Simple Investing

As mentioned would share my Trent story so far…

Trent – A company with perennial super high valuations, difficult to catch…but excellent DNA

Around 2005 when I landed on my first job, I did not even know what a Dmat account is, what are shares or even what is investment. Untill next 4-5 years, did not even do a simple FD and spent all I had or money simply lying in savings account.

Trent was around Rs 50 during this time (hovering 30-90 during extreme bull and bear of 2005 to 2010)

Later got married, still had not seen much of Westside nor Star bazaar and neither knew existence of a silently growing retail giant…2012 to 2014

Trent was around Rs 100 during this time

All this time right from 2005 till 2012…the only giant in retail I knew of was Big Bazaar, Pantaloons, Brand Factory, even Central…so it was mostly the Big Bazaar group.

What brought my attention to Trent?

Surprisingly when I think back, it did not start with typical Peter Lynch theory that I admire and even follow – Buy what you see…Here it was more of Track what you read…why I say track is because all the way from 2014 till 2020 – I only tracked Trent!!!

It reminded me of one conversation I had with a close Gujarati friend who happened to be a qualified CA and active stock trader…He used to target stocks with deep value only, the kinds with hidden assets and undiscovered value and used to do really well in those unknown names…One day I mentioned about Trent to him in 2015 when it was still trading at PE of 100+ if I am not wrong. To my surprise he said to just go for it if I had been tracking it since an year…he somehow knew my extreme conservative style back then and my thought process also and hence the advice to take the plunge…

Trent was at Rs 100 back then…I did not take the plunge…

From 2015-16 onwards, I started to see the rise in business & presence of Westside & Star Bazaars…So, after seeing the business progress all the way from 2016 till 2019, it seems finally Track what you read became Buy what you see…if I am not wrong, I took first tracking position in 2019 … thats also because from 2015 – 2019 when Track what you read started transforming to buy what you see…the stock was not giving me any chance to buy as it galloped from 100 to 700+ peak just before Covid crash. I might have taken a tracking position at Rs 500 in 2019.

During the crash, I was very well read about the business, had seen the impacts of their strategy first hand… so made purchases from 2020-2022 at levels of mostly Rs 500 till Rs 1000. Average may be somewhere in between.

What I liked about Trent?

• Tata Group – Long term vision & Ethics
• Noel Tata – Chairman of Trent had a clear differentiated strategy of profitable expansion and not mindless expansion. Probably that’s why the stock was languishing at Rs 50 till 100 for such long time. Those who understood this long term strategy well must have loaded it back then and rest like me, who kind of understood but not confident & immature, would have tracked. Larger souls would have simply bought Page Industries instead.
• Private Label focus without compromising on the quality of Private Labels. (Costco & other such US giants who focused on private labels survived retail cycles better)
• Not only ZARA partnership but the ZARA (or eventually even better) of India – Inventory management in fashion is incomparable.
• Near 2008-09, when many big retailers either perished or came close to perishing, Trent stick to its strategy and survived.
• During Covid crash, when there was a big if on future of brick & mortar retail – Trent wildly expanded!
• The power of unknown – With an excellent group like Tata, the power of unknown is probably on our stride rather than a risk. I would have never known the stupendous rise of Zudio. I am too small to judge that. I can but only trust the group. So, while not denying that unknown is and will always be a risk in investing but in case of Trent, only because of Tata group, it worked favorably so far…

Disc: Invested & Biased. Not a buy/sell recommendation. Post only for academic purposes and learning. I can be wrong in all my assessments. Not eligible to give any advice.