AuthorRohit Chauhan

A must read interview by prof bakshi

By Rohit Chauhan
In Notable value investors, Uncategorized
June 1, 2007
2 Min read
31 comments
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I admire prof. Bakshi, have read all his articles and read his blog regularly. He is a great teacher and it would have been great if I had been his student. I found this interview on capital ideas online. Unfortunately only part of the interview is available and the rest is available only to subscribers.

I would recommend reading the interview. On reading the section under cash bargains, I was almost nodding my head in agreement. I have posted a few cash bargains like novartis, cheviot company and merck earlier. I plan to re-read security analysis by benjamin graham and further expand the scope of my search for investment ideas.

In addition, my own thinking has started expanding to include graham type situations more. The reason is that buffett type companies are diffcult to find and require a lot of indepth understanding of the business to make a meaningful investment. Looking back at my stock screens, I realise that I left a lot of bargains on the table because they were mediocore businesses. These businesses were selling below intrinsic value and although the intrinsic value did not expand, a convergence of the current price with intrinsic value yielded good results.

A move to expand into graham type stocks has increased the number of my investment ideas. However this type of investing means a higher portfolio turnover and a constant search for cheap stocks as one may not be able to buy a great company at a decent price and enjoy the benefits of an increase in the instrinsic value.

This does not mean that I am not looking for the buffett type good companies. It is just that I am trying to let go of my mental blocks to other types of companies and other types of investing. Who knows I may overcome my aversion to trading too 🙂

A request – If any one reading this post has access to the full interview, I would request you to email me the link or the interview itself (id : rohitc99@indiatimes.com)

update : 4th june : i have recieved the complete interview by email. thanks to sajeesh mathew for that. It is a great interview and i learnt a lot from it. I will have to confirm with sajeesh and prof bakshi if it fine to email the interview to others. I would definitely not be posting it

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Value in midcaps ?

By Rohit Chauhan
In Market analysis, Uncategorized
May 28, 2007
3 Min read
5 comments
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I have written earlier that there seems to be more value in the midcap space than Large caps represented by the Sensex and Nifty. The above hypothesis came about as I am finding far more ideas in the midcap than the large cap sector of the market.

I decided to check the above hypothesis and generated the above two charts for the Nifty index and CNX midcap. The nifty index has appreciated by around 23% in the last year, whereas the midcap index has increased by around 13 %. Does this prove my hypothesis. Yes and no !. Yes because some of the stocks have come down quite a bit and may be worth investing. No, because the midcap index as a whole is not too cheap, currently trading at around 17 times PE.

So blindly buying into the index may not make sense, but picking specific stocks would.

Based on the above view I tried to look for some mutual funds in the midcap space and found the following interesting. I am listing the negatives of each of the funds. The returns of the funds have been fine and they may be worth a look

Birla midcap – This is a 5 star fund. It does not have a very long operating history. The fund has been around 3 years and the last 2 years performance has not been great

Sundaram mid cap – This fund has delivered good performance in the long run. However the last 1 year performance has not been great. Also the fund has a new fund manager. The fund is extremely spread out and has more than 70-80 stocks in the portfolio

Franklin prima fund – This fund has the longest operating history. It has done well in the past and the fund manager has been around from the beginning. The manager follows a buy and hold philosophy and has higher portfolio concentration. The last 3 year performance has been average though.

As usual, the fund expenses are high and the volatility of these funds is also high. An SIP mode of investment may be a good approach.

In addition, funds like HDFC equity and Franklin prima plus have a diversified approach and can move between various caps. These funds may also be good way of investing in the mid-cap space too as HDFC equity has around 50% exposure midcaps and Franklin prima plus has around 35-40% exposure to midcaps.

You can look for the details for each fund at valueresearchonline.com. I am not recommending any of the above funds, just laying out the facts for some funds which I find worth investigating further in the midcap space. A superior approach would be to pick specific stocks, but that requires a higher amount of effort and time.

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Red flags – Aftek infosys

By Rohit Chauhan
In Rejected investment ideas, Uncategorized
May 24, 2007
3 Min read
15 comments
R

Aftek infosys appeared on my stock screens a few days back. I also had a comment from prem sagar on the company. The company seems to be extremely undervalued. It seems to have almost 400 Crs of cash on the books with a market cap of just around 650-700 Crs. With the last year profits of 98 crs, the company seems to be selling at a PE of 2-3. On the face of it the company seems to be an investors wish come true. My initial scan showed nothing wrong, so I decided to dig deeper and came up with a can of worms.

– the company’s management was penalized by SEBI for participating with Ketan parekh in various behind the scene deals during the 2000 bull market (see here)

– The company had an investment of almost 46 Crs in a company called Arexera. They have accquired this company this year (the balance portion) for a sum of 56 crs. One would consider this accquisition to be significant. The positives of the acquisition are mentioned all over the report. However the valuation of the deal is not mentioned. The company had a net profit of 1 Crs last year (see page 100 of the annual report). The company was acquired at a valuation of 100 Crs ( PE = 100 !!!). The management has not discussed the valuation anywhere in the report and why they paid so much for it. Finally surprise , surprise – this company was accquired from the promoters !!! . See the cash flow statement on page 83. There is an entry for 54.8 Crs which was paid to promoters to acquire this company. So the management accquires this company and has a related party transaction and does not mention this in the complete report??

– The company has issued 3.96 lac warrants to the promoters. They have received 10% of the price now and the rest can paid by the promoters within 18 months. Why have these warrants been issued if the company is swimming in cash, had some FCCB still open and is making almost 100 Crs per year ?

– Promoter holding is only 12%.

– FCCB issue in the last few years to raise capital. This capital is being used to accquire companies like Arexera from promoters.

The stock may do well (had a jump of 10 % recently). However I have bad feel of the whole thing. All the red flags I have pointed above don’t give me any confidence in the management. I still think the business will do well and the company should make money. But I am not sure if the shareholders will benefit or the promoters would. Their past and current actions don’t give me any confidence. I am definitely giving the stock a pass although there could be some trading gains to be made.

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Analysis of Novartis india

By Rohit Chauhan
In Investment ideas, Uncategorized
May 21, 2007
3 Min read
4 comments
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Novartis india is the Indian subsidiary of Novartis AG. The company has the following business segments – Pharmaceuticals, Generics, OTC and Animal care.

The company is in various therapeutic areas such as Immunology and Transplantation, Oncology, Gynaecology, Central Nervous System, Respiratory, Pain and Inflammation, Ophthalmics and Orthopaedics. In the OTC space the company has some strong brands such as Sandoz.

Financials

The company has just tread water in the last few years. The topline growth has been more or less flat and is currently at around 520 Crs. The bottom line is now at around 88 Crs. Both the topline and bottomline have growth a low single digit growth rates and I expect the same to continue.

The Global parent has a local unlisted subsidiary and has made comments of introducing products through the unlisted subsidiary. As a result the topline and bottomline growth for novartis could be at best 5-7% per annum for the next few years. The poor growth in the last few years has mainly been due to poor performance of generics, sale of the Rifampicin (anti-TB) business and due to price control on some of its brands.

Valuation

At the current profit of 88 Crs and EPS of around 27.5, the company sells for around 12-13 times PE. In addition the ROE and ROCE is actually very high. The 2006 AR shows that the company as just 10 Crs in fixed assets and negative working capital. As a result the Return on capital is very high (>100%). All the assets are in cash or inter corporate deposits and other liquid investment.
It seems the company has become complete asset free and is outsourcing almost its entire production.
In addition in one of the earlier AGM, the company has mentioned that the excess profits would be returned via generous dividends. The dividends for the last few years have been 200%+ giving a dividend yield of almost 3-4%.

On a comparable valuation basis, the other pharma MNC with similar business model sell at around 20-30 times PE.

Thus the stock appears undervalued with intrinsic value between 600-650 Rs

Risk

Poor topline and bottom line growth or even de-growth. In absence of few product launches in the Pharma segment and continued competition and price pressure the company could have a drop in net profits. The OTC and animal care business seem to be growing, but do not have very high margins
In addition the parent could increase the focus on the unlisted subsidiary and milk the listed one for profits.

Conclusion

The company is selling at a 4 year low. I feel that all the negatives seems to be priced in. Net of cash, the company sells at almost 8-9 times earnings or cash flow. This seems to be fairly low for a stable and profitable pharma business.

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Business models of Pharma industry

By Rohit Chauhan
In Competitive advantage, Industry analysis, Uncategorized
May 17, 2007
4 Min read
Add comment
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I have written (see here) earlier on the pharma industry in 2005. A few high profile patent challenge losses in 2005 and 2006, brought down the valuations for several companies. My basic thoughts about the industry have not changed

I have been analysing the industry further recently and can see two different business models.

The Domestic market focussed model

Most MNC’s like novartis, merck, pfizer come under this model. The key characterisitics of the model are

1. Subsidiary of a global MNC operating in india for the last few decades
2. The subsidiary operates as an extension of the global company and due to the patent law in the past, has introduced mostly the off-patent drugs.
3. Strong brands, marketing network and good return on capital and strong competitive advantage.
4. Possibility of introducing the drugs from global portfolio. However in some cases the parent company has an unlisted subsidiary and hence treats the listed one as a cash cow. In such cases the market is rightly giving a lower PE multiple due to the poor corporate governance attitude of the parent.
5. Strong cash flows due to minimal R&D and very low assets in the business as most of the manufacturing is sub-contracted.
6. Low growth in domestic market, marked by constant price controls (DPCO and new pharma policy) by the government on various essential drugs. This has resulted in poor topline and bottomline growth for several companies solely dependent on the domestic market.

The International market focussed model

1. This model is followed by the indian pharma companies such as ranbaxy, dr reddy’s, nicholas pharma etc
2. These companies are in the process of globalizing. Their approach to it has been through the drugs which are coming off patent (generics strategy). These companies have built a strong R&D infrastructure in india to develop these drugs coming off patents. They also have a marketing and legal infrastructure in foreign markets to file ANDA and other applications for these drugs as soon as they come off patents. If these companies win these cases, then they get a 180 day exclusive marketing period for these drugs. Post the exclusive period too, these companies are able to maintain good market shares. Thus these companies have created a value chain of R&D labs in india, and a distribution, marketing and legal infrastructure abroad to funnel these new drugs coming off patents.
3. These companies are following riskier strategy as these legal challenges are costly and if the company loses one, the entire money is down the drain.
4. The market was pricing earlier as if each of these ‘bets’ would pay off. However due to some high profile failures in the past, the market has started pricing the risk of the strategy now.
5. Some companies are also acting as outsourcers for the global pharma companies. This is the contract or custom manufacturing business. There a large no. of FDA approved facilities in india ( second largest in the world). Several indian companies now provide advanced manufacturing facitility to global pharma companies and are now doing accquisitions in this space to accquire complementary assets abroad.
6. The third segment of this model is the R&D segment where some of the top companies are now investing heavily in R&D to develop NCE and NDDS. Some of the molecules are now in the stage I and Stage II trials. Some companies such as DRL have licensed these molecules to other companies and they get royalties based on milestones. This is a high risk, high return startegy. However it is likely the larger pharma companies in india could go down this path and emulate their global counterparts.

It is easier to predict the cash flow and valuation of the domestic model as the overall business risk is lower in that model. The international business model has a higher upside, however the valuation seems to reflect that upside in several instances. All these international market focussed model has ‘real options’ embedded in it. However I do not have the skill to do the valuation of these options. It is often difficult to predict which Patent challenges would be successful and which ones will fail

For additional detail on the pharma industry see here. The article is dated, but useful to understand the various terms such as ANDA, Para I,II etc.

There are several good stocks in the pharma industry available at reasonable valuations. I have discussed about merck earlier. In addition I am looking at novartis and alembic too.

Caution : Stocks which i look at generally perform poorly in the short term as they are undervalued. Please do your own research before investing in them.

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How to be a better investor – evaluating performance

By Rohit Chauhan
In Investing Philosophy, Uncategorized
May 14, 2007
3 Min read
3 comments
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One of the most important aspects of becoming a better investor is to evaluate one’s performance. However I do not think an absolute performance is the right way to do it.

For ex: If one’s stock portfolio returned 2% during the period 2000- 2003, I would consider it to be a superior performance than a 30% increase from 2003-2006. The reason is that during the period 2000-2003 , the market lost more than 30%, whereas during the period 2003-2006 the market almost doubled.

I evaluate my own performance as follows

I use the following formulae to evaluate the performance on my stock portfolio. I am not referring to a single stock, but for the entire stock portfolio.

Return = End portfolio amount – starting portfolio amount – cash added (or removed)/ starting portfolio amount

The period for the above formulae can be a month, quarter or a year. I prefer to evaluate the performance annually.

I compare this performance with the following three benchmarks. You can look at these benchmarks as three rising levels of hurdles to be crossed.

Level 1 – No risk FD return – This is the return I get from investing in bank FD. The stock portfolio has to cross this level. Otherwise I am way better off investing in FD’s and going off to sleep.

Level 2 – Index fund return – This is the return one can get by investing in the index (NSE or BSE) via ETF’s or index funds. The stock portfolio has to outperform this level, other wise I am better off investing in an index fund.

Level 3 – Mutual fund return – I referred to it in my previous post. My stock portfolio return should exceed the return I get from my portfolio of mutual funds (post expenses). If not, then I am again better off handing my money to the fund managers and doing something better with my time.

A caveat – One should not make a decision based on a single year’s return. In a single year, the stock portfolio returns can be volatile and even be below level 1 benchmark . I prefer to look at rolling 3 year returns to reach some tentative conclusion. I would prefer to look at the results of atleast 5 years before reaching a conclusion that I have crossed each of the above benchmarks. For a 5 year period, one should look at the cumulative returns from the stock portfolio and compare it with the above 3 benchmarks. Only if one has done substantially better than the three benchmarks, can one conclude that he or she ‘may’ be a superior stock picker.

The above may sound harsh and pompish. But I think if one has to be better investor, honest appraisal of one’s performance is important. If I have five duds and my portfolio returns less than what I could get in an FD, then there is not much to be gained from a stock pick which doubled in 15 days. I may have bragging rights and may feel smart, but I am not being honest and objective about my performance.

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How to be a better investor – My approach

By Rohit Chauhan
In Investing Philosophy, Uncategorized
May 10, 2007
4 Min read
17 comments
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I posted the reply from warren buffett on the above question. The key takeaway from his reply is that one should read a lot and invest your own money based on your ‘own’ ideas and analysis.

I will touch upon my approach to improve myself as an investor in this post.

I have been reading various investment related books, articles and annual reports for some time now. However my approach to it was disorganized and did not have any pattern to it. However in the last 2 years I have developed a plan to read with specific goals in mind.

I look at reading with two key objectives

1. Find new ideas (which are profitable)
2. Develop mental models to become a better investor (read this article from charlie munger on mental models)

I have broken the second objective into the following topics (related to investing)

Finance – topics such as Balance sheet, income statement, various ratios, analysis of these statements etc
Accounting – understand various accounting concepts and standards
Valuation
Competitive advantage and strategy
Probability and analysis of risk
Study of business models
Economics – mainly micro economics
Investing – value investing
Options, derivates and other financial instruments

I have better knowledge in some these areas relative to other topics. For example I have not read much on options and derivatives till date. Somehow I get put off by all the math in it (although I am engineer by background 🙂 ).

So at the beginning of the year I try to assess myself on these areas and try to identify the specific areas on which I would focus. For ex: I am currently focussing on topic 4 – competitive advantage. I identify books for this topic and add it to the list of books I would be reading over the course of the year. I run through all the topics in this manner and try to come up with a tentative book list for the year. This is not a list set in stone. If I find a better book for the topic I am interested in, I end up replacing it with that book.

In addition to the above book list, I have also listed the industry groups I would be focussing on this year. Currently my focus is on pharma. I have shortlisted around 5-6 industry groups for the year (see my industry analysis spreadsheet here). To improve my knowledge in a particular industry (related to topic 6), I read up on the annual reports of some of the top few companies in the industry. In addition, I try to read up on industry reports if I can get access to them for free.

This industry group analysis activity helps me in increasing my circle of competence and also helps me in coming up with new investment idea. Finally as all knowledge in investing is cumulative, I can easily use this knowledge again later to come up with good investment ideas.

Finally I run valuation screens and if I can get some undervalued candidates, I read up on them. This is more haphazard as I may get candidates in industries which I have no prior knowledge. However it is a good starting point in those cases. If the candidate is in an industry in which I have done some prior study, then the analysis is faster.

The last step is – as they say on shampoo labels – rinse and repeat. That is I keep repeating the above process. Ofcourse the books, the topics and the industry groups keep changing, but the approach is the same. This approach has been helpful as it keeps me focussed on areas which i need to improve and also to enhance my circle of competence

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How to be a better investor – from Warren buffett and Charlie munger

By Rohit Chauhan
In Charlie munger, Investing Philosophy, Uncategorized, Warren buffett
May 7, 2007
2 Min read
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Berkshire had their annual meeting on May 5th and 6th. During the Q&A session the following question was asked on how to become a better investor. I have read something similar from warren buffett earlier and could not resist posting the answer to the question again. The reply goes to the heart of becoming a better investor and I try to follow it in an effort to improve myself as an investor. Time will tell if I have been successful at it or not.

What is best way to a become better investor? Get an MBA, is it genetic, read more “Poor Charlie’s Almanac”?

WB: Read everything you can. In my own case, by the time I was 10, I read every book in the Omaha Public Library that had to do with investing, and many I read twice. You just have to fill up your mind with competing thoughts and then sort them out as to what makes sense over time. And once you’ve done that, you ought to jump in the water. The difference between investing on paper and in real money is like the difference in just reading a romance novel and…doing something else. The earlier you start the better in terms of reading. I read a book at 19 that formed my framework ever since. What I’m doing today at 76 is running things in the same thought pattern that I got from a book at 19. Read, and then on small scale do some of it yourself.

CM: Sandy Gottesman, runs a large and successful investment operation. Notice his employment practices. When someone comes in to interview with Sandy, no matter his hage, Sandy asks, “what do you own and why do you own it?” And if you haven’t been interested enough in the subject to know, you better go somewhere else.

WB: If you buy a farm, you’d say “I’m buying this because I expect it to produce 120 bushels per acre, etc…from your calculations, not based on what you saw on television that day or what a neighbor said. It should be the same thing with stock. Take a yellow pad, and say I’m going to buy GM for $18 billion, and here’s why. And if you cant write a good essay on the subject, you have no business buying one share.

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My approach to selecting equity based funds

By Rohit Chauhan
In Mutual funds, Uncategorized
May 5, 2007
3 Min read
24 comments
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My previous post was on my roller coaster ride with mutual funds. I have hopefully learnt from my mistakes and used this learning to develop an approach to selecting and investing in mutual funds. It is not an original or path breaking approach in itself. However it works well for me (based on my personal risk and return preferences).

My expectations from my mutual fund portfolio is around 3-4% extra returns over and above the market returns (including the index funds in the portfolio) net of expenses. I consider this level of additional returns to be quite fair considering the low amount of effort and time involved in managing a mutual fund portfolio.

I have now developed the following approach to select mutual funds. In addition, this is an evolving approach

1. Invest in diversified equity funds with a long history of performance. I typically do not invest in funds with less than 5 years of performance history. The fund should have outperformed the relevant index by 3-4% during the period (net of expenses)

2.Analyse the performance of the fund over one bull and one bear market cycle. This ensures that I am able to see how the fund performed during the bear market and what kind of risk the fund manager was taking during the bull market. There are a lot of fund managers who will ride the latest fad, gather assets and then when the fad passes, the fund would tank completely. I try to avoid such fly by night jokers.

3.Select funds which have beaten the market returns by 3-4 % per annum for the last 5 or more years. Why invest in a fund which cannot outperform the market over the long run and pay fees for that?
4.Check the expense ratios and turnover for the fund. Unfortunately most of the funds in India over charge and only a few have the performance to justify such steep charges. I agree on this with the comments on my earlier posts. I try to select a fund with the lowest expense ratio as far as possible.

5.Check the following additional parameters for a fund. (http://www.valueresearchonline.com/ is a good website for that. It gives a fund summary for most of the top mutual funds)
a.Total asset under management – Should be more than 500 crs.
b.Fund alpha – this indicates the level of outperformance of the fund based on the risk taken by the fund
c.Fund beta, sharpe ratio, standard deviation etc
d.Mutual fund manager profile – how long has the manager been with the fund. Is it a new manager and hence the past performance not indicative of the future performance?. I also try to read interviews of the manager if I can get access to it.

Based on the above broad selection criteria, I have ended up with around 4-5 funds most of the time. After investing with these funds, I tend to check the performance once or twice a year.

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Why invest in mutual funds if you can pick stocks

By Rohit Chauhan
In Mutual funds, Uncategorized
May 2, 2007
3 Min read
4 comments
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I got the following comment on my previous post and thought of putting my response to it in a post as I think it would help in putting my approach and thoughts on mutual fund investing in perspective.

“Low risk, low gain” is fundamental philosophy found true in every walk of life. I am surprised Why people like you, who can take risk after calculated move on the stock market, purchase mutual fund by paying hefty fee to suited gentlemen who musroom on CNBC and other TV channel giving alwyas buy advice in the time of Market going up and up? Find them when the market goes down……They will vanish.
Its my feeling that Mutual Fund is for those gullible masses who wants return on their capital but have no knowledge of stock market .Not like people like you, because why take risk on somebody feeling when you can take for yourself? That too by paying astronomical fee .

I do not agree with the above comment in entirety. True, there are several mutual funds which end up serving the asset management companies and their managers. A lot of these guys are just airheads who come on CNBC and other channels and spout useless drivel. Frankly I rarely watch these channels, they are at best a distraction and noise and just a form of entertainment. However, I would not sweep all the mutual funds with the same brush.

I consider mutual funds to be an important component of my portfolio in addition to stocks and other forms of investments. The reasons are as follows

– Low cost mutual funds with a good, consistent history are a good way of investing in the market and getting above market returns (the low cost and consistent history part is crucial). By selecting a mutual funds based on specific criteria (which I will post shortly), I can try to avoid the type of risks mentioned in the comment above.

– Mutual funds serve as a good benchmark for my portfolio. If my equity portfolio (stocks only) does not beat my mutual fund portfolio (net returns), then I am better off putting my money in well chosen mutual funds and not wasting time in picking stocks myself. In the end, investing is about the risk taken and the returns I get for it. I don’t define risk as volatility or loss of capital alone. Time spent on picking stock is also an investment for me and I see no reason to invest in stocks myself if my equity portfolio does not beat my mutual fund portfolio

– Mutual funds and ETF’s are also a quicker way of getting decent returns. I may not get the same returns as I would by picking stocks on my own, but I also end up spending considerably less time. This I say from experience.

I do not look at stock versus mutual fund investing. On the contrary for me it is stock and mutual fund investing.
Stock investing may give me higher returns, however I have to spend considerably more time on it. For every 10 stocks I analyse, I end up buying 1-2 stocks at best. Mutual funds may provide me lower returns, but I also end up spending much lesser time in selecting and tracking them on a regular basis. So in the end the returns I get compare fairly with the time and effort I spent on it. Investing for me is still a part time thing and not a profession (yet)

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