Latest news with #RajeevThakkar
Mint
01-06-2025
- Business
- Mint
Parag Parikh Mutual Fund's Rajeev Thakkar turns to debt: What's driving the shift in his personal portfolio?
Rajeev Thakkar, chief investment officer of PPFAS Mutual Fund (Parag Parikh Financial Advisory Services), oversees assets exceeding ₹1 trillion. Thakkar, 52, has built a solid track record over the years, with the Parag Parikh Flexicap Fund becoming the largest fund in its category. Incidentally, this is also the fund that Thakkar uses for his own equity investments. In this interaction with Mint for the 'Guru Portfolio series', Thakkar shares how he manages his personal investment portfolio and why his equity allocation has reduced. How has your personal investing and portfolio evolved over the past five years? Over the past five years, my portfolio has seen a shift, especially in the last one to two years. We've been cautious as a fund house, largely due to elevated valuations in the market, and this cautious approach has reflected in my personal investments as well. Most of my investments over the past 18–24 months have been in hybrid and arbitrage funds. Given my historically high exposure to equities and the fact that now am in my 50s, I have started rebalancing by allocating more to hybrids and arbitrage products. Also Read: What makes Mirae Asset's Swarup Mohanty paranoid about his retirement corpus Why have you taken a more cautious investment approach recently? Given that valuations are elevated, while stocks may deliver slightly better returns than bonds, I have opted for a more balanced approach. Within hybrids, I have allocated to a dynamic asset allocation fund. It also offers a long-term capital gains tax benefit: if the holding period is more than 24 months, capital gains are taxed at a flat 12.5%. What does your asset allocation look like? On debt allocation, it has increased significantly. It was 4-5% around 2020, but has now grown to around 12-13%. If I include the contingency and retirement funds, the fixed income component moves closer to 20%. Overall, there's been a clear rise in allocations toward hybrids and debt instruments. Gold has largely been in the form of jewellery. I haven't had explicit exposure to gold, but on auspicious days, some buying and some gifting happen for ceremonial reasons. The balance 80% is still in equities. Also Read: How Capitalmind's Deepak Shenoy covered shortfall in his son's education goalWhat did your portfolio look like five years ago? Can you give some context? Five years ago, debt was very limited. That period— around March to May 2020—coincided with the covid lows. Valuations were extremely attractive then, and even some of my debt allocation was tactically moved into equities. At that time, the portfolio was heavily tilted towards equities. How heavy was the equity allocation back then? It was quite high—equity allocation could have been around 95%. How has your portfolio performed? It has delivered 14% returns over the past year and 29% annualized returns over a five-year period. What is the current split between large-cap, mid-cap, and small-cap stocks in your equity portfolio? As a fund manager, I have publicly stated that valuations in the small- and mid-cap segments have generally been more elevated compared to large-cap companies. Because of this, the exposure to mid- and small-cap stocks in my equity portfolio, which is through the flexicap fund, is currently in the single digits (4%). The bulk of the fund's portfolio—60%—is invested in large-cap stocks. About 10% is in international stocks, and the balance is in cash. Also Read: Inside Edelweiss MF CEO Radhika Gupta's plan to build over ₹10-crore—and how she's investing to get there How has your international exposure changed? This allocation has been coming down over the years due to the RBI-imposed limits on mutual fund investments abroad. Recently, Parag Parikh Financial Services (PPFAS) set up a subsidiary in the Gift City, which will offer both inbound funds, as well as outbound funds for Indian residents to invest in global stocks. So, hopefully, I will be able to use that and invest some additional money internationally. What has been your approach to insurance? Now that my savings have built up adequately, there's no longer a need to continue term insurance coverage. I am in the last three years of my term cover. Even my health insurance coverage is slightly lower than the typical amount. Given this scenario, I've been building an emergency corpus—particularly for health or unexpected needs in post-retirement period—again through hybrids and arbitrage funds. How much coverage do you want to build for this post-retirement emergency fund? I have reached the basic target to meet my post-retirement lifestlyle needs. But I also need to build a post-retirement contingency fund as my personal medical cover is small in size. I have employer cover, but that would not come in handy in post-retirement period. For this emergency fund, which I am planning for health and other contingencies post-retirement, my goal is to accumulate a corpus of around ₹10 crore. How much is your family involved in investment decisions? My wife is also a finance professional working in the mutual fund industry, but is on the risk-management side. My family is very well aware of what is happening in my investment portfolio, but any investment decisions are largely left to me. My daughter, who is now 20, has also become a keen investor and manages a small portfolio of her own. Since a young age, she has been a regular at our annual general meetings with unitholders. She is an avid reader and also watches investment-related content we put out on YouTube regularly. She has already been to Berkshire Hathaway meetings multiple times, where she has had the opportunity to listen to investing greats such as Warren Buffet and Charlie Munger.
Economic Times
13-05-2025
- Business
- Economic Times
Parag Parikh Flexi Cap Fund exits ITC Hotels and increases stake in 8 stocks
Parag Parikh Flexi Cap Fund made changes to its portfolio in April. The fund completely sold its shares in ITC Hotels. Parag Parikh Flexi Cap Fund, the largest flexi cap fund based on assets managed, made a complete exit from ITC Hotels in April by selling 98.99 lakh shares from its portfolio, whereas it increased its stake in eight stocks in the same period. Around 72.49 lakh shares of Coal India were added to the portfolio on a monthly basis, taking the total number of shares to 14.83 crore in April against 14.10 crore shares in March. The fund also added 40.76 lakh shares of ITC in the same Read | Largecap mutual funds gain investor interest, inflows surge by 8% in April The shares of Zydus Lifesciences went up to 1.39 crore in April by increasing 9.32 lakh shares to the portfolio. Around 8.51 lakh shares of Power Grid Corporation of India and 6.40 lakh shares of Mahindra & Mahindra were added to the portfolio in the mentioned period. The largest flexi cap fund added 2.70 lakh shares of Dr. Reddy's Laboratories and 1.44 lakh shares of EID Parry India to its portfolio in the mentioned period. And lastly, it added 3,592 shares of Maruti Suzuki India to its portfolio. The exposure in two stocks was reduced, which included Motilal Oswal Financial Services and IPCA Laboratories. Around 23.27 lakh shares of Motilal Oswal Financial Services and 69,771 shares of IPCA Laboratories were reduced from the portfolio in the mentioned exposure in 16 stocks remained unchanged which included HDFC Bank, Bajaj Holdings & Investment, ICICI Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank, HCL Technologies, Infosys, Cipla, Indian Energy Exchange, CDSL, Swaraj Engines, Maharashtra Scooters, and Multi Commodity Exchange of new stock was added to the portfolio in the said period. The fund had 26 stocks in its portfolio in April against 27 stocks in Parikh Flexi Cap Fund (PPFCF) is an open-ended equity-oriented scheme with flexibility to invest a minimum of 65% in Indian equities and up to 35% in overseas equity security and domestic debt/money market securities. The core portfolio consists of equity investments made with a long-term outlook, and the factors considered while investing are quality of management, quality of the sector, and the business (return on capital, entry barriers, capital intensity, use of debt, growth prospects, etc) and the valuation of the companies. Also Read | Staying invested and patient pays off for 'Dumber' investors against timing market: Radhika Gupta Launched on May 24, 2013, the scheme is managed by Rajeev Thakkar, Raunak Onkar, Raj Mehta, Rukun Tarachandani, and Mansi Kariya. The scheme had an AUM of Rs 98,541.28 crore as on April 30, is benchmarked against NIFTY 500 (TRI) and the minimum investment amount for new purchase, additional purchase, and monthly SIP is Rs 1, fund house said, 'We continue to look at individual investments on their own merits and will not hesitate to invest if an opportunity looks attractive. As usual, our investment stance does not depend much on the macro-economic situation but is focused on individual companies. We have about 26.30% in cash holdings, debt & money market instruments and arbitrage positions which can be deployed in long-term investments at appropriate levels.'
Mint
01-05-2025
- Business
- Mint
Investment of ₹1 lakh in 2013 in THIS mutual fund would have grown to around 8 lakh now. Check how
It is not uncommon to examine the past returns of a scheme before you decide to invest in it. Typically, investors assess the historical returns of a mutual fund scheme across different time lines before deciding to invest in it. Here, we assess the past returns of Parag Parikh Flexi Cap Fund, which was launched on May 24, 2013. For the uninitiated, a flexi cap fund is the one where fund manager is free to determine the ratio of allocation to stocks across market capitalisation i.e., large cap, mid cap and small cap as long as total exposure to equity and equity related instruments is 65 percent or higher. Tenure ₹ 1 lakh becomes Return (%) 1 year ₹ 1.13 lakh 13.85 3 years ₹ 1.59 lakh 16.88 5 years ₹ 3.75 lakh 30.35 10 years ₹ 4.8 lakh 17.07 Since inception (May 24, 2013) ₹ 7.89 lakh 19.04 As we can see in the table above, if someone had invested ₹ one lakh in Parag Parikh Flexi Cap Fund one year ago, it would have grown to ₹ 1.13 lakh by growing at the rate of 13.85 percent. In three years, the investment of ₹ one lakh would have grown to ₹ 1.59 lakh by delivering a return of 16.88 per cent per annum. And if someone had invested ₹ 1 lakh five years ago, it would have grown to ₹ 3.75 lakh, thus delivering a return of 30.35 percent. In 10 years time, the same invesment of ₹ 1 lakh would have grown to ₹ 4.8 lakh, thus delivering a return of 17.07 percent. And if someone had invested ₹ one lakh at the time of scheme's launch in May 2013, the investment would have grown to ₹ 7.89 lakh, giving an annualised return of 19.04 percent. This 12-year-old scheme has a total asset size of ₹ 93,440 crore as on March 31, 2025, as per the information on PPFAS website. The benchmark index of the scheme is Nifty500. And the scheme is managed by Rajeev Thakkar, Raunak Onkar, Raj Mehta, Rukun Tarachandani and Mansi Kariya. Its constituent stocks include HDFC Bank, Bajaj Holdings and investment, Coal India, Power Grid Corporation, ICICI Bank, Kotak Mahindra, ITC and Maruti Suzuki. Note: This story is for informational purposes only. Please speak to a SEBI-registered investment advisor before making any investment related decision. Visit here for all personal finance related updates. First Published: 1 May 2025, 01:55 PM IST
