Our Philosophy

The most compelling mispriced opportunities typically present themselves in one (or more) of five ways:

  1. Special situations where a corporate event has created an “understanding vacuum” which leads to a (sometimes significant) mispricing of the underlying value of the business. Examples include demergers, takeovers, complex securities like warrants etc.
  2. Outstanding businesses with a huge runway for growth that can compound capital at high rates longer than markets usually anticipate.
  3. Great businesses that have been temporarily hit by an adverse event/perception, but have long term fundamentals intact.
  4. Dramatic market-wide sell-offs where we can choose the most compelling asymmetric payoff investments possible. This is rare, but also the “easiest” time to seed outstanding investments.
  5. Visionary and execution focused founders building huge businesses of the future on the back of unstoppable digital/technology tailwinds. These businesses are often private.

The common feature among all of this is great, agile management teams with a long term value creation mindset, that are building businesses for the next decade or two, not the next quarter or two. India is a complex place to do business: with heterogeneous micro-markets, relentless macro opportunities/challenges, and at times unpredictable regulations and judicial decisions. There is no chance we can be on top of all these ever-changing factors in our portfolio: hence having great management teams that we can trust, and who can navigate this complex environment is essential.

Truly compelling opportunities do not fit into pre-defined boxes. Which is why Mauryan is sector and market cap agnostic, and invests across all stages in the case of private companies. We also do not pigeonhole ourselves to any particular investing “style”.

With one caveat: there are certain “sin” industries where we just don’t go. Whilst we cannot guarantee that all our investments are good for society, we try hard not to invest in businesses that are overtly benefitting from damaging people’s lives (e.g. addiction).


p.s.

At the end of the day, we are optimists on the India story. We strive to create alpha in various ways, but understand that the real driver of our portfolio will be India itself. There has never been a more exciting time to invest in India (leaving aside valuations). The confluence of the Jio effect (data democratization), the pandemic (digital adoption, “China+1”) and pro-business policy shift (lower taxes, de-regulation, incentive schemes) has created opportunities that just did not exist earlier. We believe the right entrepreneurs, who have the rare combination of vision and execution will create tremendous value in the coming decade or two. As Charlie Munger says, we just need to be “consistently not stupid”.