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Indian Subcontinent All Cap
Launched in 2006, the strategy invests in companies based in or having significant operations in India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka or Bangladesh.
Launched in 2006, the Stewart Investors Indian All Cap Strategy is a long-term, equity-only strategy that aims to invest in shares of high-quality companies positioned to contribute to, and benefit from, the sustainable development of the region. Given the size of the economy and the investment universe, the majority of the strategy’s 30-60 investments are in Indian-listed companies.
Strategy highlights: a focus on quality and sustainability
- Companies must contribute to sustainable development. Portfolio Explorer >
- We invest in high-quality companies with exceptional cultures, strong franchises and resilient financials. How we pick companies >
- We avoid companies linked to harmful activities and engage and vote for positive change. Our position on harmful products >
- Our approach is long-term, bottom-up, high conviction and benchmark agnostic
- We focus on capital preservation as well as capital growth – we define risk as the permanent loss of client capital
Latest insights
Quarterly updates
Strategy update: Q4 2024
Indian Subcontinent All Cap strategy update: 1 October - 31 December 2024
One question we increasingly encounter when speaking to clients is: “isn’t India expensive now”? We can understand why clients are asking this, after all the MSCI India index has risen over 85% in the five years to end December 2024 and has increased by over 12% over the past 12 months alone.1
Two answers spring to mind here: firstly, that we are not investing in the index, we are trying to find the highest-quality companies we can and secondly, we keep a keen eye on valuations and position sizes to try and ensure our investments deliver good, long-term returns whilst also protecting capital. To that end we still see lots of reasons to be positive about the outlook for our India holdings.
We have found a few new ideas at acceptable valuations and during the period we purchased Narayana Health (India: Health Care) which is supplying affordable, private healthcare in India. We also increased our holding in insurer ICICI Lombard (India: Financials).
We sold Mahindra Finance (India: Financials) as we struggled to build conviction in the business trajectory.
As far as monitoring valuations, we slightly trimmed our holdings in Mahindra & Mahindra (India: Consumer Discretionary) and Dr. Lal PathLabs (India: Health Care). Our belief in their long-term success remains robust.
More generally, we continue to assess all our investments from a bottom-up perspective, trying to gauge the quality of the people and businesses that we are backing with your money. We are doing our best not to overpay for these investments and to hold them for the long term. We continue to believe that this is the bedrock of long-term capital preservation and growth.
[1] Source: FactSet. USD total returns.
Source for company information: Stewart Investors investment team and company data. This stock information does not constitute any offer or inducement to enter into any investment activity. Portfolio data shown is from representative strategy accounts of the strategy shown above. Named new investments disclosed relate to holdings with a portfolio weight over 0.5%. It is not a recommendation or solicitation to purchase or invest in any fund. Differences between the representative account-specific constraints, currency or fees and those of a similarly managed fund or mandate would affect results.
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Strategy update: Q3 2024
Indian Subcontinent All Cap strategy update: 1 July - 30 September 2024
“Red-hot Indian market”,1 “India overtakes China in world’s biggest investable stock benchmark”,2 “Five undervalued qualities of the Indian economy”3 and so on and so on; one is hard pushed to find negative news on India’s economy or financial markets in mainstream financial media these days.
For us, India remains the same exciting investment destination that it has long been and for the same reasons too: a multitude of fantastic companies providing necessary goods and services to a rapidly developing population which leaves long-term and quality-focused investors spoilt for choice.
In terms of new positions, we bought ICICI Lombard (India: Financials), one of India’s largest private sector general insurance companies. ICICI Lombard is addressing the underinsurance gap in India by expanding access to insurance products to help individuals, businesses and families better manage risks. The company is well-managed and our conviction has grown enough to purchase for the strategy.
In the quarter, we increased our positions in Cholamandalam Financial Holdings (India: Financials), Aavas Financiers (India: Financials), Blue Dart Express (India: Industrials), Tata Communications (India: Communication Services) and SKF India (India: Industrials) as we believe they are all reasonably valued for good, long-term returns. We partially funded these by reducing our positions in CG Power (India: Industrials), as valuations continued to creep up, and HDFC Bank (India: Financials). We sold RBL Bank (India: Financials) and Kotak Mahindra Bank (India: Financials) as we felt there are currently better opportunities, at the margin, elsewhere.
Positive news flow notwithstanding, we continue to assess all our investments from a bottom-up perspective; trying to gauge the quality of the people and businesses that we are backing with your money, and doing our best not to overpay for these investments and to hold them for the long term. We continue to believe that this is the bedrock of long-term capital preservation and growth.