SIFY Technologies (NAS:SIFY) — mrkt cap $240mm; Price $1.3; EV/EBITDA 7
MORE RESEARCH NEEDED. SIFY is the fourth largest data center provider in India and was one of the few reasonably priced companies on our AI screen. As the notion of Sovereign AI (the idea that countries will want to have their own AI in domestic data centers) gains momentum, we believe data center providers in other nations stand to benefit from this centralization of data and computation. However more research needs to be done on the growth of demand and the infrastructure to be able to ascertain future economic prospects of the data center industry.
CXApp (NAS:CXAI) — mrkt cap $35mm; Price $2.3; EV/EBITDA NA
PASS. CXAI went public via SPAC and is another name that surfaced on our AI screen. Despite the cleverly named ticker, the company does very little with AI and is a SaaS business that is developing a “workplace super app.” While there are undoubtedly technological needs that employers could use to facilitate a WFH world for the laptop class, the CXApp currently fills only a small portion of those needs – helping employees order from the company cafeteria and book desks and conference rooms. They focus on firms with > 500 employees, and each contract requires significant custom build. The company is still in nascent stages, with revenue forecasted at an optimistic $30mm in 2025. We will pass for now and potentially revisit later on.
Hugo Boss (BOSS-DE) — mrkt cap €3.9B; Price €54.94; P/E 14.5
MORE RESEARCH NEEDED. Hugo Boss (BOSS), a renowned German fashion brand, has seen stagnant growth since 2015, with revenues hovering around €2.8 billion through 2021, attributed to lost consumer relevance and misaligned strategies under CEOs Claus-Dietrich Lahrs and then later, Mark Langer. Lahr’s luxury positioning in China and pricing strategies led to complications and impairment of revenue from the European wholesale channel, while Langer’s focus on operational efficiency over brand investment resulted in further stagnation. The appointment of Daniel Grieder as CEO in 2021 signals a promising turn, with strategies aimed at modernizing the brand and leveraging European wholesale relationships. The valuation is somewhat attractive but we have more work to do to understand how the brand revitalization is progressing.