Investing in India

A Value Investor's Guide to the Biggest Untapped Opportunity in the World

Rahul Saraogi

• Publisher: Wiley
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781118760192
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Investments & Securities
• Index: Business

A practical, real-world guide to investing in India

India's rapid economic growth offers obvious opportunities for foreign investors, but making wise investing decisions can be difficult for any investor without a deep knowledge of the country and its culture. With a vibrant democracy and an active press, India can be a complex and chaotic place in which investors can find it difficult to make investing decisions with confidence. This book offers an on-the-ground perspective on India from one of India's most successful value investors. Looking deeply into the internal realities that impact India's investment climate, Investing in India helps investors both inside and outside the country cut through the noise and find the facts that truly matter for anyone who wants to invest there.

• Features charts of stocks, markets, and other helpful Indian economic indicators
• Offers a real-world look at India's politics and governance; its financial system and capital markets; its asset classes and equity markets; the private equity scene; and the real estate market
• Written by Indian value investing guru Rahul Saraogi

CHAPTER 1
Understanding India

India is one of the biggest untapped investment opportunities in the world today. However, for many of those investors who have tried to participate in the India story in recent times, the experience has been one of disappointment. Some of the disappointment has been caused by the fact that India has been in the midst of very large transitions in its economy, society as well as politics during the past two decades and the rest of it has been caused by the lack of sufficient understanding of India on the part of investors themselves. Before we explore the challenges and investment opportunities that India presents, it is important to understand where India and Indians are coming from.

AGRARIAN ROOTS

India is one of the great civilizations of the world. Almost everything about India can be linked back to its agrarian roots. India is one of the unique regions of the world that is called a subcontinent.

The mighty Himalayas together with the Tibetan plateau, often referred to as the roof of the world, cut India off from the rest of the northern hemisphere and create a subcontinent that is one of the most fertile agricultural regions on the planet. Like Egypt is called the gift of the Nile, India can be called the gift of the Himalayas. From the north, the Himalayas cut off the subcontinent from the cold Siberian winds that ravage the rest of China and central Asia during the winter. From the south, the Himalayas act as a wall that forces the moisture-laden southwest monsoon winds to precipitate on the subcontinent. The Himalayas act as such a formidable barrier that they force the winds to turn back south and continue precipitation on the subcontinent as the retreating northeast monsoon winds.

The snow-capped Himalayas are the source of perennial rivers that are the lifelines of the great plains of India. The Indus, the Ganges, the Yamuna, and the Brahmaputra all have their sources in the Himalayas.

One statistic can quantify the fertility of India's landmass. About 46 percent of India's landmass is cultivable compared to 18 percent for the United States and only 13 percent for China.

Geopolitically, the Himalayas together with the Indus in the west and the Brahmaputra in the east create formidable natural barriers that kept away many invaders from India for millennia.

To understand India, one needs to understand the role that family, community, religion, and spirituality play in the lives of Indians. And to understand these, one needs to understand India's agrarian roots and India's villages.

INDIA'S VILLAGES

It is often said about Americans that they are among the most insular and provincial people in the world. Fewer than 30 percent of Americans have passports and even fewer have traveled overseas. Foreign visitors often mock what is considered news on American television. For most Americans war is no different from a television show. Prior to 9/11, the only modern warfare experienced by the United States on its soil was the attack on Pearl Harbor during World War II and even then it was on the remote islands of Hawaii.

One cannot blame Americans for being the way they are. It is a country that spans an entire continent from west to east. The United States' soil is so naturally rich and its economic system so powerful that most people can enjoy a very high standard of living no matter where they live in the country. India is no different from the United States, and inhabitants of Indian villages are no different from Americans in that context.

India's landmass is so fertile and India's climate is so conducive to the survival of people and domesticated animals that villages in India have been self-sufficient in whatever they needed for millennia. The relative security provided by India's natural geographic boundaries, left its villages insular and undisturbed for centuries. The self-sufficiency of Indian villages left India open to political invasions over the centuries. Indians did not care who crowned himself king and who ruled the country as long as the basic fabric of village life was left undisturbed.

What is fascinating about India is that despite being ruled by Muslim rulers for eight centuries and by Christian rulers for two centuries, 80 percent of Indians are still Hindu. This illustrates how tightly knit the fabric of India's village society is.

With basic survival not a concern, India's village society over millennia and centuries evolved practices, rituals, and beliefs that perpetuated their desired way of life and made the system so rigid that nothing could dislodge it.

THE ROLE OF THE FAMILY

India is a paternalistic society. In villages, agricultural land belongs to the family or the patriarch and is passed down to sons over generations. Sons and their families live together with their parents in the same house and work together on the family farm. Women are usually responsible for the cattle and dairy farm together with raising the family and taking care of the household.

In northern India, at the time of marriage, the girl leaves her parents' house behind and moves into her husband's joint family house. The girl severs all economic ties with her parents and brothers at the time of marriage. At the time of marriage, the girl brings with her a dowry from her parents' home to her husband's home. Many different theories exist to explain the origins of the concept of dowry. One theory that resonates with a large number of people is the idea that since the girl severs economic ties with her parents and brothers, she takes her economic interest in the joint family with her to her husband's household as dowry. This practice has become very corrupted over centuries and has put girls, especially in poor households, in such hardship that the government of India has banned the practice by law. Dowry, however, remains widely accepted and practiced throughout India.

Weddings play a very important role in Indian villages. It is almost always considered a marriage of two families. In some tightly knit communities, it is even considered a marriage of two villages. In times past, weddings would last for weeks and all members of the village would work together to welcome their guests from the other village for the wedding and would participate in the celebrations and festivities.

SEVEN GENERATIONS

Given that village life was quite stable, static, and did not change much from generation to generation, the concept of lineage and family name became very strong. If one is successful in one's ventures, it is believed in India (and often true) that one's seven succeeding generations live well and prosper. The reverse is true as well. Debts in Indian villages are not forgiven at death and are considered the burden of successive generations. It is believed that if one fails in one's ventures, then the burden of the misfortune haunts one's seven succeeding generations.

Family name and reputation became a strong anchor in India's value system. Feuds between families and associated revenge across multiple generations became part of folklore.

Property rights and property ownership became closely integrated into the fabric of the Indian family system. Since property continued to be owned by families through multiple generations, the title and ownership of property was conventionally associated with family and family name. Confiscation of property by the crown or the state was not possible, and the entire village system would rally behind such blasphemy.

Indians in villages lived in joint families and sacrificed many of their independent freedoms to fulfill the wishes of their elders. The unwritten rule of the joint family system was that one's children would do for one what he or she did for his or her parents. Elders provided support, stability, and counsel to their younger generation, and the younger generation cared for their elders in their years of need.

Given that families shared joint fortunes, getting one's son settled in work or business was the equivalent of investing in a pension plan or investing for retirement for most fathers. And caring for one's elders, especially in sickness and old age, was a very important attribute of the Indian value system.

There is a popular joke about the Indian farmer who is toiling away on his field in the hot sun when he hears the news about the birth of his son. On hearing the news, he puts away his implements and decides to sleep under a shady tree. A passerby asks him why he is not working and he replies that he no longer needs to; he says that he is the proud father of a son and his son will now carry his burden.

Sibling rivalry is also a historically well-documented attribute of the Indian joint family system. Families in their unity would routinely shield the incompetent members of the family, and the competent members would carry the burden of the entire family. Occasionally, the competent sibling would challenge the burden of the incompetent one and families would break apart. Indian folklore sympathizes with the underdog, and popular opinion always divides individuals into two categories: the incompetent and kind sibling, and the competent and callous sibling.

Sustaining the joint family system is becoming difficult in modern India. As India urbanizes, the joint family system is breaking down. Since incomes in urban areas are often the outcome of individual effort and not derived from a family estate, cross-subsidization of nonperforming members of the family is often unacceptable and results in family splits. Cost of housing in urban areas also makes it hard to build and live in large dwellings that can accommodate a joint family. Joint families in urban areas have therefore become the privilege of the rich.

As Indians become more educated and experience demand for their talent from around the world, families have started splintering. One very frequently finds elderly couples with empty nests living in urban India, while their offspring study or work and live abroad. Parents seldom wish to follow their children and usually prefer staying behind in familiar surroundings.

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CASE STUDY: The Saga of the Ambani Brothers

One of the most spectacular family splits of recent times was that of brothers Mukesh Ambani and Anil Ambani of the Reliance Group that broke into the open in November 2004. The feud had been simmering in private since the death of their father and patriarch, Dhirubhai Ambani, in July 2002.

Reliance Industries Limited (RIL: IN) at the time was among India's top five companies ranked by market capitalization as well as profitability. The publicly fought battles between siblings had significant relevance to financial markets as millions of minority shareholders, including institutional investors from India and outside India, were impacted by the mudslinging and media battles fought by the brothers. It took the intervention of no less than the finance minister of the country to sort out issues between the brothers and to help them arrive at a workable settlement.

What amazed observers was that assets worth billions of dollars changed title between siblings and not a dime in taxes (estate, wealth, capital gains, or income) was paid in the process.

The feud lasted for several months in the public domain, and an official settlement was reached only in August 2005. Several large investors exited their investments in stocks of companies belonging to the group during this time. Some were genuinely concerned about the potential value destruction that would take place in companies of the group as a result of the public feud, and some others were disgusted by the blatant disregard for corporate governance and minority shareholder interests that was exhibited.

However, for those who understood India and understood the motivations behind the feud, the feud itself was the biggest reason to invest in companies of the group. The brothers were fighting (at least apparently) over different points of view related to unlocking of value in companies that were embedded inside Reliance Industries.

The messy process aside, there were a few bets that one could easily make. First, there was unlikely to be any value destruction in the process, as both brothers were focused value creators. Second, having gone down the path they did, a split w...