Interviews

InvestorInsights: Gautam Baid

October 20, 2017

Gautam Baid, CFA, is Portfolio Manager, Global Equities at Summit Global Investments, an SEC-registered investment advisor based out of Utah, USA. Prior to his current role, he served at the Mumbai, London and Hong Kong offices of Citigroup and Deutsche Bank as Senior Analyst in their healthcare investment banking teams. Gautam is a CFA Charter holder from CFA Institute, an MBA in Finance from Nirma University, Ahmedabad, India and an MS in Finance from ICFAI University, Hyderabad, India. He is a strong believer in the virtues of lifelong learning and is an ardent student of the value investing philosophies of Benjamin Graham, Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger.

Safal Niveshak (SN): Gautam, could you tell us a little about your background and journey, how you got into value investing?

InvestorInsights: Naresh Katariya

September 20, 2017

Naresh is a Bachelor of Engineering and a Certified Risk Manager. He has a global consulting experience in Investment Banking, Risk Management, Trading, and Compliance. He also has Consulting experience in global Capital Markets. Prior to starting off as a full-time investor in 2014, Naresh headed the Global Risk and Compliance Consulting unit at the Indian IT major, TCS.

Safal Niveshak (SN): Naresh, could you tell us a little about your background and journey, how you got into value investing?

Naresh Katariya (NK): While I qualified as an engineer, I realized early that my interest was in equity markets. I was working in the broking industry for a few years. But my primary interest in equities arose while I travelled globally and worked on consulting projects for stock exchanges, depositories and investment banks. My fifteen years in TCS, in fact, provided me the perfect platform to observe how capital markets worked across the globe. I used to be filled with amazement working at exchanges/depositories in New York, Zurich, Singapore, Frankfurt, London etc. I was an equity investor in Indian markets throughout this period, building capital as well as honing my investment skills. In 2014, encouraged by a very smart investor from Hyderabad (who was my client during my broking days and now a family friend), I took the plunge into full-time value investing.

InvestorInsights: Jeff Gramm

August 20, 2017

Jeff Gramm manages Bandera Partners, a value-oriented hedge fund based in New York City. He has served on several public company boards and is the author of Dear Chairman, a history of shareholder activism that has been described as “a grand story” and an “illuminating read” by the Wall Street Journal, “a revelation” by the Financial Times, and “an excellent read” by Andrew Ross Sorkin at the New York Times. Jeff has taught Applied Value Investing with Terry Kontos since 2011. He received his MBA from Columbia Business School in 2003 and graduated from the University of Chicago in 1996.

A hedge fund manager and an adjunct professor at Columbia Business School, Gramm has spent as much time evaluating CEOs and directors as he has trying to understand and value businesses. He has seen public companies that are poorly run, and some that willfully disenfranchise their shareholders. While he pays tribute to the ingenuity of public company investors, Gramm also exposes examples of shareholder activism at its very worst, when hedge funds engineer stealthy land-grabs at the expense of a company’s long term prospects. Ultimately, he provides a thorough, much-needed understanding of the public company/shareholder relationship for investors, managers, and everyone concerned with the future of capitalism.

InvestorInsights: Raunak Onkar

July 20, 2017

Raunak Onkar began his career in the stock market, nine years ago, as an intern at PPFAS Ltd with their institutional sell-side business and later joined the Research Team as an Equity Analyst. Eventually, as PPFAS became a pure investment management firm, he moved on to the buy side. He grew under the guidance and inspiration of his mentor, the late Mr. Parag Parikh, and the CIO of PPFAS Mutual Fund, Mr. Rajeev Thakkar. Raunak is currently the Head of the Research team at PPFAS Mutual Fund.

Safal Niveshak (SN): Tell us a little about your background, how you got interested in investing and writing, and how you have evolved in these fields over the years?

Raunak Onkar (RO): I come from a small suburb in Mumbai and spent a good chunk of my childhood reading books, both fiction and non-fiction. I guess writing emerged as a natural extension from there. I’ve been writing mostly for myself since I was in school.

Later I got interested in computers and technology, and wished to formally train myself in that area. I completed the BSc IT course from the University of Mumbai. Midway, during the journey, I also started to enjoy reading about businesses, entrepreneurs and economics in general. Investing was never the primary focus.

InvestorInsights: Shalabh Agarwal

June 20, 2017

Shalabh Agarwal is the founder of Snowball Capital Investment Advisors LLP. After spending a decade in the equities industry, Shalabh quit his steady and lucrative job in one of the best mutual fund houses in India to follow his passion of value investing. With a strong desire to unravel the stock market mystery, he read varied literature on investing – it was all quite confusing till he came in contact with Warren Buffett through his annual letters and books written on him. Since then Shalabh has been an avid follower of the Value Investing philosophy.

Shalabh has a professional experience of more than ten years including seven years as a ‘buy-side’ analyst in the Indian mutual fund industry. He graduated as a Mechanical Engineer from IIT Delhi and went on to acquire an MBA from IIM Bangalore.

Safal Niveshak (SN): Could you tell us a little about your background, and how you got interested in value investing?

Shalabh Agarwal (SA): I graduated from IIT Delhi in Mechanical Engineering in the year 2000. Generally, the fourth year is less intensive and so most of my time was spent on my B.Tech Project (final year major project), billiards and on surfing. Internet was still new to the campus and I remember Moneycontrol launching virtual stock market games. This was a period when markets were going berserk – shares hitting circuits on almost daily basis.

With absolutely no knowledge of stocks, this euphoria was intriguing enough for me to start participating in virtual stock market games. As luck would have it, I won some weekly / monthly portfolio contests and started receiving Rs 200 / Rs 500 bank cheques as prize money. Now this was something big as the dosa (a South Indian delicacy) at IIT Delhi’s subsidized restaurant used to cost ~Rs 5 then – suddenly, the cash starved me had enough to treat his friends!