South Asia Investor Review

Pakistan will soon be starting its first professional sports league along the lines of for-profit sports leagues like Major League Baseball (MLB) or  National Football League (NFL)  in the United States.  India's  IPL (Indian Premier League)  was the first such league in the cricket world. It was started by India's Lalit Modi who studied professional sports business at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina. Several other countries, including Australia, Bangladesh, England, Sri Lanka, South Africa and the Caribbean nations (West Indies), followed suit with their own versions of premier league. Pakistan is the latest country to join this movement with its own league called PSL or Pakistan Super League. Pakistan is the 2nd largest cricket market after India in terms of viewership. It's the 4th largest market after India, England and Australia in revenue terms. The launch of Pakistan Super League (PSL) will help significantly increase cricketing revenu...

Pakistani power regulators have approved a regulatory framework for  solar  and  wind energy  for both commercial and residential installations. The framework includes  feed-in tariffs  for commercial power producers and net metering for  residential  applications of up to 1 MW. Under the new  Net Metering Law , NEPRA, the Pakistani power regulator, will grant power generation licenses to solar and wind system owners. The owners will need to register the critical equipment used, particularly the make and model of inverter and generator used. Among other technical considerations, the generator must also install a manual disconnect device to take the system off the network if necessary, according to details published by  PV Tech publication . Source: PV-Tech Net metering is a billing mechanism that pays solar energy system owners for the electricity they add to the grid. It allows a residential customers with rooftop solar pane...

33-year-old Qasar Younis, a Lala Moosa born Harvard-educated Pakistani-American , is the new Chief Operating Officer of Y-Combinator, a spawning ground for emerging tech giants Dropbox, Airbnb, and Stripe in Silicon Valley, according to Fortune Magazine . Qasar Younis (Source: Linked-In) Younis was born on a farm in Lal Moosa, Gujarat, Pakistan. He was brought by his parents as a 6-year-old boy to the United States where his parents found work as blue collar workers in the auto industry in Detroit, Michigan. Younis' start-up TalkBin was offered a $7 million seed round by Y Combinator. However, it was acquired by Google in 2011 even before signing the seed-round term sheet. Younis joined the Google Maps team where he worked to bring local businesses onboard them. He stayed there for three and a half years. Y Combinator is set to graduate 222 startups, including Pakistani start-up Markhor, this year. There are currently 7000 startups vying for 106 spots in the program, acco...

Joseph Mark Mobius of Templeton Emerging Markets Group sees "many reasons for a brighter future for Pakistan".  Mobius, armed with B.A. and M.S. degrees in Communications from Boston University, and a Ph.D in economics from MIT,  is a top global fund manager with a  good track record  of investing in emerging markets. In a blog post titled  "Building Corridors to the Future in Pakistan" , an obvious reference to  China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) , Mobius says he and his team "have been investing in Pakistan for a number of years, and see it as an overlooked investment destination with attractive valuations due to negative macro sentiment". It should be noted that Karachi Stock Exchange listed companies' average  price-earnings multiple of just 10  is less than half of regional markets such as Mumbai with PE ratio of over 20. Source: Bloomberg In addition to new foreign investment in CPEC and low PE ratios, Mobius offers ...

Is it time to sell India short and go long on Pakistan? Indian shares are highly overvalued while Pakistan and Hong Kong shares are trading at very attractive valuations, according to latest data published by  Bloomberg . The Indian shares listed in Mumbai are trading at nearly 22 times earnings, more than twice the price-earnings multiples of Karachi and Hong Kong listed stocks. Source: Bloomberg Hong Kong's Hang Seng benchmark gauge for $4.3 trillion of shares was valued at 9.8 times reported earnings on Thursday, a 44 percent discount to the MSCI All-Country World Index, according to Bloomberg. That’s the cheapest level among developed markets worldwide and compares with a multiple of 10.2 for Pakistan’s KSE 100 Index. Russia’s Micex has the lowest valuation among major markets, trading at about 9.5 times profits. Talking about Pakistan,  Charlie Robertson, London-based chief economist at Renaissance Capital Ltd.  told Bloomberg that “It (Pakistan) is the...

Silicon Valley tech giant Google has named Indian-born IIT-educated Sundar Pichai to head its search, ads, maps, Play Store, YouTube, and Android businesses as part of a major reorganization announced by the company. Current Google CEOs Larry Page and Sergei Brin have kicked themselves upstairs to lead Alphabet, a new holding company which will include Google as well as affiliated companies like the life-extension project Calico and a drone delivery venture called Wing, according to  media reports . FOBs and ABCDs: Pichai and other Indian-born individuals in  Silicon Valley  are often referred to as "FOBs" (Fresh Off the Boat) by American-born Indians. FOBs return the "affection" by calling American-born Indians "ABCDs" (American Born Confused Desis). For those unfamiliar with the Indian vernacular, Pichai's first name Sundar means beautiful. All joking aside, it's a matter of great pride and joy to Indians and  other immigrants  for one of the...

Over 1.5 million smartphones and an equal number of 3G subscriptions are being purchased every month in Pakistan, according to data released recently. The number of broadband subscriptions has more than quadrupled from under 4 million in 2013-14 to nearly 17 million in 2014-15 as a result of  3G and 4G rollout  in the country last year, according to data released by  Pakistan Telecommunications Authority . Broadband Subscription Data. Source: PTA 3G/4G Expansion: 3G/4G subscriptions in Pakistan soared to 13.49 million, up from 9.83 million in May, according to data from  Pakistan Telecommunications Authority (PTA) . Telenor led the 3G/4G market with over 4.16 million subscribers, followed by Mobilink (3.65 million 3G subscribers), CMPak (3 million 3G/4G subscribers, and Ufone (2.57 million 3G subscribers). Warid had 106,211 LTE network subscribers at end of June. These carriers have laid thousands of kilometers of  fiber to support 3G services .  ...