In today’s episode, Shawn O’Malley (@Shawn_OMalley_) tells the story of Coupang, the “Amazon of South Korea.” Coupang’s Bom Kim is an impressive founder & CEO who has led the company to incredible growth, with almost half of South Korea’s population becoming active customers of Coupang. And Coupang’s overnight delivery actually puts Amazon to shame, while few companies create as much value for customers as Coupang does with its RocketWOW memberships, which are similar to Amazon’s Prime subscriptions.

But how well does this all translate into value for Coupang’s shareholders? In today’s episode, you’ll learn the origin story behind Coupang, how its business model works, why its stock has flopped since IPOing in 2021, how Shawn thinks about its valuation, and whether he wants to add it to The Intrinsic Value Portfolio, plus so much more!

Prefer to watch? Click here to watch this episode on YouTube.

IN THIS EPISODE, YOU’LL LEARN

00:00 - Intro

02:51 - How Coupang captured the hearts — and wallets — of South Koreans

05:06 - Why Bom Kim founded Coupang 

22:03 - What’s behind Coupang’s shift into luxury e-commerce

33:11 - Why Coupang is planning to expand more in Taiwan and what went wrong in Japan

38:40 - Which legendary investors have invested in Coupang

40:28 - How a negative cash conversion cycle supports Coupang’s free cash flows

42:34 - In what ways Temu and Alibaba are threatening Coupang

45:53 - How to think about Coupang’s intrinsic valuation

49:41 - Whether Shawn is adding Coupang to The Intrinsic Value Portfolio

And much, much more!

*Disclaimer: Slight timestamp discrepancies may occur due to podcast platform differences.

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