Marcellus Insights

If Akbar and Ibrahim II had met, they would have liked each other: Manu S Pillai

This conversation between two of India’s best historians who are currently in circulation – William Dalrymple and Manu Pillai – exposes the cardboard cutout history that is routinely taught in India’s schools and which infect the popular narrative of how India has evolved. Pillai points out that whilst Shivaji (and his war with the Mughals) […]

Why Doctors Hate Their Computers

IT systems in large enterprises often cause as much anguish among the users whose lives these very systems were created to simplify in the first place. In this piece from the New Yorker, Atul Gawande a surgeon and better known as a best-selling author applies this situation particularly to the world of doctors where the advent of […]

Beyond the Hype of Lab-Grown Diamonds

Diamonds were formed deep inside the bowels of Planet Earth billions of years ago. “As the edges of Earth’s tectonic plates plunged down into the upper mantle, bits of carbon, some likely hailing from long-dead life forms were melted and compressed into rigid lattices. Over millions of years, those lattices grew into the most durable, dazzling […]

Return on Capital Super Heroes

American fund manager, Tom Machperson of Nintai Partners, highlights something that many of us who manage money know but never fully acknowledge i.e. “Managers who are frugal, both in their personal lives and in their compensation, generally run companies with higher returns on capital than those overseen by the most highly compensated managers.” Nintai Partners’ number […]

Why are we underperforming the Nifty?

In FY19, our portfolio companies reported 18% revenue growth, 16% earnings growth and 37% ROCE. Whilst this was a healthy performance at an overall level, the external environment facing our companies deteriorated towards the end of FY19 due to tight credit conditions accentuated by the challenges in the NBFC sector (and hence challenges faced by […]

Marcellus: “Unusual Billionaires” Flip the Competitive Paradigm

There are around 25 dominant franchises in the BSE500. Most of them have been created by “Unusual Billionaires – promoters or CEOs who saw their sectors through a very different lens than everybody else and then proceeded to flip the competitive paradigm to create an enduring competitive advantage.  “…And they shared an interesting set of […]

A short film explaining the evolution of our investment philosophy.

Marcellus: Can Meditation Help Us at Work?

Inspite of the origins of meditation in the East, it is Western investors who are highlighting to a sceptical world the significant benefits that meditation confers upon practitioners whose day jobs are highly stressful.  “I am so busy today that…I am going to meditate for two hours instead of one.” ― Mahatma Gandhi Meditation: definitions & origins […]

Polls have no long-term bearing on stock markets: Saurabh Mukherjea

Marcellus: The Working Habits of Great Minds

Published on:17 May, 2019 Pathbreaking work has at its core very hard work, often done in the midst of a well-defined schedule and usually done in solitude. Research shows that the greatest minds of the past three hundred years have used a surprisingly similar template to grind their way to success. “I must have liked […]

Why radical transparency about salaries can pay off

The iconoclastic hedge fund manager, Ray Dalio of Bridgewater Associates emphasised about ‘radical transparency’ in the work place, well documented in his book ‘Principles’. This piece in the FT focuses on transparency in perhaps the most opaque aspect of worklife – salaries. “Pay has long been considered a taboo subject in many parts of the world. […]

Dear school leavers, don’t believe all the stories that will be told to you about the world you face

In his latest blog, my colleague Saurabh Mukherjea writes about “The Tussle Between What we “Should do” & What we “Must do”” blaming in part to societal expectations for “what we should do”. In this Indian Express OpEd, Pratap Bhanu Mehta extends the debate to Indian students’ educational choices and how they are driven or rather […]