FDV is essentially a collection of early life peers to Realestate.com.au and Carsales in emerging markets. It's a sector where in developed markets, it's a clear case of winner takes the largest market share (e.g., REA vs DHG), and there is a huge importance placed on trust and network effects to consolidate and maintain market position.

The jewel in in the crown is Zameen (Pakistan's REA equivalent), where FDV have a 30% holding, and is conservatively valued at US$400m. It's the clear market leader in a country with a huge TAM, growing internet penetration, and a long runway for growth. Even if you assum Zameen is fully priced and at fair value, the remaining holdings in FDV's portfolio are all impressive and strong performers in their home markets. Even the second biggest holding of Infocasas (a Central and South American REA), which hasn't performed as strongly, is still growing revenues at strong rates.

There's a good history of consolidating with strong assets, and cutting loose underperformers, with revenue rising and more than likely to turn a profit in the near future.

On a valuation basis, FDV looks stupidly cheap at 7x forward revenue.

Online classifieds in mature markets trade at about 15-20x revenue. Even factoring in currency and geographic risk from the 'frontier' regions that the businesses operate in, these markets are not that different from mature areas - a fair comparison would be Mercado Libre and Amazon in its early stages. There is no reason to think classifieds will be any different.

Management have skin in the game, so I like this one a lot as a long term hold.

Disc: Held in SM and IRL, and topped up today.