Side Notes by Zerodha Varsity

KFC x Crocs, Nike x Ben&Jerry's, Supreme x Oreo, and Comet x Naru are all weird brand collaborations. There are so many more. But are such collabs just marketing stunts or actual business drivers? Zerodha Varsity on Social Media: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/zerodhavarsity/ X: https://x.com/ZerodhaVarsity YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@varsitybyzerodha Disclaimer: The stocks or financia...

Bhushan Steel was among India's largest secondary steelmakers. It rode high on India's infrastructure boom, expanding operations fueled by massive debt. Its growth came to a screeching halt when the promoters and senior officials were accused of multi-thousand-crore accounting fraud involving shell companies, fake invoices, fund diversion, and round-tripping. Zerodha Varsity on Social Media: Insta...

Within just 6-7 months in 2020, Reliance had raised over 20 billion dollars from 13 prominent investors and sold about 33% of its equity Jio Platforms. This was the largest private capital raise by any company in India’s history. Why did such a cash-rich company like Reliance need external capital? Zerodha Varsity on Social Media: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/zerodhavarsity/ X: https://x.c...

Aswath Damodaran called Walmart's acquisition of Flipkart the most expensive facelift in history. He felt Walmart wanted to feel young again by acquiring a modern-age e-commerce company in a developing market. But Walmart is seeing a value that others may seem to ignore. Zerodha Varsity on Social Media: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/zerodhavarsity/ X: https://x.com/ZerodhaVarsity YouTube: h...

L&T wanted to diversify out of infrastructure-related businesses. It was looking for targets. Mindtree was not looking for buyers, but it came on L&T's radar because of VG Sidhartha's struggles at Cafe Coffee Day. Then came a hostile takeover. Zerodha Varsity on Social Media: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/zerodhavarsity/ X: https://x.com/ZerodhaVarsity YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@vars...

Rene Lacoste, a French Tennis prodigy, first wore a crocodile logo on his blazer. After his tennis career, he launched the Lacoste brand of tennis shirts, which, of course, had the signature crocodile logo. Lacoste is known for various shades of solid polos today. Surprisingly, it introduced those shades way back in the 1950s. Zerodha Varsity on Social Media: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/z...

WhatsApp is perhaps the only messaging app in the world that is free and does not display ads when you use it. When Facebook acquired WhatsApp for $19 billion, everybody thought WhatsApp would now start having ads. But it remained independent and had no ads. Even today, WhatsApp does not have any intrusive ads. It has a brilliant way of making money. Zerodha Varsity on Social Media: Instagram: htt...

Tata Steel punched above its weight when it acquired Corus, a UK-based steelmaker, in 2007. It was touted as the coming-of-age for corporate India. However, it soon became a tale of caution. Was it operational challenges or adverse externalities? Zerodha Varsity on Social Media: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/zerodhavarsity/ X: https://x.com/ZerodhaVarsity YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@v...

When you think of Vaseline, the first thing that comes to mind is petroleum jelly. And there is a reason for it. As one of the most recognized personal care products, Vaseline has a very interesting story to tell. Zerodha Varsity on Social Media: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/zerodhavarsity/ X: https://x.com/ZerodhaVarsity YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@varsitybyzerodha Disclaimer: The s...

Mr. Ratan Tata's vision gave birth to the Tata Nano, which the engineers at Tata Motors made a reality. Perhaps some marketing missteps impeded the Nano from attracting customer interest as great as its popularity as the world's cheapest car. But was it just marketing or there were some other issues, too? Zerodha Varsity on Social Media: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/zerodhavarsity/ X: http...

Labubu dolls have single-handedly transformed Pop Mart from a domestic toy retailer in China to a global toy retailer with stores in the most upmarket streets of London, Paris, and Los Angeles, and several countries. Labubu dolls are a fashion accessory, with arguably no utility, but crazy demand. This episode tries to dissect the business of a fad collectible. Zerodha Varsity on Social Media: Ins...

In 1980, two Texas oil billionaires, the Hunt Brothers, tried to corner the global silver market. From secret Swiss accounts and offshore trusts to futures contracts and a full-blown silver mania, their plan sent prices soaring, until it all came crashing down on Silver Thursday.  Zerodha Varsity on Social Media: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/zerodhavarsity/ X: https://x.com/ZerodhaVarsity...

How did replacing soap bars with liquid handwash renew the soap market's business potential? How did Colgate use a simple ad message to renew the toothpaste market's business potential? Zerodha Varsity on Social Media: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/zerodhavarsity/ X: https://x.com/ZerodhaVarsity YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@varsitybyzerodha Disclaimer: The stocks or financial instrumen...

The 100+ year-old Cadbury brand has had multiple owners. Kraft, Mondelez, and Heinz were side actors in this story, and Warren Buffett also made a cameo. Zerodha Varsity on Social Media: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/zerodhavarsity/ X: https://x.com/ZerodhaVarsity YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@varsitybyzerodha Disclaimer: The stocks or financial instruments discussed in this podcast are...

A Hershey's hazelnut chocolate spread is used to make breakfast toasts, for baking cakes and cookies, and as a topping on fruits and desserts. But before reaching your table, the spread traverses through six out of twenty-six countries that participate in Hershey's supply chain. Zerodha Varsity on Social Media: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/zerodhavarsity/ X: https://x.com/ZerodhaVarsity Yo...

Five Gulf countries - Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Oman, and the UAE - used the Indian rupee as a legal tender until the late 1950s and early 1960s. But it became a problem for India. So the RBI introduced the Gulf Rupee, a special edition of the rupee that could be used only in those five countries and not India. But why is it not in circulation today? Zerodha Varsity on Social Media: Instagram: https...

A semiconductor is a small card or chip inside your phone, laptop, smartwatch, or other digital device. That small chip has a value chain that spans thousands of players across many countries. Semiconductors are also seen as a tool of geopolitical influence, therefore, many countries have been rushing to become part of the semiconductor value chain. Zerodha Varsity on Social Media: Instagram: http...

The US extracts oil trapped in hardened shale rocks. The technology used in drilling through shale rocks and extracting oil is difficult and expensive. America's peak capitalism helped make it cheaper and made the US the world's largest oil producer. Zerodha Varsity on Social Media: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/zerodhavarsity/ X: https://x.com/ZerodhaVarsity YouTube: https://www.youtube.co...

Petrol, diesel, natural gas, fertilizers, plastics, rubber, detergents, and fragrances all have origins in crude oil (hydrocarbon) extraction. Crude oil runs deep in our daily lives, so it is understandable that crude oil prices are a major influence on the inflation rate. This episode traverses the entire crude oil value chain and more. Zerodha Varsity on Social Media: Instagram: https://www.inst...

Unlike most companies that aim for maximum capacity utilization, Zara deliberately operates below full capacity and is even willing to ship half-empty trucks or containers. The less-than-optimal capacity utilization means that Zara cannot always offer the lowest prices, but they are competitive enough. Rivals can only scramble to match Zara's agility. Zerodha Varsity on Social Media: Instagram: ht...

LTCM  had four co-founders - Myron Scholes and Robert Merton, who were famous for developing the Black-Scholes-Merton model of deriving option prices, and later also went on to win a Nobel Prize; David Mullins Jr., who served as the Vice Chairman of the US Fed from 1991 to 1994; and John Meriwether, who headed Salomon Brother's bond trading desk when it was caught in a bond auction scandal. After...

Bradley Birkenfeld was an American banker working for UBS in Switzerland. He blew the whistle on how UBS enabled American clients to skirt the tax laws. The investigation that followed forced Switzerland to break its decades-old banking secrecy code to let UBS share client data with the US authorities. Zerodha Varsity on Social Media: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/zerodhavarsity/ X: https:/...

Around the 1990s, Yasuo Hamanaka of Sumitomo Corporation came to control 5% of the world's copper. He used various unscrupulous means, such as fake trades, forged documents, and hoarding, to manipulate global copper prices. Then, a twist came with the resurgence of copper mining in China. Sumitomo lost USD 2.6 billion when the scam was uncovered in 1996.  Zerodha Varsity on Social Media: Instagram...

Salomon Brothers was one of the largest investment banks in the US in the 1970s and 1980s. It was the first bank to sell mortgage-backed securities. The head of the government bond trading desk at Salomon had figured out a way to scam the Fed's treasury auctions. When the scam surfaced, the Fed and the SEC were both determined to bring down Salomon, but Warren Buffett stepped in to help find the c...

Bernie Madoff ran an investment management firm that was not open to all - it was an invite-only club. That is what made it aspirational. Many investors saw it as a sign of status if they got to invest with Madoff. But no one knew that Madoff was not investing their money; he was just running a Ponzi scheme that lost investors a massive $65 billion. How did he pull it off? Zerodha Varsity on Socia...