Navigating India’s cyclical slowdown

Rebecca Lewis, Partner and Co-CEO India is currently experiencing a cyclical economic slowdown, marked by a 15%+ market correction in January, one of seven such occurrences in the past 20 years. Similar downturns have been seen during the Global Financial Crisis, Taper Tantrums, Trump’s policies, and COVID. International investors have flocked to the ‘safety’ of […]
Rising Tides: The Transformative Shift in India’s Education Landscape

Rebecca Lewis, Partner and Co-CEO Sustainable economic growth is intricately tied to investment in human capital. As the global economy evolves, continuous learning and adaptability are essential, underscoring the critical need for ongoing education and training. After the profound disruptions of the Covid-19 pandemic, the 2024 Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) brings a wave […]
China’s Infrastructure Boom: A Journey of Transformation and Innovation

Rebecca Lewis, Partner and Co-CEO In January, Vatsal, our partner in India, and I had the privilege of joining Gordon on his latest research trip to China. In the span of just one generation, China has experienced a stunning transformation, with its infrastructure and real estate developments serving as powerful symbols of rapid growth and […]
What next for the Indian consumer?

Rebecca Lewis, Partner and Co-CEO India has been a perennially outsized allocation for Arisaig over our 28-year history of investing in the Asian consumer. A highlight of the last three years has been the outstanding performance of Trent the Indian apparel retailer targeting the rise of middle class India. In typical Arisaig fashion, this was […]
Indonesia: the importance of home

Rebecca Lewis, Partner and Co-CEO Household visits have also been key to our research in Indonesia over the past three years and these continue to reinforce the sacred nature of ‘home’ to consumers. We expect Indonesia’s per capita spending on home improvement to rise significantly from USD27 today – a level materially lower than regional […]
Vietnam: improving sentiment, empty fridges

Rebecca Lewis, Partner and Co-CEO After a challenging two years 2024 has been more positive for Vietnamese consumers thanks to an uptick in job opportunities as the “friend-shoring” factories finally started to come online. The messages on the banners in the photographs below that we took in the industrial parks of South Vietnam in July […]
Expensive (for a reason) India

Rebecca Lewis, Partner and Co-CEO We agree that valuations in India are the key area of focusfor investors thinking about this market as a destination of capital. Havingbeen investing in consumer businesses in the country since 1999 we know fromexperience that it is market where long-term investors can be rewarded. The double-digitUSD return of Arisaig’s […]
Our focus on purpose

Rebecca Lewis, Partner and Co-CEO Everyone knows that knowing your purpose is important in life; we know it as individuals and we say it to guide our children. For the more data driven amongst us, empirical studies have shown that organisations that are clear about their purpose are more successful, and more resilient. So, how […]
Women rising – what Indian and American women have in common

Rebecca Lewis, Partner and Co-CEO In the 1960s and 1970s women’s participation in the workforce in the US increased significantly. Yes, expanding education supported and evolving societal mindsets had a part to play but it was the increased use of contraceptive pill that was particularly critical in reducing birthrates. Birth rates in the US declined […]
The big opportunity from small changes in India

We have been privileged to host many of our endowment clients and family offices in India so far this year. Given half of our investments are in India, this reflects our long-standing outsized exposure to the country but also their own growing interest in how to best reflect the world’s largest democracy and world’s fifth […]