GP Bullhound's weekly review of the latest news on the public market.
GP Bullhound
GP Bullhound is a software advisory and investment firm supported by 120 employees across 13 offices globally.
This week’s update includes more June monthly data points from Taiwan, some early Q2 reports and an update on the Microsoft/Activision deal.
Market:?The better-than-expected data (lower than anticipated inflation pressure) in this week’s US CPI report has driven down interest rates which have in turn driven up tech stocks.?
Portfolio:?We sold our small position in Disney this week, having reduced it significantly after last year’s Q3 results. We continue to think Streaming remains a tough business and Iger’s efforts to roll back the elevated levels of spend on commodity content will take time. We see better opportunities for capital elsewhere.?
Salesforce price hikes – AI monetisation finally happening in enterprise software
“Salesforce’s last list price increase was seven years ago, and since then the company has delivered 22 new releases, thousands of new features – including recent generative AI innovations... Nearly every company in the world right now is exploring how generative AI can help drive efficiency and productivity for their business.”
Portfolio view:?The question for us when thinking about software and AI has been?when and if AI starts to be a meaningful revenue generator for software companies, rather than the current cost of doing business. Salesforce price hikes are a helpful sign. We ultimately think AI will lead to more consolidation of spend in the space, and those “platform-like” software businesses (we own Microsoft, ServiceNow, Salesforce, Workday and Adobe)?are the best positioned both from a scale of investment and from a product set perspective (with an ability to leverage AI tools across a broad product suite) to both implement AI features?and charge for them?(or, like Salesforce, use them as a justification for price increases).
We would note that nothing is for free –?all these businesses will likely need to either up capex to build out their own infrastructure, or buy AI compute capacity from cloud providers, which we’ll likely see impact their gross margin. In the context of their existing businesses, AI is still small, so we’re not seeing that yet, but it’s something to watch, and key for us in the portfolio are those businesses that?can generate a meaningful and sustainable return on invested capital from those AI investments.?
TSMC’s June numbers indicate Apple switch ongoing
Portfolio view:?As it relates to TSMC/Nvidia we think we’ll start to see volumes ramp again through the year – as a reminder Nvidia’s Q2 guidance covers May/June/July and our above-consensus view relates to Q3/Q4 volumes.?
Consumer/PC weak – inventories clearing but little signs of real underlying demand recovery
Portfolio view: We don’t own any of these consumer-end-market semi-suppliers.?While we’re seeing signs of light at the end of the tunnel in the consumer semis inventory correction (likely Q2), the reality is that consumer-exposed semis will still struggle to perform if consumer end demand remains weak?(and where China remains a big factor – note that both import and export data this week were weak, down 12% yr/yr and 7% yr/yr respectively in June).?
China auto production numbers for June reflect the strong shipments data
Portfolio view: In contrast to consumer semis,?we do still like exposure to auto semis given the strength in demand coming from the EV shift?(where the power semi-content increase is significant) – we own Infineon and NXP.?
More signs of DRAM price stabilisation
Portfolio view: This memory downturn is the worst the market has seen in over 10 years. While much of this is the result of extraordinary circumstances (pandemic, inflation), some of it is also the nature of the industry –?we don’t own any memory players in the portfolio as the commoditised nature and reliance on each player staying rational on supply means that for us it doesn’t match our sustainable return on invested capital process. Pricing stabilisation is, however, helpful in the portfolio to the extent that falling memory prices are not conducive to high levels of memory capex (and we own LAM Research, which is particularly exposed).?
Indian IT services broadly weak – Macro uncertainty pressuring ad budgets?
“All around us in almost every industry, we see businesses that have been reducing discretionary spend in response to the weaker macro environment.”
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Portfolio view:?We don’t own any IT services/consultants and see them as late-cycle with spending having?held up remarkably well through 2022 and now starting to come under pressure?– it certainly isn’t clear whether H2 will mark any significant recovery over the weak H1.?
“How much can we say we’re spending on AI before I go for summer holidays?”
Portfolio view:?The world is spending on AI. KMPG and Wipro’s spending translates into capacity and capex for Microsoft/hyperscalers,?which in turn translates into spend on chips?(Nvidia, AMD – which we own). We said in last quarter’s results that Microsoft looked to be gaining share thanks to its?OpenAI partnership and innovations around Copilot – let’s see if that share gain continues in Q2 results.?
Microsoft/Activision – back on?
Portfolio view:?We own Microsoft, though the gaming business remains a small part of the overall (because, as we say above, Sony dominates consoles and Xbox was a business that never got going), and the outcome of the case isn’t really a factor in our thesis.?We think cloud gaming as an alternative business model (effectively subscription is interesting?though – and it could well be Microsoft’s opportunity to build a big consumer business (which again, it has failed to do with Xbox).?
More broadly, Microsoft/Activision approval and Broadcom’s EU approval this week (it is still waiting FTC and UK CMA) is positive as it relates to going against the “stop big tech from buying anything” political rhetoric?that seems to have been in place over the last several years (we think it’s for sure right to challenge and think carefully about a $2.5tn company’s $75bn acquisition, but to blanketly not allow any deals feels overly simplified).
Semicap orders recovering?
Portfolio view:?We don’t own the three companies above but we are exposed to the semicap equipment space with positions in ASML, Applied Materials, LAM Research and KLA. Expectations for spend have come down significantly this year and we continue to think orders will hold up better than the market expects,?and indeed this quarter we might start to see some early signs of AI-related demand feeding into order books?(as per Camtek’s comments).
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About GP Bullhound
GP Bullhound is a leading technology advisory and investment firm, providing transaction advice and capital to the world’s best entrepreneurs and founders. Founded in 1999 in London and Menlo Park, the firm today has 14 offices spanning Europe, the US and Asia. For more information, please visit?www.gpbullhound.com.