eHi Car Services is the largest chauffeured services car company in China, and second largest rental business in terms of fleet size. At the end of 2014, they operated more than 18000  vehicles in rental segment (70% of revenue) and 1300 vehicles in car services (30% of revenue) for a total of more than 19 000 (9800 in 2012). Fleet utilization stood at 71.8%, up from 70.5% in 2013. Number of covered cities also increased from 48 to 99. Ehi Car also operates a peer to peer sharing service similar to Zipcar.

Car rental in China is booming

Everyone knows that Chinese car industry has seen unprecedented growth in the last decade, car ownership increased significantly, although as of 2013 it was 101 cars per 1000 people, which is very low compared to USA's 800 cars per 1000 people. China has a big pollution problem, and the government already limits car ownership in certain big cities, not to mention scarce parking. Revenue in car rental market is rising much faster, from 9 billion yuan in 2008 to 34 billion yuan ($5.6 billion) in 2013  —and it is expected to reach 65 billion yuan by 2018 according to Roland Berger Strategy Consultants.

China has more than 13 000 car-rental firms, however the whole industry had a combined fleet size of only 369,000 vehicles in 2013, about 0.4% of the country’s passenger vehicles outstanding. Compare this to 1.6% in the U.S. and 2.5% in Japan. 

Competition

The industry has two major players, CAR Inc (Owned partially by Hertz Global) and eHi Car. Enterprise Holdings, largest car rental company in USA has acquired a 20% stake in EHIC, marking it's entry in China. CAR is a bigger company by any metric and also holds larger market share (7% according to Frost Sullivan), while EHIC stood at 2.1% in 2013. However, EHIC is growing revenes at a faster rate 50% vs. 30%. Both companies are investing heavily to expanding their fleets and number of cities, hence their earnings and cash flow are depressed (although CAR achieved profitability in 2014, with a 12% profit margin). Let's look at EHIC financial statements:

LDR Holding Corporation is a global medical device company focused on designing and commercializing novel and proprietary surgical technologies for the treatment of patients suffering from spine disorders. Their primary products are based on VerteBRIDGE fusion and Mobi non-fusion platforms (cervical disc), both of which are designed for applications in the cervical and lumbar spine. 

Background

In August 2013, LDRH received approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, or FDA, for the Mobi-C cervical disc replacement device, the first and only cervical disc replacement device to receive FDA approval to treat both one-level and two-level cervical disc disease. LDR was founded in France by Christophe Lavigne, Patrick Richard and Herve Dinville, who still own a significant part of the company.

According to the company, their VerteBRIDGE fusion solution offers a less invasive solution to patients, and it was used more than 80 000 times globally since 2007. Their major product and growth is Mobi-C, a cervical disc replacement device, with patented mobile design, made to replicate natural anatomical movement of the spine. It is also the only FDA approved device, to show clinical superiority to two-level traditional fusion. Here are the results of tests:

• Overall trial success was 69.7% for Mobi-C and 37.4% for fusion, which represents statistical superiority (p < 0.0001).
• The rate of secondary surgeries at the operated level for Mobi-C was 3.1% versus 11.4% for fusion.
• The percentage of subjects who demonstrated adjacent segment degeneration (determined by x-ray) was:
  • 2.9% of Mobi-C patients compared to 18.1% of ACDF patients at the inferior adjacent level
  • 13.1% of Mobi-C patients compared to 33.3% of ACDF patients at the superior adjacent level
• Mean return to work time was 20.9 days shorter for Mobi-C patients compared to fusion patients.
• 78.2% of Mobi-C patients showed improvement in Neck Disability Index (NDI) based on the FDA success criteria versus 61.8% of fusion patients.

In other words, when you have problems with back or spine, doctors would put screws inside your body to fix it, which is not so comfortable and usually painful. With Mobi-C, the procedure is less invasive, and claims to offer patients better movement capabilities. The company estimates, that 30% of U.S. patients indicated for anterior surgery with symptomatic cervical disc disease may be candidates for disc replacement procedures. 

LDRH has over 400 patents globally, out of which 33 are in US, with 100 global pending, 31 in USA. The U.S. spine surgery market is expected to grow at 7.5% for the foreseeable future, with the cervical disc replacement market growing much faster.


Financials

LDRH's revenue growth has accelerated, from 16% in 2012 to 26% in 2014, and 31% in Q1 2015. More importantly, revenues from exclusive cervical products segment (Mobi-C) grew 49% (47% in Q4 2014), which shows that the product is gaining momentum among physicians in US. Approximately 20% of revenue comes from outside America. However the company still expects to spend significant amounts of money for marketing and training of doctors, and probably will not generate any profits in the future.

LDRH has 65 million in cash as of March 31st 2015, and 56 mil. in total liabilities. Inventory and receivables are growing in tandem with sales.

Competition

Market for spine treatment medical devices is competitive and crowded, with Medtronic leading the herd. However, there are hundreds of different procedures and various defects, and many companies with individual products made specifically to address these problems. LDR Holdings is one of them, it has a superior product to traditional methods of fixing certain spine disorders, with no direct competition in sight (Medtronic is developing a similar device, it's approval and launch are a question of months and years). Also, the FDA approval creates a barrier to entry, because a potential competitor has to prove that his product is not only superior to traditional methods but also to Mobi-C disc.


Summary


LDRH stock trades at a P/S multiple of 7.3, with no profits or positive cash flow. It has a product with competitive advantage, and accelerating revenue growth. I believe the health care industry will grow for years to come, with the developing countries population aging, thus increasing spending on medication. Not to mention remarkable growth in emerging economies like China and India, where the health care spending to GDP is still at very low levels. Valuation of LDR might be high, but with growth accelerating and a competitive advantage, I believe this company has a lot of potential. If my analysis is wrong, I will take a small hit and find another great stock. However, If I am right, LDRH can grow significantly for at least next few years and reward it's shareholders.

LDRH has a Zack's rating 1 (Buy), and according to insidermonkey is also held by Richard Driehaus, father of momentum investing. I am going long at open today with a stop loss. Good luck in investing!

Outside of the world of Internet marketing, Hubspot is a little known company founded in 2006 by Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah. It is a pioneer in field of Inbound marketing, that is SEO, content management, social media marketing, videos and others. Started out of MIT, HUBS later received venture funding from Sequoia Capital, Google Ventures, Fidelity and SalesForce.

HubSpot is a software for companies and marketing agencies, which helps devise a low-cost, modern and aimed marketing strategy. According to the company, customers no longer respond to traditional advertisements (TV, newspaper, display ads) or e-mail campaigns, instead look for opinions on products or google or social media. Their site and blogs attract 1.5 million unique visitors every month, with more than 2 million followers across Facebook, Linkedin and Twitter. Basically, they do what they say and get most customers through inbound marketing. 

Their estimated market is 3 million businesses in USA and EU, which have a web presence, while only 3% of them rely on modern marketing methods. As such, it is only at the beginning although it has already become a standard in marketing agencies (over 2200 already use it). Although the software has scale, HubSpot focuses on small and medium sized businesses (20 - 2000 employees), where it believes it has a competitive advantage and can offer the best product. According to several software review sites, they are no.1 in SEO (Search engine optimization), marketing automation and social media marketing.

Let's take a look at some numbers: