Why animals don’t get lost
The New Yorker is where Pullitzer Prize winning writers like Ms Schulz congregate to bring to you the world’s best writing as evidenced by this piece. How are birds & animals able to travel over long distances – thousands of miles in the case of migratory birds, hundreds of miles in the case of animals […]
Columbia University students interview John Huber of Saber Capital Management
We found this interview with an American fund manager, John Huber, in a newsletter published by the students of Columbia Business School. In this piece, Mr Huber talks about his training & evolution as an investor and his investment philosophy. The piece is interesting because it reinforces learnings on three subjects that we spend a […]
Why Indian corporates need to start investing in autistic talent
The 3L&3S has in the past featured pieces on the importance of diversity in teams at the workplace not just from an inclusion perspective but also in terms of bringing fresh insight and creativity to problem solving. Whilst we usually think about gender, race, religion, here’s a piece by Gopika Kapoor on how the differently […]
Bernsten: Free Trading Is Like Giving Chainsaws To Toddlers
We would highly recommend the Morningstar’s podcast on personal finance and investing – The Long View which consistently brings in interesting experts and the hosts, Christine Benz and Jeff Ptak do a great job of getting the best insights out of them. In this piece, Robin Powell at TEBI gives a good summary of the podcast with […]
India’s bankruptcy resolution professionals are under siege
An important aspect of Marcellus’ investment philosophy is avoiding companies with dodgy accounting and we see accounting quality as a proxy for promoter integrity. This article reinforces the importance of that. If bankruptcy professionals appointed by the courts to turnaround defaulting companies and recover lender’s interests can be subject to this treatment, what hope in […]
Here’s 10,000 Hours. Don’t Spend It All in One Place.
Inspired by David Epstein’s outstanding book “Range: Why Generalists Triumph in in a Specialized World”, last year Saurabh Mukherjea of Marcellus co-authored with Anupam Gupta “The Victory Project: Six Steps to Peak Potential”. Saurabh’s book made the point that to succeed in complex working environments all of us need to build a range of skills […]
The spectacular implosion of Neil Woodford, Britain’s superstar fund manager
Around twenty years ago when some of us in Marcellus were young brokers in the stockmarket in London, a visit to Invesco Perpetual’s campus just outside London in the picturesque town of Henley was like a visit to the Vatican. Inside the campus presided the then ascendant superstar of British fund management, Neil Woodford. Once […]
Spotlighting Amrutanjan Healthcare
This month we place the spotlight on Amrutanjan Healthcare, the second largest player in the Indian head pain balm category. Over the last decade, Amrutanjan has successfully mitigated the growth challenges in its mature core head pain balm category through new products, targeting the adjacencies (body pain, congestion) and foray into categories like sanitary napkins […]
The Science Behind Portfolio Concentration
Diversification in an equity portfolio reduces stock-specific risk but excessive diversification reduces returns, substantially more than it reduces risk. Marcellus’ proprietary framework for arriving at the number stocks in a portfolio is based on the most critical driver of portfolio concentration, namely, the “gradient” of the characteristics that the fund manager seeks within her coverage […]
How Portfolio Management Services in India Rediscovered its Mojo
Positive regulatory intervention and the ‘financialisation’ of savings in India has galvanised the Portfolio Management Services (PMS) industry in India. Once seen as a niche corner of the asset management sector, the PMS sector industry is increasingly at the vanguard of dynamic innovation in the Indian asset management sector. The year was 2017 and the […]
Be More Realistic About the Time You Have
There’s plenty of self-help material on productivity hacks and how to make the most of our time. Despite everything, many of us find ourselves falling short of time to complete the projects that we have committed to or eating into our leisure time to fulfil the commitment. This piece in the HBR says we should […]
How one of world’s greatest hidden fortunes was wiped out in days
Whilst the markets have been concerned about inflationary risks and therefore interest rate increases stalling the rally, we have been reminded this week of other ways low interest rates can create systemic risks – excessive leverage. This piece in Bloomberg talks about Archegos Capital Management, a US based hedge fund/family office which defaulted on margin […]
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