Emerging Markets: AI "Picks and Shovels," ROIC, and the Great Supply Chain Reshuffle | EP 210
Release Date: 02/12/2026
Private Equity: The Blurring Line Between Public and Private Markets | EP 227
Art of Boring
Private equity is opening up to individual investors, and the line between public and private markets is blurring. In this episode, private investments portfolio manager Peter Lieu and institutional portfolio manager Kevin Minas break down secondaries and continuation vehicles, the difference between IRR and distributions, and how Mawer built institutional-quality private equity access through fund commitments, co-investments, and vintage-year diversification, including a new mutual fund trust for registered accounts like RRSPs and TFSAs. 0:00 - Introduction: Private Equity Beyond Endowments...
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AI CapEx: How Hyperscalers Turn Data Centers Into Returns | EP 226
Art of Boring
AI CapEx is on track to reach roughly $700 billion at the four largest hyperscalers this year, and equity analyst Irena Petkovic breaks down where all that money is going and what has to be true for it to earn a return. She explains how data centers turned from cost centers into revenue-producing AI factories, the four ways hyperscalers monetize compute, and how the token economy actually works. She then weighs the early evidence of returns against the risks around token pricing, debt financing, and public backlash, and describes how the team positions the portfolio around it. 0:00 -...
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Memory, Part 3: Cyclicality, Leveraged EFTs, and Pricing Uncertainty | EP 225
Art of Boring
How do you value a memory semiconductor stock like SK Hynix when no one can predict DRAM prices? Equity analyst Shan Rui Yeo walks through the team’s Monte Carlo valuation framework: a discounted cash flow run through thousands of scenarios that prices the business on a distribution of returns rather than a single forecast. He also explains how two-times leveraged single-stock ETFs have been amplifying SK Hynix’s daily price swings, why regulators and Korean brokers are responding to retail leverage, and why flow-driven volatility can be a gift for long-term investors. The through-line:...
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Memory, Part 2: The Risks from China, Technological Change, and Overcapacity | EP 224
Art of Boring
Memory has been one of the strongest corners of the semiconductor industry, and strong returns invite hard questions. In the second part of this series, equity analyst Shan Rui Yeo examines the main risks to the memory thesis: rising competition from China's CXMT and YMTC, the technologies that could reduce AI's appetite for memory, and the wave of capacity investment that could eventually tip the industry back into oversupply. He weighs each risk against the constraints holding it back, from equipment export controls to limited EUV supply, and notes that memory companies already trade at...
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Memory, Part 1: From Boom-Bust Commodity to AI Bottleneck | EP 223
Art of Boring
One of the defining market stories of the past 12 months has not been AI chips that compute, but the chips that remember. Equity analyst Shan Rui Yeo explains how memory works, from DRAM and NAND to high bandwidth memory, and how an industry that destroyed wealth for four decades became disciplined after consolidating to three players in 2013. He then walks through what changed: AI inference has made memory the key bottleneck, memory content is climbing with each new generation of GPUs, and new supply takes three to four years to build. With prices up sharply and customers signing long-term...
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Investing in the Build Canada Theme | EP 222
Art of Boring
Canada has spent a generation underinvesting in the infrastructure and resources that underpin its economy, and that may be starting to change. Canadian small cap equity analyst Dominic Drzazga examines the Build Canada theme: what it actually means beyond the headlines, and what has shifted since the federal election. He walks through the legislative groundwork, from the Building Canada Act to a fast-tracked pipeline of named projects, and explains why the clearest near-term opportunities potentially sit in the middle of the value chain rather than with the eventual asset owners. Above all,...
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Quarterly Update | Q2 2026 | EP 221
Art of Boring
Canadian equities gained in the second quarter of 2026 even as the economy tripped the technical definition of a recession and an oil shock sent crude toward $120 before it fell back. Institutional portfolio manager Kevin Minas and investment counsellor Stu Morrow review the quarter, from the gap between the Canadian market and the Canadian economy to the case for holding commodity exposure as geopolitical risk becomes a recurring feature rather than a one-off. They also discuss what a narrow, AI-led rally means for a diversified portfolio, record hyperscaler bond issuance in Canada, and how...
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Emerging Markets: Different Hats, Better Decisions, and Learning Faster | EP 220
Art of Boring
Investment teams increasingly build and rely on their own AI tools, but the payoff depends on how deliberately a team reinvests the time that AI frees up. Emerging markets portfolio manager Wen Quan Cheong walks through how his team puts believability-weighted decision making into daily practice, and where AI has genuinely enhanced the process. He closes with a tour of the emerging-market themes he is watching most closely, from reshoring and clean-room capacity to physical AI, low-earth-orbit satellites, and businesses winning simply by putting the customer first. Above all, he returns to the...
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Global Equity: The Odyssey, the AI Trade, and Concentration Risk | EP 219
Art of Boring
AI portfolio construction in global equity markets (memory semiconductors, mega IPOs, and how to manage concentration risk) is the focus of this conversation with Mawer’s global equity portfolio manager Paul Moroz. Drawing on Homer's Odyssey, he explains the discipline the team applies when navigating themes that are moving quickly: from trimming SK Hynix systematically as the position grew, to sizing up what a wave of large IPOs means for cost of capital, to the central trade-off between underexposure and overconcentration in the AI complex. He also puts numbers around the portfolio's AI...
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Looking Under the Hood: Canadian Equity Concentration and Diversification | EP 218
Art of Boring
Canada’s stock market has set repeated record highs in 2026, even as the domestic economy feels soft. Canadian equity portfolio manager Mark Rutherford explains the gap between the two, and why a large weight in financials can represent more diversification rather than less. He walks through how the team rotated within the sector as the banks re-rated, and the discipline behind trimming a gold position that had run. As indexes themselves have grown more concentrated, the conversation lands on a simple idea: knowing what you own matters more than ever. Key takeaways • The...
info_outlineWen Quan Cheong, co-manager of Mawer’s emerging markets equity strategy, outlines four major themes shaping the opportunity set today. First, the “picks and shovels” of AI: upstream enablers such as advanced chip manufacturers, memory makers, and specialized chip-testing firms that are benefiting from structural bottlenecks in the AI supply chain. Second, companies that are actually converting AI investment into higher returns on capital. Third, the “Great Supply Chain Reshuffle,” where national security concerns, tariffs, and “China plus one” strategies are driving a reconfiguration of strategic manufacturing infrastructure across Asia and the U.S. And finally, a broader universe of less obvious EM stories that illustrate how opportunity is evolving across regions and sectors as these forces play out.
Highlights:
- Why upstream AI enablers are seeing such powerful earnings leverage: how capacity cuts, equipment bottlenecks, and surging demand for DRAM, HBM, and NAND have flipped the memory market from oversupplied to structurally tight.
- What it takes for companies to truly convert AI investment into sustainable returns on invested capital, and why early, well-run adopters may enjoy a multi year edge.
- How shifting geopolitics, U.S. tariffs, and national security concerns are driving a “Great Supply Chain Reshuffle,” from TSMC-linked clean room specialists like Actor Group supporting new fabs to Chinese manufacturers using their domestic scale and integration to expand overseas.
- Why emerging markets are more than just China and tech, with examples ranging from Saudi insurance aggregation and Vietnamese pharmacies to ship maintenance businesses with recurring revenues.
Host:
Rob Campbell, CFA
Institutional Portfolio Manager
Guest:
Wen Quan Cheong, CFA
Portfolio Manager
This episode is available for download anywhere you get your podcasts.
Founded in 1974, Mawer Investment Management Ltd. (pronounced "more") is a privately owned independent investment firm managing assets for institutional and individual investors. Mawer employs over 250 people in Canada, U.S., and Singapore.
Visit Mawer at https://www.mawer.com.
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