10 Comments

Great work Ilya. The company's extensive focus on customers really reminds me of Amazon and the way Bezos ran the company with customers in mind rather than competitors. I just wonder weather you see the ecosystem around Kaspi as a win,win ecosystem, focusing on alignment with merchants and partners? as according to Ron Adner is the reason behind the succes of Amazon Marketplace.

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Yeah, Lomtadze is perhaps a Bezos student. There are so much resemblances.

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Reading your article here in the US. I am an investor doing research on Kaspi from the US since they listed in Nasdaq this year. Great writing and very informative. I know it's hard but I wish there are more coverage about the risk. Even at the current level about $120 per share, the valuation is still absurd using your term. So really nothing I worried about that in terms of valuation. I also have full respect with Mr. Lomtadze and all his execution and everything he and his team has accomplished. However, the specific risk I wish to learn and get some input from someone in the region is - what could permanently kill a company like Kaspi, and how likely these thing would happen and why. That is the only question I think about when putting my own and my investor's money into Kaspi stock. I know it's very hard to predict these small likelihood events but I think they will be very valuable. Ilya, if you can share some of your thoughts, I would appreciate that.

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Hi, great write up and interesting read. I like the business too and think it is very undervalued and pricing in a lot of downside risk. I am just interested in understanding why it might be trading at a premium locally vs on the LSE? Is it due to low liquidity on the local market maybe?

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Hi Nicolaas, thank you for reading! KASE is generally very illiquid with few options/ companies trading on the exchange -- so that's probably why. I there are only around 250 listed companies so local investors don't have much choice and Kaspi is likely a very popular pick. That's just my guess though.

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Ok, thanks Ilya

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Much appreciate the sharing, very interesting idea. How do you think of the FX risk given the KZT lost c. 2/3 of its value vs. USD?

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Hello, thank for reading. KZT has actually done fairly well in light of everything that's happened this year, and it's back to (I think) around 420-430. I'm guessing you are talking about KZT-USD over the long-term, and there's really nothing the country can do about that. As mentioned, KZT is closely tied to the RUB so the currency has been taking hit after hit along with the ruble. I'd like to think that KZT can stay in the 415-430 range, but you never know. Kaspi's growth should more than offset the currency risk, however, so I wouldn't worry about it too much.

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What a great analysis! Congratulations.

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Excellent write up

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