter divies

   2. Open Lending; CarMax read-through

4. OTBT RoW

   1. Apollo Food Holdings; kicks off the growth initiatives

5. Footnotes

1. Hidden gems

For newer members on this blog, please find the Hidden gems recap in this 👉 post.

Hidden gems index

1. Hidden gems

   1. ClearPoint Neuro; A massive growth opportunity

Hidden gems

1.b. ClearPoint Neuro 🏷️

• Ticker: $CLPT.us

Just a few days ago, I was writing (again) about the transformational potential for ClearPoint Neuro of FDA approvals of a handful of therapies that seem within two years of a final decision…

The recent significant steps towards getting therapies on the market against Parkinson’s and Huntington’s disease further validates the ClearPoint Neuro delivery platform as THE tollgate that over 60 biopharma partners need to go through to deliver their therapies to patients.

In this analogy above, the driver’s licenses are the FDA licenses for the drug therapies.

Remember: BlueRock Therapeutics and AskBio Inc. are both subsidiaires of EUR 26bn market cap life sciences company, Bayer

Procedure volumes with ClearPoint systems currently still run at below 2,000 annually. These numbers can absolutely explode once a drug hits the market for large patient populations, such as…

It is no wonder that ClearPoint indicates a massive USD 10,000m revenue opportunity, vs only about USD 40m in revenue expectation for this year (2025)…

Should this type of opportunity be worth only a USD 600m market cap?

2. HK 第部分

For newer members on this blog, please find the HK 第部分 recap in this 👉 post.

HK 第部分 index

1. HK 第部分

   1. Miscellaneous;

      1. HK-listed firms rush for the 2025/09/30 reporting deadline

      2. Benefit from the Singaporean construction boom and pay only half of Financial Assets Value!

   2. TI Cloud; Did the retail mob just discover it does SaaS + AI?

   3. Tianjin Development; Minority buy-out in the Ports group

HK 第部分

2.a. Miscellaneous

HK-listed firms are all rushing out at the same time again to meet the 2025/09/30 reporting deadline for the end of 2025/06/30 reporting period.

That causes a slight overload in filings again on HKEX.

As usual you find News & Insights on Jam regulars below, and on others in footnote1. In the footnote section there were a couple of notable new-comers again, amongst which a company benefiting from the Singaporean construction boom. Despite the profit explosion, you can still buy the company’s shares at only about half of the balance sheet riches / Financial Assets Value (FAV)… you know net cash, investments in securities, investment properties, et cetera.

2.b. TI Cloud 🏷️

• Ticker: $2167.hk

• Broker availability: Futubull, IBKR (residents: C/EU/US), Saxo (residents: C/EU/US), Swissquote

TI Cloud is one of the stocks I wrote about in the 2025/09/25 post…

Jam was overrun by a HK retail mob on this one this week…

I guess people figures out, on mass, that TI Cloud is also doing SaaS software… and has a AI AI AI AI AI AI AI solutions! Several other SaaS and AI related (HK) stocks had already been on fire.

Just check the action in Chanjet for instance…

… which got another boost when word came out that the Gaoccheng fund upped its position (also see below). To me TI Cloud looks better atm, both on operating momentum and valuation… but it is a lot smaller and less liquid.

2.c. Tianjin Dev 🏷️ + Tianjin Port Dev

• Ticker: 0882.hk + 3382.hk

• Broker availability: DeGiro, Futubull, IBKR (residents: C/EU/US), Saxo (residents: C/EU/US), Swissquote

Some news around the port operations from Tianjin Development, which it holds through $3382.hk Tianjin Port Development. The latter’s subsidiary will buy out the minority interests in container handling and ancillary services company, Alliance International Co, for RMB 0.7bn.

Tianjin Port Co agreed to acquire from APM Tianjin International Co and PSA China Co… their respective 20% of the equity interest in Alliance International Co (i.e. a total of 40% of the equity interest in Alliance International Co), each at a consideration of approximately RMB361,657,000, representing a total consideration of approximately RMB723,314,000.

Alliance International Co’s financials…

…the audited total and net asset value of Alliance International Co as at 31 December 2024 were approximately RMB1,616.92 million and RMB1,488.97 million respectively

So, I take it that the deal values 100% of Alliance on RMB 1.8bn. That implies deal P/E multiples of 32x and 25x for 2023 and 2024, respectively, and a Price-to-Book multiple of 1.2x…

Interesting valuation multiples, given that parent co. Tianjin Port Development typically trades at only msd to hsd P/E multiples. Imagine seeing Tianjin Development disposing its…

.. checks notes…

… 21% interest in Tianjin Port Development for a 20x(+) P/E multiple.

Aahhh, yes. Sorry, I drifted away for a bit. Anyhow, that would lead to the Tianjin Port stake being worth over HKD 2.5bn for Tianjin Development. That approaches Tianjin Development’s entire HKD 2.8bn market cap.

Sellers:

• APM Tianjin International Co is principally engaged in investment holding, and is a wholly-owned subsidiary of A.P. Moller – Maersk

• PSA China Co is principally engaged in investment holding and is a subsidiary of a container terminal operator, PSA International Pte. Ltd., whose ultimate beneficial owner is Temasek Holdings Pte Ltd., a global investment company incorporated in Singapore whose sole shareholder is the Singapore Minister of Finance.

3. Odd lots

Odd lots (are buy and sell orders that) don't fit precisely into groups (of 100, 500, or 1,000 shares)… ie Odd lots are stocks that I find attractive despite not fitting in my two main buckets; stocks of (potentially) promising quality companies and (absurd-)cheap (high-dividend) stocks.

Odd lots index

1. Odd lots

   1. Gulf Keystone Petroleum; Signs are turning greener for a return to FATter divies

   2. Open Lending; CarMax read-through

Odd lots

3.a. Gulf Keystone Petroleum 🏷️

• Ticker: GKP.L

Several International Oil Companies (“IOCs”) operating in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (“Kurdistan”) announced that they are going to export crude oil via the Iraq-Türkiye Pipeline again.

CEO Jon Harris from Gulf Keystone Petroleum (GKP) said that…

A return to international sales prices will be transformative for the Company’s cash flow while we believe the signed agreements with the KRG (Kurdistan Regional Government) and FGI (Federal Government of Iraq), along with the Production Sharing Contracts, will facilitate long term profitable investment in Kurdistan’s oil and gas reserves, of which the Shaikan Field accounts for a significant portion.

After suspension of crude exports in March 2023, GKP had been confined to selling oil in the local market for USD 27-28 per barrel. Despite the considerable price discount vs Brent - which currently trades around USD 69 - GKP still generated enough free cash flow to offer a msd - hsd % dividend yield, at the current GBP 2.17 share price, along with some share buybacks. GKP’s cost per barrel is incredibly low, enabling it to make handsome amounts of money even at extremely low oil prices.

Imagine watching that free cash flow and dividend explode if/when GKP returns to receiving international market prices for its oil, as opposed to only USD 27-28 per barrel. In the two years before the March 2023 pipeline closure, GKP paid USD 100m and USD 200m in dividends… that would provide quite the return on today’s roughly USD 600m market cap.

Kuddo’s to john on fintwit for the excellent coverage on this situation, under the #GKP ticker amongst others!

Share price chart, 5-year

3.b. Open Lending 🏷️

• Ticker: $LPRO.us

The stock of the car loan underwriting platform with Lenders Protection (credit default insurance) got into slight turbulence (I suppose) due to weak results from second-hand car seller, CarMax KMX for the quarter that ended 2025/08/31.

My guess is that the weakness is more of a specific issue to CarMax, …

… we intentionally slowed buys to balance our inventory with sales. This strategy has worked as both price competitiveness and inventory position have improved since that time and have put us in a better position for the third quarter.

Well, yes. What we’re seeing is that the higher FICO customers, the app volume is down. And that’s a core customer of ours. And really, you’re seeing that kind of -- and Jon, keep me honest on that, you’re probably seeing it probably 600 and above is probably down. Certainly, at the high end, I think the one area that’s maybe not down is probably low FICO, 550 and below.

…than to the health of overall used-car sales, …

Chart: Monthly used-car sales U.S.

… and actually, overall used-car sales recently showed quite the improvement, lately! Hopefully that is a good indicator for September as well. Open Lending’s next reporting quarter is for the months of July, August (which looked strong), as well as September, whereas CarMax just reported quarter was for the months June (which looked very weak), July and August.

In addition, CarMax talked about the weakest areas being amongst the higher-end FICO customers, whereas Open Lending’s strength is with helping credit union lending partners to underwrite car loans for near-prime and non-prime borrowers, or borrowers with a (FICO) credit score between 560 and 699…

From the May 2020 presentation…

From the November 2024 (and June 2023) presentation(s)..

Remember that Open Lending‘s revenue is predominantly driven by (fees related to) newly underwritten loans for used car purchases. The macro environment is important to Open Lending, and so is its ability to access the best-performing carsales outlets. It would be most-helpful to have Open Lending talk about the latter, and hear to what extent it is able to benefit from the growth of faster-growing carsellers, such as Carvana CVNA, which have been considerably outgrowing CarMax for about a year now…

Do remember, that Q3 will be another quarter of tightened underwriting criteria for Open Lending. Therefore, the management guidance already reflected that headwind. The strengthening of the overall used-car sales trend, on the other hand, was probably not (completely) reflected in the Q3 guidance yet. That guidance was given on 2025/08/06.

In case you have bought and financed your car via Carvana, remember that you can re-finance the car loan to a much cheaper rate via Open Lending(’s credit union lending partners), in just a few days…

Example 1 …

Example 2 …

As far as I am aware of Open Lending does not have a direct relationship with Carvana…

… but perhaps something changed in the meantime. These comments were from 2021/12/06, and confirmed that…

…a lot of those applications (of the newer car financing intermediaries) end up coming through the refinance channels that we alluded to earlier. So I think we’re already seeing a number of those.

I would encourage the Open Lending team to make another push to partner up with the fastest-growing used car sellers and financing intermediaries.

4. OTBT RoW

Off-The-Beaten-Track, Rest of World stocks >> >> >> ie, outside Hong Kong, Europe, Canada, and the U.S.

OTBT RoW Index

1. OTBT ROW

   1. Apollo Food Holdings; kicks of the growth initiatives

OTBT RoW

4.a. Apollo Food Holdings 🏷️

• Ticker: $6432.kl / $APOLLO

• Broker availability: DeGiro, Futubull, IBKR (residents: C/EU/US), Saxo (residents: C/EU/US), Swissquote

The key highlight to the FY 2026Q1 results from Malaysian chocolate brand Apollo was the (start of) implementation(s) of the revitalization efforts under the new controlling owner/operator…

…our business is also undergoing a transitionary phase on the local front as we continue to strengthen our distribution model by reconfiguring our distribution network in partnership with robust and agile distributors aligned with our long-term growth strategy. Although this transition has resulted in challenges for our domestic sales this quarter, we are confident it will deliver enduring advantages over time, with preliminary indicators already demonstrating encouraging momentum. This strategic realignment of our distribution approach is essential to fuel long-term growth and enabling broader market penetration.

…we are enhancing brand visibility and relevance through refreshed marketing campaigns, deeper engagement with the next generation of consumers, and the launch of our Apollo 2.0 product range. With new capacity coming online in the next financial year, these initiatives will enable us to meet growing demand and capture new opportunities.

Execution by the family that also managed the succesful expansion of the Baskin-Robbins ice cream brand in Malaysia and Singapore will be a key performance driver for Apollo.

There is likely going to be some near-term results pressure from the step up in growth investments, as was very evident this quarter. This quarter also included a headwind from Apollo’s primary Indonesian distributor front-loading purchases last quarter, ahead of higher pricing.

5. Footnotes

Links, references & more

» Kurdistan and Iraq exposure anyone?

Jam thinks that he is brave enough… investing in the Caucasus and Central Asia.

Some smart investors on fintwit have been taking courage to a whole other level. They brought up the idea of going even further off-the-beaten-track, to places like Kurdistan and Iraq... and some even to the Ukraine.

I must admit Gulf Keystone Petroleum $GKP.L does look interesting. On rough numbers from the halfyear report, I understand that the oil producer in Kurdistan/Iraq can already generate a very solid FCF-yield and dividend yield selling oil at heavily discounted prices, and…

… IF as reported / rumored (again and again, and very recently once again), the authorities in the region allow the pipeline to re-open, then those figures could increase multi-fold. After all, re-opening of the pipeline will allow a regular export route and selling oil at much higher prices.

A very interesting situation indeed! Just beware of the challenges of the region, including recent drone attacks, challenging politics, payment issues, etc., etc.…

Twitter does make for a great resource to learn more about the situation… and I also enjoyed the overview in the substack (preview) from from 2024/07/01.

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» Philippine readers?

Philippines readers, if you have some time to spare. Please fill us/me in whether there is any read-across from this youtube video - on the Philippine chocolate business from Ethan Kyle Lim - for Apollo Food Holdings and Delfi.

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