Interview with Rohit Singhania, Co-Head Equities & Fund Manager, DSP Mutual Fund

Radhakrishnan Chonat: Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to another episode of AlphaStreet’s Fund Manager Insights. And today on this special day of Holi, we have Mr. Rohit Singhania, the Fund Manager for the DSP India T.I.G.E.R Fund, the Opportunities Fund, the Tax Saver Fund and the Co-Fund manager of the DSP’s Natural Resources & New Energy Fund.

Now Rohit here, brings a wealth of experience having joined DSP Investment Managers in 2005 and with a focus on sectors like auto, auto ancillaries, metal, infra, sugar and hotels. His core philosophy revolves around buying businesses for less than their worth and focusing on companies with capable managements, good growth and strong balance sheets. 

Rohit, it’s an absolute pleasure to have you with us today.

Rohit Singhania: Thank you, Radha. Good day to all. 

Radhakrishnan Chonat: Thank you, Rohit. Rohit, let’s start with you sharing a bit about your journey in the financial industry. From your early days as a portfolio analyst to your current role as a fund manager at DSP, walk us through your journey.

 Rohit Singhania: Radha, I joined this space in the year 2000 after completing my post-graduation. My first job I started I think in 1st October, 2000, right? And I was an analyst, supposed to track the commodities and the cement sector. Later on, as things progressed, I took over auto and industrial sectors. The first almost five years of my career I was in sell side analyst. So that time, the job was to identify companies, meet the management, write reports and take your recommendation to the fund manager, the so called buy side, right?

So it was — I mean I think it was kind of a job whereby I’m doing the similar things today also, right? But the difference was, you go, you write a note, you give your view and then you forget about it. Right? I mean yes, you’re recalled for your right or current views, that’s fine. But the pressure or the kick part of it, you’re putting your own money or you’re putting someone’s money who’s trusted with you in that idea. That always — somewhere I was lacking that extra mile, you can say, right? 

That’s what, in 2005, I got an opportunity. At that time we were DSP Merrill Lynch. We had a PMS division and we were doing advisory for one of the private sector insurance. So I got an opportunity there and I just grabbed it, right, I mean, without thinking where, what, how. It was a good brand. I knew the people over there because I used to service them while I was in sell side. It was all the tick marks for me, right?

And that’s when actually my buy side journey started. And I always used to think it’s the same thing, same work you’re doing as sell side. When you come to buy side, you’re just sitting in the opposite side of the table. But the whole thought process changes, right? You pay a lot of — points of view to risks, the alternatives, because here you’re putting the money by yourself. You’re not just telling someone [Foreign Speech], right? 

So that’s when even the journey, the evolvement of how do you look at businesses from various angles and how do you analyze risk more? One thing I learned, and I was told by my seniors is we always talk about NAVs going up. At bad times, how can we manage the NAVs? How can we restrict the NAV downfall? [Foreign Speech], right? Because when — you always think of things going up, right? You never think things becoming bad.

 And then coming on this side, there was a lot of learning on macros also, right? Because now you’re not a sector analyst, you have to look at all the sectors, you have to have some understanding about macros, what drives valuations, all those aspects, which — first four, five years, I mean, I knew about it, but never bothered reading, learning a lot about it. I think that was the journey. 

Gradually, I think in 2010, I was moved to a mutual fund side, and that’s when I was given my first fund to manage, the DSP T.I.G.E.R. fund, which is the infrastructure fund. And if I remember that time, I remember telling my Head of Equity that time, Anup, why are you giving me this fund? The sector right now, it’s in the downturn, I don’t know when the revival is going to come. And I still remember him telling me, Rohit, it’s a challenge, right? You are getting an opportunity to manage money. It’s coming to your plate, you should think that way rather than thinking [Foreign Speech].

That’s what was my first experience of actually managing a fund. And again, what happened, as I mentioned, from research to a buy side analyst and buy side analyst to actual fund manager, right? And then you have, okay, now I have so many things on my plate. One, how do I categorize those things, how do I make sure what is important, what is not important, what is less important? And it’s again a continuous learning process. 

Eventually, two years later, I was given the DSP NRNE Fund, which is again a commodity and oil and gas fund. So again, it was my forte. These sectors I had tracked for so many years of my life. It was easy going. Then eventually they started grooming me for two of our other diversified funds, which is the ELSS Tax Saver and Equity Opportunity Fund. I started working with my colleagues, I think in 2012, 20 13. 2015, these two funds were again given to me.

Again they being a diversified fund, right, so in my previous two funds, IT, FMCG, pharma, consumer distribution were not investable universe and these became investable universe, right? So again, the grooming since 2005 to 2012, right? And being with a team which was always there for you to make you learn, make you understand your mistakes, tell you how you can avoid, that helped a lot. 

And we still have this process. We have a day called Wednesday, which we call as an internal day, right? So it’s the entire DSP equity team. We sit around a table, whether you’re a junior analyst, senior analyst, junior fund manager, senior fund manager, head of equities, the entire team. We discuss our ideas across, whatever last week we have done in terms of our meetings or we have read some articles. So we discuss it on a daily basis. But that day is — if you think something really important, you need to discuss it, take it few steps forward, we all discuss it. 

What happens here is, as example. I’m an auto analyst, I’m sitting on a table. I have my pharma analyst giving his view, staple analyst giving his view. And also you’re hearing a lot of views together. You’re understanding what’s happening to a sector. So automatically, after a few months, you realize, okay, you’re a sectoral analyst, but you have lot of ideas about other sectors also. I mean that’s how, if I remember, I grew in this whole space, right, just from being an auto commodity analyst to now learning and knowing about the sector.

 So I think this has been pretty much my journey. So today, as we stand, you mentioned I manage four of our funds. I’m also the Co-Head of Equities. So again, here at least, my role, what I feel is, what happened with me last 15 years, how I was groomed and developed, if I can do that with my team, I think that will be a good job done for me at least.

Radhakrishnan Chonat: Excellent. Excellent. What a journey it has been and very interesting insight into how DSP works internally. Thanks for sharing that. In one of the write-ups I read that you focus on buying businesses for less than what they are worth as a fund manager, right? Now, how do you determine the intrinsic value of a company and what factors, according to you, do you consider in your valuation process? 

Rohit Singhania: So Radha, in a way, when you speak to any fund manager, you read about any fund manager, right? What do we all say? We want to buy good businesses, we want to buy good managements. I mean that’s a common factor, right? But today, when I sit and analyze a company, if I’m analyzing a company today, I think this company has done very well in its past, when I see the market share, its moat, return ratios, cash flow generation. Right? But that’s not a starting point for me to go and buy the company itself.

I mean, what was the reason last 5, 10 years, the company did so well? Can those same things continue over the next 4, 5, 10 years? Right? What if the whole business is changing? What if there is more competition coming in? Right? What if the demand for that product due to that — you call that fashion and fad. It was a fad, it’s going away, right? So their past performance for me is not a key driver for my future performance. So before going to valuation, this is when I look at it. 

On the opposite side, when I’m meeting a company, when I look at the balance sheet, oh my God, last two, three years, profits are down, cash flows are down, ROE is down. The first impression would be [Foreign Speech], I don’t want to look at it. Second would be, okay, let’s have a look at it, why? Is the nature of the business cyclical? Or it’s read-thorough of its business cycle, what is it happened? So again, you go back to history. 

So here you may have two options, right? One is you see promoters taking decision which have always gone wrong or not right for the business. Then you ignore it, right? There’s no point. You don’t want to bet on a person who’s always giving you that experience of doing wrong things, right or not the right things. Second is you analyze, you feel, okay, maybe the decision which they took maybe a few years back, it could be expansion, it could be acquisition, it could be just setting up of new geographies, right? And suddenly something went wrong in this particular space. So your balance sheet or P&L is going to look bad. There’s no way to it. 

But today, as Rohit, if I’m sitting over there and I like that business, that segment, right, then I feel if that segment has to grow, then this company has got all the ingredients in it today to have that delta earnings growth, delta ROE growth. So why not look at it, right? Yes, today it’s looking bad for a reason. The reason is justifiable. I’ll go and buy them. So this is how I analyze businesses, right? 

Now, coming to valuations. Now, valuations, I feel it’s everyone’s — the Hindi word you call is Shraddha [Phonetic]. Some may feel 20 is expensive, some may feel 20 is very cheap. How do you lay some data points or some benchmarks to it, right? Of course, you see last 5 years’, 10 years’ averages, right, in terms of what category averages it was and what is it trading today. Where are we in that average is one. Two, among the same segment, at what premium discount used to trade to your peers 5, 10 years back and what are you trading today? That’s the easy part, right? 

Then you analyze, okay, at this price, at these valuations, this company is trading fair. If it’s in line with last year averages, if it’s 1.5 , 1 standard deviation higher, you know it is slightly expensive to its averages. And if it’s low, it’s cheap. But again, is that a starting point? It could be just a wrong number, right? If to say, example, companies trading higher at 1 standard deviation, you may feel [Foreign Speech], but is today the business looking at something much higher next four, five years in terms of moat, growth, is that valuation justified? On the other side, if it’s cheap, just because of cheap, it doesn’t make it investable, right? I mean, has something gone wrong? 

So it’s a confluence of business growth, your expectation, and where are you trading towards history? And is that sustainable? So in some cases, in banks, we look at price-to-book. In manufacturing companies with high debt, we look at EV EBITDA and companies like staples and IT, which are clean businesses, right, we look at price to earning ratios.

Again, it is just not valuations. Yes, valuations gives you margin of safety when you like the business, when you feel business is performing. Because again, in the end, Radha, I feel every business is a good business, right? They go through cycles. But for me as an investor, I’m buying the price of that business I’m getting today. And can that price go up after next two, three years? I have to analyze that. 

I don’t want to tell my investors I have good businesses in my portfolio. I want to tell I have good businesses which I feel can give me capital appreciation over a period of time. That’s how I look at valuations and businesses. 

Radhakrishnan Chonat: Interesting, very interesting. So most of the — I mean, the T.I.G.E.R. Fund and other funds that you manage have cyclicality built into it. Right? Now you need to ensure that you are not getting into a value trap. But more than that, the mutual funds, right, per se, you’re managing money of retail. Right? How do you ensure that during these troughs? How do you ensure that they understand that this is cyclical in nature? And what sort of a communication do they expect at that point? Any insights on that?

Rohit Singhania: Radha, see, when I interact with the intermediaries, right, the IFAs or the prudent [Phonetic] gatekeepers, right? So again, it’s been now so many years. So whenever I talk about my funds, right? So I say a fund like Equity Opportunity Fund, which is the large midcap category or the ELSS Fund, right? This fund is for everyone because they are basically diversified funds, right? 

Radhakrishnan Chonat: True.

Rohit Singhania: But when someone talks to me about a DSP NRNE Fund or a DSP T.I.G.E.R. Fund, my first question to them is, do your clients understand the risk associated with it? With this, what I mean is, today, say, our natural resource fund, I can invest in oil and gas and commodities. If for example, these two sectors are not doing good, I don’t have an option to buy IT, pharma, FMCG. Right, like what I have in my Equity Opportunity and ELSS Tax Saver. 

So here maybe you have great upsides if you get the cycle right and even in wrong times, you may have slightly higher downsides than what you may have in diversified funds. So I always tell my advisors or partners, right, please understand the risk ability of your client and it’s been — 2012, it’s been about twelve years since I’ve been managing a natural resource fund. At the best of the times I’ve told my clients, [Foreign Speech]. Don’t go by the craziness of you’re expecting big return because, again, you need to have that downside ability built in. 

Radhakrishnan Chonat: Correct.

Rohit Singhania: It is my job to just keep on informing them, the risk in the portfolio you’re investing into. We like getting money, we like talking good things always, right? But in thematic fund, if someone understands the risk and then invest, I think the journey for him or her is better. The journey for me is better. I’ll get money when I want, right? That’s how it works for me.

Radhakrishnan Chonat: Sticking to that theme, you would have been in vantage point to see the evolution of retail investing. Especially post-pandemic, number of DMAT accounts have gone up. SIPs have never stopped. 2005, when you started at the sell side and 2024 now as a fund manager, how has been the evolution of investors? 

Rohit Singhania: I think with my limited understanding, right, I think that there has been a sea change in the behavior. I mean I remember in 2005, ’10, ’11, ‘12, right, when the markets used to be down for whatever reason, we knew [Foreign Speech]. People are going to sell because markets are down or things are turning red [Phonetic]. 

So what I feel is in the last — I would say even pre-pandemic, right, with this advent of Internet, smartphones, everyone has become knowledgeable. They’re reading a lot of stuff. Today, I remember when I meet few clients and they are into their businesses, similar kind of clients, maybe 10 years back, they had no [Foreign Speech] or no idea, right? They had money, they had an advisor who or she has advised them, and they are putting in money. 

Today, they understand the markets. The questions — the kind of questions they ask you, you feel it’s right, right? Now coming to the regular retail behaviour, I think I’m still yet not to gauge in terms of what’s changed, but again, if I take the last one year examples, right, when you have seen certain drawdowns, certain events happening, I think the behavior has not been the same as in the past. They have stuck to their investments, willing to put in more, right? 

So again, I don’t know what’s the reason, is it they understand the market, they are here for a long haul or probably on the other side, I mean, I may sound crude over here, on the other side, there are no other investment opportunities left, right, where you can invest INR5,00000 every month, every day, every week. Right? And the liquidity factor also — somewhere in the mind, you have that, right? If I need money today, I’ll get it tomorrow at least, right, if not today. 

I think it’s a confluence of media, confluence of Internet, where people are reading lot of articles about equity markets, driving forces, which people are now more aware of, spending time reading it. And of course, if you put in more money, you want to understand more, so maybe they’re reading more. Right? And that’s how I would put it.

Radhakrishnan Chonat: True. Skin in the game, probably. Yes.

Rohit Singhania:  Yeah. It’s skin in the game. Right? Yeah. 

Radhakrishnan Chonat: Wonderful. Shifting gears a little bit, you mentioned one of the major transitions from a portfolio analyst to a fund manager has been the macro view. So let me try to pick your brains. What is your macro view on India and any sectors that you are gung ho about and any sectors that you probably see cyclicality kicking in anytime soon?

Rohit Singhania:  Right. So see, what I meant when I spoke to you about macro view, right, so again, you have various sectors in the market and of course, you have businesses, right? So the ideal is the bottom-up business, what I understand the most, right? That is a good business, or I expect it to be good or doing better, but if the macro is the top-down, right, if the factors are not favorable, right, so again, good business, but the performance may not be good for that particular point of time. 

I mean, take for — currently, the recent example I would give you is financials. It’s a good business. Today. What we are jottled [Phonetic] with is liquidity issues, right? Everyone is worried about profitability coming down because of cost of deposits going up. Right? So when I’m constructing a portfolio, having a bottom-up view on banks is fine. But how are the macros affecting that particular sector? What influence are they playing in their profitability growth, right? That is important.

On the other side, take for example, export-oriented businesses, right? You may be one of the best companies doing the right work, but if, say 30%, 40% of your turnover is coming from exports, and then you realize maybe that country is facing some issues or that country has some issues with your country, right, because of geopolitical thing, so the exports are going to get impacted. Right?

So these are the things you have to look at, the rate of interest, the government policies, right, how they are going. I remember – I mean today, if I see last four, five years, we were not bothered about government policies. Five years back — till five years back, we need to start, tell me what is involved in this? Where is the risk over there. Right? So these are the confluences. 

As we stand today in terms of sectors, I think personally I like financials a lot, healthcare, auto and telecommunication. So when you’ll see my two diversified funds, when you’ll see the top active rates, right. I mean, you’ll find these four sectors having the most active rates. This is what I like today. 

Radhakrishnan Chonat: Excellent. From a geopolitical standpoint, are there any red signals that you see in the short term with all what’s happening? And the two biggest democracies are going for election year, India and the U.S., any views on geopolitical risk or opportunities per se?

Rohit Singhania: Radha, I mean the Ukraine-Russia war, it’s been two years and few days, right? I don’t remember talking to anyone in the last six months about the war. It’s going on, somewhere it’s happening. Right? Then you had the Middle East issues, you have the South China Sea, some news coming up every time, right? 

But as an investor, right, how do you look at these data points? It’s a binary thing. Will it escalate or no? Will China do something with Taiwan? I mean, you don’t know all that, right? It’s a binary option. So what you do is rather than spending a lot of time and analyzing, because you’ll never be able to get it right. If it happens tomorrow, it’s going to happen tomorrow. I mean, you’re going to sit with the portfolio you have, right. If you really feel some possibilities, right, so okay, you analyze businesses, which businesses gets less impacted by this event or get more impacted? If you feel gets more impacted, try to reallocate your weights to other businesses. 

But that’s what you can do. You can’t be sure of that event happening. And so you want to plan it. Today, if a company is diversifying into a new product, new market, I can put down some numbers. What is the size of the market? If this company gets this market share, [Foreign Speech] and then I can put value to the growth. In events like this, I don’t know what to do. Right? You read about it every alternate day. But if something has to escalate, it will escalate like COVID, right? It came that day. I mean you couldn’t do anything, right? There’s a shutdown everywhere. I mean, could you have planned for it before? I mean I don’t know if someone would say I could have planned for it before. How you could have planned for it before? I mean that’s my view at least.

Now coming to the two big elections, I think — I don’t know, for India, I don’t think whatever I’m reading in the media, right — I don’t think there should be any surprises per se. I think we should have continuity at least in that front. In the U.S., I really don’t know what’s happening. I don’t understand U.S. politics. I read a lot about it because again over there, who wins, who comes, right, how the policies are going to — because everyone — at least you know, if I come today, what I want to do, what I have said, I know that. You come today, you know. 

So who comes today, how the international policy gets shaped, so you have to keep a watch over there, right? Because everyone has their own agenda, own view about various countries, own view about domestic businesses. So as a fund manager, I mean whoever comes, I mean I have no control over there. But in terms of their policies, whatever they have mentioned in the last few months or what they’re going to talk about it, you need to be aware of it, right? Because if something is really changing globally because of new person coming or current continuing or what’s happening, you need to be aware how the businesses will get impacted in few countries. And can they have a positive or negative effect in businesses in India. 

Radhakrishnan Chonat: Very interesting. Let’s talk about active versus passive. And in a market like India where I believe personally, information asymmetry is still present to an extent, what are your views and why active makes sense?

Rohit Singhania: Okay, so I’ll tell you, what’s happened, Radha, and again, this is my personal — it’s not a DSP view. If you see last four, five years of the market, right, and even a few years before COVID, I would say, there were few segments of the businesses which were doing good, right? And there were like, if you take Nifty 50, maybe six, seven or eight companies which were doing really well and the rest 40-odd — in terms of business performance, not the stock price performance, right, because the business performance leads to stock price performance. 

And they had significant weights in the index. So what was happening is with those weights, they were doing very well. And therefore the index funds were doing well. Coming to the active side, right, when I’m an active fund manager, for me to just take that call, [Foreign Speech]. It’s not physically and it’s not right thing to do also, because then what you’re telling the investor is, I’m not understanding, I’m not hedge-hugging the benchmark. Then as an investor, you please go to the passive fund, you’ll be charged less. What are you paying money for? Right?

So what’s happened is the breadth of the market was very narrow. I mean, as I see India and as I see a lot of businesses evolving. Like we are DSP, we have significant assets in small and midcap category and not now, over the last many years, right? So we have been meeting this sec of businesses for so many years and how they are changing, how they have grown from a microcap those times to a small-cap to a midcap and from some to a large-cap also, right? 

I mean, today if I see, it’s like when you look at the SEBI categorization, the biggest two-wheeler companies by volume sales is a midcap company today, as in market categorization, right? So this is how the breadth of the market has changed. I think as an active fund manager, if you get the businesses right, and if you have that call of, I want to really have active weights in that particular name, because again, in the end today, if the benchmark weight is 7% of a particular stock or 8%, and I like the business a lot, if I just have a 6%, 7%, what’s the use, right? At least I should have plus that index weight.

So I feel there is lot of options for the active strategy. You need to look at various factors as a fundamental fund manager today, right? We are reading lot about momentum strategies, factor scoring, because there are so many people doing so many different things. So how can you have a blend, like you say, art and science, if you can learn more about the science, because [Foreign Speech], we’re doing it for so many years. If you can blend these two, I think active has still got a lot of legs in India at least. 

Radhakrishnan Chonat: Excellent. You mentioned you’ve been privy to the managements, right from their small journey from microcap to all the way. How has been the overall corporate India’s landscape been? Long back, there were a lot of mention about Chor companies and all that stuff. So are there any filters that you have personally when you talk to management and how do you gauge the management quality? 

Rohit Singhania: Right. So one is, there are, I think, I would say three or four aspects to it, right? Because gauging a management quality again, if it’s a listed company and listed for long, so as I said, you know their past performance, the past decisions which they have taken, did it make sense to you? Were they business friendly or were they promoter friendly? Right? I mean you have that idea. So it’s easy for you as a starting point. Right? 

So when you analyze their businesses, so I mean — I — so personally, we have met managements of the same industry, same sector. One talking about a 20% revenue growth, one talking about, Rohit, I can grow as much as I want. [Foreign Speech]. Fine, sir. When I saw them after two or three years down the line, I’m seeing the balance sheet of the person who stuck to his 15%, 20% growth here. And the other guy has just diluted himself. 

So again, how the management talks about growth, his vision of the business is very important. See, who all – I mean, today I would say I want my enemy to go 100% CAGR. [Foreign Speech]. For that, what I have to do, it’s the key, right? 

Radhakrishnan Chonat: Correct.

Rohit Singhania: So again, if the management is being very aggressive, what thoughts does he have? Does he have risk in mind? Does he look at his balance sheet? Does he look at his interest coverage ratio? Right? That’s one on the financial aspect. Right? How much the businessman wants to dilute himself or be aggressive. On the other side is — so we have something called — we have a person whom we call a forensic analyst. 

Radhakrishnan Chonat: Okay. 

Rohit Singhania:  Okay? So he doesn’t do your audit. He doesn’t check the bills because we don’t — but see, today as a fund manager, if I’m meeting Radha for the last 15 years, right, I’ll meet you, I’ll talk you about the business [Foreign Speech] but I have a fair idea and I’ll be fine. His job is to dig holes in terms of whatever data he sees. For example, if Radha has 10 businesses, right, I must be knowing only about two. He will go to the registrar of companies, see whereby you have the holdings. Right? And if one day he realizes, okay, that Johnny [Phonetic] holds in this company where the debt is very high, his other businesses have no cash flow. So if there is an issue over there, your cash, your current business is going to give him all the cash.

So when we meet businesses, we talk about these aspects or we feel the materiality of that other businesses which the promoter owns is too big and we say, okay, let’s avoid this business, right? So again, it’s an evolving thing, but things where, as fund managers — and it’s not a good thing or a bad thing. If you talk about businesses, growth, environment, moat, right, further, if you go two steps ahead in terms of other businesses of the promoters, the holdings, how it is matched, I think that’s what I think we do a little — we try to take an extra effort at DSP. And sometimes, the data which he has come up with in the last two years and it’s been surprising to me. [Foreign Speech]. You may say, Rohit, you never did your work, but that work as a Rohit — as I can be a fund manager or I can be the forensic analyst, I can’t do both that work together, right? So I mean that helps a lot.

So we lay a lot of thing on governance, right? That’s I think across every investor today in India, but few software aspects going beyond numbers, if you can get some sense over there, it helps. 

Radhakrishnan Chonat: Very, very interesting. Rohit, when you’re not analyzing companies, right, when you’re not actively managing all your funds, what do you do? I’m trying to pick your brains and try to understand how do you chill? What are your hobbies outside of going through research documents? 

Rohit Singhania: I’ll tell you, I like listening to music. And now this OTTs have messed up my life in the last few years, right? So on weekends, I mean there are some weekends where you just watch six, seven episodes at one stretch, right? Because what it does, it just takes your mind away. You’re listening to music, nice old Hindi songs. When I was young, we used to go for a lot of long drives with parents, right, and even like inter-cities. So that time you had those cassettes, right? And my mom used to have a lot of recorded sets of them and old songs. So you still remember them.

So you don’t mind — sometimes [Indecipherable] YouTube, my wife and I listen on the YouTube and old songs to hear, right? Your new songs, you don’t remember half of them. You don’t know or understand the lyrics also. I think for me, watching TV, right, and sometimes, when cricket is on right? So again, the T20 has again spoiled that habit. Your attention span has gone away, right? Even in a one full 50 over match, you get bored. So what to do, right? 

Radhakrishnan Chonat: True. 

Rohit Singhania:  So yeah, you — if it’s on at — if India is playing or it’s a good team like Australia or England playing where you know the matches are going to be good and the opponent is good, I don’t mind watching them. But yeah, listening to music I think is one which gets me out. I like driving, but driving, you really need to plan for it. Being in Bombay, to get out, get in. So let’s go early morning or let’s go late night, you just want to listen to music, windows rolled down. I think pretty much that’s what gets me out of my — the fun part of it or the stocks part of it, right?

And I stay with my parents, so we stay together, right? So we just sit with them for one hour, just talk anything. All this helps. It’s a connected thing, right? I mean it’s not a one particular thing you want to do, but yeah, being — like music, watching TV, being with your parents, your family, just gets you out of that for a lot of times. That’s the best part for me at least.

Radhakrishnan Chonat:  Beautiful, beautiful. Keeps you well-grounded also. 

Rohit Singhania: Yeah.

Radhakrishnan Chonat: Excellent. Rohit, just last question. As a fund manager, right, what keeps you awake at night? And what gives you the motivation to go to office on Monday morning? So what gets you excited and what keeps you awake at night? 

Rohit Singhania: The excited part is, I would say, more than excitement is the responsibility, right? It’s easy for you to tell me I’m a fund manager. I have to take calls. People give you various tags. In the end, as you rightly mentioned, I’m managing a person’s money whose net worth could be as low as INR2 lakh to as high as INR1,00000 crore. And they all have put money into my funds, right? 

So again, just to make sure whatever I’ve been doing, I have put in the right effort to it, right? So I don’t think I’ve had experiences where the effort bit has taken my sleep away. But then sometimes you have events, right? Like COVID was a recent example, in the previous there are a lot of geopolitical issues, oil suddenly going up. So when something happen, you keep on thinking about your portfolio, how to derisk it. 

As I said, NAV going up is good, but NAV going down less is better in bad times, right? That’s when you keep on thinking. And you say, on hindsight, you think if you made a mistake, what are the learnings, how can you maybe avoid it next time? So I think putting to sleep, I don’t think work-related. There have been very few instances there, when you don’t know things. [Foreign Speech] You think, oh shit, tomorrow what am I going to do? Right? 

But I mean, as long as what effort which has gone inside your portfolio construction, right, as long as you’re aware of your team — and see as an AMC, right, we talk about fund managers. I think the dealers, the research team, it’s all one. So as long as you have the confidence on your team, whatever they are telling, you they are doing, it’s the right effort from effort price, intellectual price, everything, right, governance part of it. And that’s the easy part.

If you start doubting, I mean I hope not, those doubts coming, then that’s where I’ll not have sleep. Because I’ve been in this organization since 2000 [Phonetic] — almost 19 years, right? It’s been like a closed knit. The trust is more important than anything else. What is driving that third person, second person’s decision, behavior. If you start questioning that or if you have doubts, then the sleep is gone. Then you need to act accordingly. Right? I would say that.

Radhakrishnan Chonat: Very, very well put. Rohit. It’s been an absolute pleasure in picking your brain and trying to understand your investment philosophy. I look forward to more such conversations. And thank you for taking the time out on a holiday like today. 

Rohit Singhania: My pleasure. Thank you so much, Radha. Thank you.

Radhakrishnan Chonat: Thank you, Rohit. 

Rohit Singhania: Thank you. Good day.