SE is a worthwhile high-risk, high-return small position at current levels: the speaker calls the selloff after AI-platform/spin-off news an overreaction, citing a self-financing Shopee, digital-financial-services and Garena ecosystem with revenue and earnings still growing around 30% annually. Forward P/E drops from over 70 in 2023 to less than 30 last year, 22 this year, less than 17 next year and 13 by 2028; DCF fair value is more than double, the average analyst expects nearly double and pessimistic analysts see more than 30% upside. He does not promise an overnight double and flags significant emerging-market risks.

With this company, Bent has built a dominant and multifaceted digital ecosystem that includes e-commerce, digital banking, and mobile gaming. However, not only did the price of this stock collapse, but it fell even further this week after news emerged that they are building a new enterprise AI platform, with the possibility of also spinning off one of their best business units.

However, I think it's an overreaction, and I'm really impressed with the current situation here. So let's cover everything related to Sea Limited . The trading symbol is SE. Firstly, I am really impressed with their demographics in emerging markets.

C Limited operates primarily in seven major Southeast Asian markets, including Indonesia, Vietnam, the Philippines, Thailand and Malaysia, which together comprise more than half a billion people, roughly double the population of the United States .

Here, Sea Limited comes into play through its three major and overlapping businesses. First, they have Shopee, a hybrid e-commerce platform that undisputedly holds the top market share in Southeast Asia.

It is also expanding rapidly in Latin America, with a particularly growing presence in Brazil.

But C Company has poured a lot of capital into building its own logistics system called SPX Express. Today, this network has become one of its strongest competitive advantages, as it can now deliver more than 60% of all parcels the next day in many key markets.

In Indonesia, for example, their express delivery service can get goods to consumers' doors in as little as one hour.

Incidentally, order volumes rose by about 80% in the last quarter. While the actual cost per order also decreased by 20%, this is something you would have expected to increase with all these upgrades.

But the key point here is that this level of speed and intensity cannot be matched by foreign competitors, at least for the time being, without spending billions of dollars and years of work to catch up.

In the last quarter alone, we saw Shopee's strength in processing 4.2 billion orders, a 28% year-over-year increase, pushing total merchandise volume to over $38 billion, also a 28% year-over-year increase.

As a result , Shoppe's quarterly revenue increased by more than 48%, while profit per transaction also rose. Advertising revenue also increased by more than 70% year-on-year, and this will be important in the future given its high profit margins.

Shopee's VIP membership program has already surpassed 15 million paid members, with a monthly retention rate of up to 80% . For those concerned about social commerce threats like TikTok Shopp that could disrupt their businesses, Shopp has responded by expanding its live streaming and short-form video features, which now account for more than a quarter of physical goods orders in Southeast Asia.

Even better, Shoppe generated more than $255 million in adjusted EBITDA in the last quarter alone, up more than 12% year-over-year, with the CEO confirming that the segment will soon generate more than $1 billion in adjusted earnings for the entire year, proving that Shoppe is no longer just a cash-draining startup , but a retail force to be reckoned with .

Despite the greatness of Shoppe, e-commerce tends to operate on very small profit margins , which is why C's other engines are absolutely vital to the company's entire business.

Well, the second unit is “ Money,” which is spelled slightly differently from the English version, but it is their digital financial services suite that acts as a kind of all-inclusive mobile bank and credit provider to tens of millions across the region.

This section is also growing at an amazing pace. In the last quarter, for example, revenues increased by about 60% year-on-year. Nearly $300 million has been converted into adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, which also recorded double-digit growth.

In fact, business is going so well that the CEO announced in an internal memo that Money has become so self-sufficient that they are now seriously exploring taking it public as an independent company.

While Wall Street is panicking about the potential unraveling of this ecosystem, I actually believe this could unlock added value here. Of course, I personally prefer things to stay the same because I liked the progress that was happening before and I would like all the synergies to remain as they are, but I do n’t think the stock should necessarily go down because of this, as it fell by almost 10% in one day after hearing the news.

But a public listing could easily value Manny at tens of billions of dollars, and that would give them cheap outside capital to expand while still giving lots of shares to C shareholders who would still own both companies regardless .

Then we come to the third engine, which is "Garena". It is their digital entertainment studio, which is considered the company's "cash cow" with high profit margins. Their flagship game, Free Fire, continues to attract over 100 million daily active users.

In the last quarter alone, Garena generated more than $760 million in bookings, which it converted into a stunning $430 million in adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization.

So when you look at the overall business, you find that Garena and Money are generating billions of dollars in high-margin cash flow to support Shopee's logistics advantage. Meanwhile, Shopee's massive retail reach is directing millions of new users directly to their platforms in the fintech and gaming sectors.

This creates a kind of self-financing economic engine that I feel is worth investing in.

Despite all that, if you just look at the stock charts, you're likely to come up with a completely different story than this. Because despite the huge rise during the peak of the pandemic, the price continued to collapse to low levels.

The stock has fallen by approximately 80% over the past five years, for example.

Much of this stems from macroeconomic concerns such as inflation, interest rates, the difficult comparison with the larger growth during the pandemic, and even growing fears of competition.

More recently, another concern among investors is that Sea plans to launch a new cloud platform intended to be an enterprise-focused AI platform to serve external companies as part of its broader AI roadmap.

But Wall Street's immediate reaction was that this likely meant billions of dollars in new capital expenditures, just as we see with all other cloud operators . But I see it a little differently, because if you read what CEO Forrest Lee said in the memo, you'll know that this isn't just some random, speculative investment where they're drowning their money.

It is the very infrastructure that Sea has spent the past decade building, improving and developing to power Shopee, Garena and Money. They are simply rebuilding the infrastructure of modern AI applications for external clients for use elsewhere and for monetization in new ways, creating a new, high-margin revenue stream in the long run.

So, I really like this move, and given that the stock price has dropped significantly with the incredible growth that is still at around 30% per annum on revenue and earnings, the valuation has dropped from a forward P/E ratio of over 70 in 2023 to less than 30 last year, then 22 this year, and less than 17 next year, to just 13 by 2028.

That is actually a very low multiple for such a fast-growing tech stock.

In fact, based on discounted cash flow metrics, its fair value is more than double its current price, with even the most pessimistic analysts predicting a rise of more than 30%, while the average analyst expects the price to nearly double.

So I don't know. I just think it's a good high-risk, high-return type of investment.

As I always say, I am not a fortune teller , and I don't promise that the stock will double overnight. As you all know, investing in foreign emerging markets always involves significant risks, and there's a reason they trade at much lower prices.

But for me personally , I feel that this risk is worthwhile at these levels as a small part of my investment portfolio.