Jardine Cycle & Carriage Limited. ("Cycle & Carriage") (SGX:C07, Financial) – During the quarter, the Fund also purchased shares of Cycle & Carriage. The company is one of several publicly listed companies ultimately controlled by Jardine Matheson Holdings, one of the most storied companies in East Asia. Cycle & Carriage itself is primarily focused on operating businesses in Indonesia and, to a lesser extent, other parts of Southeast Asia. The vast majority of Cycle & Carriage's business activities take place within PT Astra International ("Astra"), itself one of the largest publicly-traded companies in Indonesia. Astra is the dominant operator in a variety of critical industries, such as auto retail where its passenger vehicle partnership with Toyota currently holds a market share greater than 50% of Indonesia's four-wheel market and its partnership with Honda in motorcycles and scooters currently represents more than 75% of Indonesia's two-wheel market. Astra also partners with Komatsu as Indonesia's sole distributor of Komatsu heavy-duty construction equipment and is the country's leading contract-mining company. The Indonesian economy has begun to show signs of recovery from lackluster conditions after years of depressed commodity prices, trade wars and self-inflicted mismanagement. Aside from the probability of improving business conditions, our purchase was driven by Cycle & Carriage's share price offering a very unusual level of discount to the value of its underlying parts while the underlying parts themselves, most notably Astra, were as inexpensive as they have been in many years.
From Third Avenue Value Fund (Trades, Portfolio)'s first-quarter 2021 shareholder letter.
