Investors should look beyond the so-called “Big Seven” and identify “national winners” in technology outside the United States, a hedge fund manager says. Beeneet Kothari, CEO and chief portfolio manager of Tekne Capital Management, a US-based hedge fund, said that global technology stocks are also good investment targets at the moment. “Our view is that every major economy in the world has a series of seven companies that you can buy for a fraction of the price,” he told CNBC Pro earlier this month. In recent years, the top seven stocks — — Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta Platforms, Microsoft, Nvidia and Tesla — have been dominating investor interest in technology stocks. Their popularity is reflected in their returns: The group is up more than 40% year to date and more than 60% over the past 12 months. But Kothari, who manages about $1.2 billion in assets, said he is looking for technology companies that “operate the way Silicon Valley companies do.” “You want to find companies that are focused on what’s happening in artificial intelligence, have … the right engineers who can develop semiconductor chips and so on,” he added. One of the stocks Kaspi Kothari is betting on is Kazakh-based fintech company Kaspi. The payments and fintech market operator is listed on the Kazakhstan Stock Exchange and trades in the United States as American Depositary Receipts under the ticker KSPI. “They are the largest fintech company in Kazakhstan, growing 25% a year,” he said of the $15 billion company. He said metrics he likes about the company include strong profits, a clean balance sheet, a cheap valuation and the fact that it “makes money.” Kothari’s comments came after Kaspi’s third-quarter revenue rose 28% year-on-year to 650 billion Kazakh tenge ($1.34 billion), thanks to the strength of its payments platform and market. Net profit increased by 18% to 275 billion Kazakh tenge. Going forward, the company expects stronger revenue across platforms in its full-year results. Its shares are up about 25% so far this year. They currently trade at about 11 times forward earnings, according to FactSet data. “We didn’t initially set our sights on Kazakhstan. But we found that Kaspi was a company that would have a P/E ratio of 30 to 50 times in Silicon Valley,” Kothari said.
Fund managers name lesser-known global tech stocks | Real Time Headlines
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