Ajanta Pharma

No wonder we are in love with one of the smartest minds (not just in VP) that we come across in our investing journey.

I would request every passionate learner to visit the Man in Baroda :). He is a great host by the way. I still remember I sought out Hitesh in one of my journey to Mumbai in 2010 and asked to meet him in Baroda the next day. His house was getting renovated …and he still gave me undivided attention almost the whole day, among interruptions.

2 things stand out for us when we think of Hitesh in Team VP.
1. Ability to cut through the clutter – very sharp – and he keeps sharpening the saw
We used to marvel at his ability to summarise in 2 minutes Pros and Cons and a good enough entry price band for the business – after say finishing off a Management Q&A of 2 hours

We used to do this with everyone asking everyone to take 2 mins to summarise. Almost all of us would take a week before things actually sunk in for us – and obviously our 2 min summaries wouldn’t be sharp, nor would it be able to present pros and cons in that level of simplicity, or 80%+ complete

2.Unemotional Investing (as Juzer has so aptly mentioned)
I haven’t seen a more ruthless and dispassionate examiner of facts/merits of a candidate in your portfolio (after you have held for a few years). Many of us can be really ruthless about a new prospect.
I have admired this trait much more and have tried to emulate as best as I could – still miles to go.

There is a saying – if you admire some quality in someone greatly, you will slowly start imbibing those qualities – it’s an universal thing – quoted in Bible and our Vedic scriptures as well.

CAUTION POINT: About switching. unless you can sleep peacefully with hits n misses after switching (as Hitesh mentions), do not try to emulate this aspect. Know yourself well – know what suits you. If we are not that sharp (which holds true for most of us) it’s far more easier holding on to a good story where we know the business well, hold management in great esteem, and know the business has a very decent competitive advantage period in front. I subscribe to the view more money is made more easily (read lazily) by holding on to great stories (thru swings of over and undervaluation) than by switching out trying to second guess how far say an Ajanta can go, or Astral or Mayur, or even Avanti, or Atul Auto, or PI industries, or many others can go.

if you belong to this camp, then a very effective way to resist any such temptation is to ensure some steady healthy cashflows coming in on a regular basis (then you can easily resist the temptation to do a all-out-switch and can still invest meaningfully in both). For salaried folks who are financially well-managed, this can work easily. For full-time folks like me, you can work hard at establishing a steady consulting cash flow.