Background: Buffett and Investing in Indian Companies

Personal Note:  As can probably be guessed from the paucity of recent posts, I have been rather busy trying to set up a new partnership.  So, though there have been a lot of things that have caught my attention, I haven’t been able to post much.  I decided to take the medicine and do a few short posts when I get the time.

James Lamont had an interesting piece — quite a while ago — during Warren Buffett’s visit to India.  Buffett was really there with Gates for his philanthropic work

Trade Notes: Milk Most Likely to go the way of Onions in India

Image via Wikipedia

I’d mentioned as long ago as March that milk prices are likely to spike higher.  The Economic Times delivered to my hotel room in Kolkata suggests this is coming true

After vegetables, now milk will also pinch consumers, as Gujarat‘s largest milk producer, Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation (GCMMF) marketing dairy products under the brand ‘Amul‘ on Tuesday announced a pan-India hike in milk prices by Rs 2 per litre.

Trade Notes: What’s Mukesh Ambani up to?

Big news in the Asian news section of Bloomberg TV was that Mukhesh Ambani (Haslinda Amin pronouncing him Mukhil — got confused when she was asked about Mukhesh and Anil!) is paying

10.2 billion rupees ($217 million) for a 14.12 percent stake in EIH Ltd., which runs the Oberoi and Trident hotels, according to a statement yesterday.

The breathless “India Rising/shining” hyperbole aside, what gives?

Trade Notes: Got Milk?

Kind of weird corollary to India growing is that there is increasing milk demand in India.

The WPI in India has a 5% weight on milk, and that is having an effect because there was a 13.4% YoY inflation in milk prices in December ’09.  This is coming from a demand supply mismatch as there is an increasing uptake on processed milk products (most notably Reliance’s “Life”, Nestle’s “Pro-heart”, and Amul’s “Taaza”).