I m new to the Strawman community. Could someone please explain how this ranking system works?

Hi @rija

The main company ranking is determined by the total value of each company held across all Strawman portfolios. On the company's page there is a toggle for you to switch between Premium and All users (we have 20,000 free users, perhaps about 6,000 or so monthly active). You must have Premium switched off:

So the reason Findo is #8 is because lots of free users hold it. But only a few Premium members do (and that's the "held by" amount you see on the company page).

Feel free to DM me if that doesnt make sense

Thanks @Strawman

Apparently, I have accidentally switched it off

@Strawman has explained how the company rankings work (dollar value held across all portfolios).

In terms of how the members' rankings work - it is a combination of:

1. Scorecard/portfolio performance;
2. Content Creation and Community Endorsement (others voting up stuff that you post); and
3. Community engagement (reading and voting on other people's contributions).

The weighting given to each of those varies and it's a closely guarded secret only known by @Strawman - and possibly his Site Devs. He also adjusts it every now and then to try to make it work better. The best example is that @mikebrisy is consistently in the top 3, and usually in first or second position because he engages with others, and his content is top notch (some of the best you'll find here - thoroughly researched and very well presented), and his portfolio performance here (which happens to be only the riskier end of his real life holdings) has been performing well of late also, but he was up in the top 3 even when his Strawman portfolio holdings were underperforming because his content gets so many upvotes from thankful users here. Point is, you don't have to excel at all three, because each of them contributes in its own way and helps propel you up the rankings. I would guess that #2 would be most important, followed by #1 (in that list above) followed by #3.

Which reminds me @Strawman - please add a search function to the "Blogs" page, as I can't find your previous blogs on ranking system explanations.

@Bear77 has nailed it, as usual.

The blog articles that explain a lot of these things can be found by selecting 'Featured' on the blog page:

We do have to add a search function too, but one hack in the meantime is to use Google itself: in the search bar, type "site:strawman.com/blog" followed by your search term,

@Bear77 As ever, I appreciate the generous remarks. Of course, it is a slight (OK, large) embarassment to be sitting in the #1 spot with portfolio returns over 38m of -7.4% p.a., and it is a powerful motivation to make better investment calls in future.

Mercifully, as you point out, my SM portfolio is about on 35% of my RL ASX portfolio. My other holdings - generally large, proven firms, are listed on my profile, and I update them, including their weight order at minimum monthly. They are also firms I commonly post about.

However, in SM I am gradually clawing my way back to salvation - I think last year I got to a low point of -25%p.a. So the last year has been very positive.

While part of the terrible return performance is in part related to the timing of when I started my premium membership. there is no question that I also made a bunch of dumb calls, several of which were legacy decisions from before joining SM ($EML, $AMS, $PBH to name a few of the worst).

Over the 3 years of my membership, I have definitely evolved and improved as an investor. There are some dumb things I just don't do anymore. For example, 1) increasing my holding of position on a SP fall on bad news unless I have the very strongest of conviction, and 2) allowing position size to get too large (again in any but the highest conviction holdings). Those two former behaviours have been very value-destroying for me in the past.

I also think the engagement here in the SM Community has helped me to be more challening of my own ideas. The views of others - particularly where they are different to and even in constrast with my own ideas - helps me to generate more robust investment theses and decisions.

Onwards and upwards to 0% p.a.! (What a day of celebration that will be.)

The ranking is well deserved in my opinion @mikebrisy -- the 'since inception' returns are only one part of what goes into the mix. (And all other tracked timeframes have been great!)

Of course, people can carve things up in a lot of different ways -- eg here's the 12 month ranking here -- but the trouble with a pure performance ranking is that you risk favouring people who heavily concentrate into some high-risk plays which happen to play out. And those that provide lots of great content and achieve better returns on a risk-adjusted basis can easily get missed.

That's why, as Bear77 noted, we spent a lot of time fine tuning the community rank so it captures a more holistic view of things. The key thing to note is that content (or, more specifically, votes on your content) is really a major influencer of rank. It wont get you to the top of the pops alone (performance definitely matters), but it's a big weighting and it impacts things much faster.

Of course, if you stay ahead of me too long i'll have to adjust things to restore order to the universe.. ;)

@mikebrisy ... I really enjoy your analysis so keep it up ... your contributions are definitely highly valued by me ... I have to say everyone in the top 10 is really adding insights for me.

I think I'm probably in a similar boat to you (but might be the opposite in terms of Strawman recent performance). I just loaded everything in my Aussie Small Cap portfolio at the then market price so some of the stuff looks genius. What my Strawman performance doesn't show is the 80% loss on some of them before the membership. Even if they have doubled to make me look smart, I'm probably still down IRL since first purchase ... it takes a 10 bagger just to get back to par on something that has lost 90% of its value.

I'm also fortunate that I got on the Droneshield train early and with high conviction so that is really skewing my results.

My SM portfolio (real life version) is now full of just about every difficult decision we have to make as investors eg.

• What to do with DRO now that its up massively and 40% of my Small Cap holdings. A classic question for multi-baggers ... but wisdom says not to do anything to interrupt compounding. How big is too big of a position ... my next 9 after DRO only make up 30% of my Small Cap portfolio so I don't think any of those positions is uncomfortably large and to put things in context my DRO position is still less than 5% in the context of my total share portfolio. (its all perspective)
• What to do with some of the losers that are massively weighing me down and making me look at red every day in my sharesight (part of me says: that its humbling and a lesson against follow to just keep them, part of me says: get rid of them before the missus sees them and use the capital loss around tax time, part of me says hang on as they might at least come back to par), part of me says to let them run and not make a rash decision (as the majority of the thesis is still intact), part of me says" cull them so I have a much more streamlined portfolio (and can focus my time and attention), part of me says: try to look at everything on its current merits/share price and see what potential there is from here (gee its hard to get rid of the anchoring bias).
• Should I add to the winners even though some of them have grown quite substantially (are they still good value at today's prices),
• What's the right time scale to be looking at the results and my performance as an investor ... the Aus Small Cap portfolio is up 27% this FY (and by far my best performing category vs my ASX200, Nasdaq and S&P500 holdings) but its only break even since first purchase.
• Or the big one ... Do I just chuck the whole lot in, cancel my @Strawman subscription, buy a couple of ETFs and go and sit on the beach (ETF is my #2 performing category this FY). I've benchmarked my whole portfolio and want to give myself 3 to 5 years to see if I can outperform my ETFs. When I zoom right out at my total portfolio since the dawn of time (2001, I've still compounded at 9.85% per annum vs ASX200 6.29%) so I can still count myself as lucky even if not smart.

I really appreciate the work you put into your posts @mikebrisy.

@RhinoInvestor thanks.

While I certainly have made some bad calls on SM since early/mid 2021, one thing I am pleased I did before EOFY 2021 was - anticipating the risk of a tigthening monetary cycle - I did a cold-eyed review of all my "cash burners" and got out of some that subsequently lost 70%, 80%, 90% or more ($DTC, $BTH, $DUB etc. etc.). I didn't buy the Fed narrative "inflation will be transient" partly because one of the macro-economists I most respect - Mohamed El-Erian - was calling BS on that, and explaining all the reasons why inflation would not be a transient phenomenon, and the reasons why we would see a structural shift up. This is not to say that I forecast the current cycle, however, I perceived enough of a risk to get rid of all but the highest conviction cash burners (only keeping stocks like $PNV, even though they also got hit hard as cost of capital increased).

I have occasionally thought about your point regarding active or passive. In RL ASX over 3 years I am about 100bps behind where I would be in passive, but over 5 years, I am still beating passive by about the same amount (largely due to the Matt Joass MF Pro Legacy). But actually, I do this as much for the fun, although it is also nice to be able to now do this for a living - and its a job I should never have to retire from!

I do think the only metric that counts is returns since inception, or at least over a long term horizon like 5 years or more. So I will continue to play the long game and expect that over time, I will continue to improve.

@UlladullaDave perhaps this may provide you a few answers....an interview with Findi's non-exec chair Nicholas Smedley which has only been released very recently.

Despite increased internet usage and tremendous growth, more than 350 million Indians are still either unbanked or underbanked.

Distance to a banking facility is a major barrier, particularly for those living in rural areas where cash still rules.

These people often rely on alternative financial services such as money orders or transfers.

The Indian government, for its part, has encouraged people to open a bank account by launching ambitious programs like the People’s Wealth Plan, or by asking banks to offer zero-balance accounts with no opening fees.

As these programs are continually being rolled out across the country, there’s an obvious big opportunity here to provide banking services to the masses.

ASX-listed fintech Findi (ASX:FND) is an India-focused company that has marched ahead to take on this challenge.

Findi is now one of the largest non-bank ATM operators in the world’s most populous country, with a network of 20,500+ ATMs.

The network is being operated through the company’s 100% interest in TSI International, a digital payments and financial services business in India.

“We have over 20,000 ATMs that we own and manage across India, and we’re in every state and territory,” Findi’s non-executive chairman, Nicholas Smedley, told Stockhead.

“We also have 16,000 of what we call digital merchants across India as well, which facilitate last mile cash payments in online e-commerce for the growing rural sector across India.”

SBI contract

Findi has been providing ATMs for the State Bank of India (SBI) – the country’s largest bank – since 2016 through a third-party outsourcing contract.

That contract was supposed to end in December, but Findi has just secured a new 10-year contract with SBI that will see the company provide 4,219 more ATMs across the country.

It’s expected the new contract will generate revenue of between $550m-$620m over the 10-year term, with a bottom line EBITDA of $250m-$280m.

“SBI is just one of our contracts, and if you break that down, it’s approximately $25-$28 million dollars EBITDA a year,” says Smedley.

Unlike in Australia, ATMs in India are not hole-in-the-wall concepts but instead have dedicated rooms with air conditioning.

“We have a team that select the locations based on predicted foot traffic, and we take out a lease on those locations.

“So if the ATM contract was to ever be ended, we can simply turn that site into a Findi-branded ATM location at the end of the normal contract term.

“This means we have full control on those sites,” Smedley said.

White label

Of the 20,500 ATMs Findi operates in India, 12,000 are currently being operated for third parties.

“The other 8,000 ATMs we own ourselves, and they’re across a number of key banks,” explained Smedley.

These 8,000 ATMS are currently brown label ATMs, meaning that they’re slapped with the bank’s own labels like SBI or CBI (which are the Australian equivalents of CBA or NAB ATMs).

“But the beauty is, we have a white label ATM license application on foot, which we’re expecting to be awarded before the end of this year,” said Smedley.

“When that white label licence is awarded, the ATMs will be branded and deployed as Findi-branded ATMs.”

The white label license is expected to provide numerous strategic advantages, such as supporting the integration of Findi’s ATM and digital payments business and potential acquisitions.

Findi expects that following the white label deployment, those ATMs will deliver additional annual revenue of approximately $25-$28 million, and annual EBITDA of $7–$9 million.

Quick payback

The economics of each ATM is also quite attractive.

The company estimates that one Findi-owned ATM delivers an enviable $65,000+ of cumulative free cash flows over its lifespan of 12 years, while the entire cost of one fit-out is only around $12,000.

“So the the internal rate of return or IRR that we actually get is greater than 35%,” said Smedley.

“The payback period is approximately three years, which is when it will be completely paid off.

“So then we have seven years in this 10-year contract cycle, which means seven years of free cash coming off that asset with the capital capex already paid off.”

“We also have a banking syndicate that have already agreed to completely fund the rollout of the capex for those contracts, so we don’t have to raise any more equity in the business,” added Smedley.

Is Findi undervalued?

Smedley believes the opportunity for Findi is huge, with 350 million Indians expected to enter banking services over the next five years.

“If we can do India well, I don’t think we need to concentrate on anywhere else,” he said.

“Obviously we will always be looking at opportunities, but they need to make sense for us, and need to be able to leverage from our existing Indian capability.”

Smedley sees Findi as one of the most undervalued stocks on the ASX at the moment.

“Our market cap at the moment is around $29 million, but if you look at Indian trading multiples, we should be somewhere in the order of $200 million market cap.

“We don’t need to raise any more capital. We’ve got significant free cash flows.

“And we’ve already got the next couple of years of growth baked into the business organically, before we even look at other acquisition opportunities,” said Smedley.

Thanks for flagging this @jimmy, looks very interesting and will have a closer look. Has quite a lot of resemblance to C79 Chrysos Corp's journey in gold mining sampling in terms of the upfront capex, short ROI, deployment, cash generating thereafter. I have very little exposure to India - this might be a good vehicle in!

Nicholas Smedley...as in Chairman of Respiri - that Nicholas Smedley?

Here's everything you need to know about that story:

Banging looking chart isn't it? Only problem is that's the share count. It's not all on Senor Smedley as he only became Chair in 2019 but there's been no let up in the torching of cash since then.

On that basis alone Findi wouldn't be for me.

Point noted @Noddy74 but as a look through (his involvement or not) I'm happy to continue. What you point out regarding Respiri is correct however for me and what I've seen, read and heard there are far too many good things happening at Findi to simply pass up an opportunity out of spite for Smedley.

Look...you maybe right being sceptical on this one...I'm simply betting you won't be....so good luck to...hmmm....I guess me....seeing I'm the only one holding here.

PS: I'm currently up 143% so happy so far but will continue to watch.

Hahaha, I looked at the chart first before the scroll down, got excited, then the text letdown occurred!

Smedley only looks like the Aussie-based mouthpiece for Findi.

Everything else about Findi, particularly operations and management etc looks like it is based out of Delhi India based on a quick look of their website.

What a huge pop these past few days - fortune absolutely favours the brave @Jimmy !