Why Read “Behold the Leviathan: The Unusual Rise of Modern India”?
On 21st October, Penguin Random House is publishing Marcellus’ next book, “Behold the Leviathan: The Unusual Rise of Modern India”, authored by Saurabh Mukherjea and Nandita Rajhansa. There are three very good reasons why you should read our book on how India is changing and how you can profit from that change. I have authored […]
‘Capitalism Without Capital’ Finds Strength in India
Whilst capitalism without capital, i.e., the growing prominence of companies who are plays on intellectual rather than physical assets, became established in the developed economies a generation ago, it’s now increasingly prominent amongst Indian companies, both large and small. Specifically, the fastest growth in PAT in the last 10 years has been in decile 2 […]
Creative Destruction on an Epic Scale in India Inc
As per data from the Income Tax department, of all Indian companies that filed non-zero tax returns for FY22, only 17% saw growth in PAT in real terms over the preceding ten years. And these 17% accounted for 98% of corporate India’s PAT. Furthermore, data from the CMIE shows that the prospect of upward mobility (in terms […]
India Stack 2.0: Using AI to Democratize Access to Tech
India’s methodical build of digital public goods, starting with Aadhaar, followed by Jan Dhan (bank accounts for all), and accompanied by affordable mobile connections (courtesy Jio) has led to successes such as the Unified Payments Interface (UPI). The next step in this journey seems likely to be to ensure that India Stack becomes truly transformative […]
The Underdog Ascends: The Rise of a New Indian Elite
The joining up of India, digitally and physically, has democratized access to economic opportunities. This has helped new groups of people rise in the Indian economy. These newly ascendant people are neither based in India’s megacities, nor did they study in elite universities and nor do they belong to the socially privileged castes. From […]
The Rise of the Woman Voter Has Big Investment Implications
Amongst registered Indian voters, more women today are voting than men. The rise in women’s active participation in politics (despite lower representation in Parliament) is a culmination of greater access to information and to business opportunities and greater availability of free time. All of these have been, in part, facilitated by positive policy changes. […]
The Mega Opportunity in Indian Megacaps
Although India’s 20 most profitable listed companies (the ‘Megacaps’) account for around 50% of the profits generated by the BSE 500 companies, these Megacaps account for just 34% of the BSE500’s market cap (down from 41% a decade ago and 45% nearly two decades ago). Indian retail investors’ fascination with SmallCaps seems to be the […]
The Polarization of Corporate Profits in India is Reducing
In the decade running up to Covid-19, corporate profits were increasingly polarized in India i.e., the top 20 listed companies accounted for an ever-larger share of India Inc’s profit pie. However, since FY21 the picture has changed as smaller companies have begun to grow their profits faster than the top 20 listed companies. This […]
Marcellus’ Portfolio Leads India’s Capex Change
Whilst public sector capex has grown steadily in India between FY19 and FY23 (14% CAGR in nominal terms), the same is NOT true for private sector capex (7% CAGR in nominal terms). In such a scenario, Marcellus’ portfolio companies have grown capex (i.e., net block) significantly faster than the capex growth in the BSE500 […]
The Rapid Rise of Female Entrepreneurs in India
Data from the RBI shows that women in India’s urban areas have more money in their accounts than men. Across all levels of the education system, Indian women are outnumbering and outperforming Indian men. Both during our travels and through our number crunching, we can see that urban women are getting wealthier, thanks to […]
Marcellus Christmas Special: How India Changed Its Master Narrative
‘Master narratives’ are culturally shared stories that guide the thoughts and behaviours of the citizens of a country. After surviving the dark, desperate decades immediately following Independence, India has reinvented its master narrative over the past 20 years. The world-beating performance of the Nifty50 over the last 20 years, the widely hailed Mangalyaan mission that […]
From Konappana Agrahara to Electronic City: A Village as a Microcosm of India
Three decades ago, the fortunes of two tiny villages ~20 kms away from Bengaluru changed for the better. In 1992, Infosys set up its campus in these villages and triggered a transformation in what is now known as Electronic City. This monumental change created winners (the tech companies, their employees, landowners) and losers (landless farmers, […]
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