In defense of Naren
But Subra you were a Naren fan even before his funds performed….said Prem Khatri of Cafe Mutual….
Yes, that is right.
He is an awesome stock picker and I go back 19 years of knowing him. I have had many conversations with him and I can stand up for him and say the following:
a. Squeaky clean, clean as a whistle.
b. Awesome stock picker, and a real long term player
c. a deep value player
and anybody who knows him will tell you these things. He has ALWAYS behaved as a trustee with client money.
What are we saying now? We are saying he invested Rs.240 crores wrongly. Put things in perspective, Icici Pru Amc is the biggest fund house, and it manages Rs. 320,000 crores. Go and calculate 240/320000.
Now we can (and perhaps should) that if you are a trustee, every rupee is important. Sure. Lets leave out the significance question. Well is Rs. 240 crores lost? Hell, no, it is not lost.
Is Naren guilty of making this investment? who knows? we are still awaiting the SEBI ORDER, at least I have not seen any communication from SEBI on this regard. Nor have I seen Adil’s reply to the order. Hey, you can reply to the order, only after you receive it. We are guessing I feel.
So here is a fund manager with a super clean track record – I know him for 19 years – and I worship his stock picking skills. He also has tonnes of patience.
Is Icici securities a good company who will do well over long periods of time. Yes N could have got the price wrong. Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe he was not even asked.
It is too early to speculate what could have happened.
I personally like N’s process based investment. I put my daughter’s money in Icici Pru funds. Am I in a hurry to remove it? No. No I am not in a hurry to remove it.
20 years is enough to know, trust, and even judge Naren.
I would bet my life on his competence and honesty.
Let us be fair. Let the SEBI order come. Till then, we have no business talking about an insignificant amount …..about a man whose integrity is something that many many of us know.
PS: Naren or even Nemish do not need me to defend them….this is just that I thought I should say what I think …
Arhant
True sir. 240/320000 is not much and that too its not money lost, maybe just a bad investment.
We dont really know the circumstances of the investment and
I think SEBI was right to jump in.
S Naren is one of the best guys we have out there but in this era of over information, reaction without consequence (social media) and the desire for 30% cagr yoy, some good guys will get a lot of mud thrown at them.
Pradeep
True Subra, 240 crore investment is now worth still about 170 crore. And all is not yet lost. It might grow in 10 years time into a 20% CAGR stock, who knows?
But what about Trust? If a bank loses trust on a person, they dont deal with him anymore forever (CIBIL will roast him). Here we are talking about Trust of crores of people worth 200,000 crores rupees on an AMC.
Once lost, hard to get it back.
Raghu
This is not the 1st time this is happening . The Jindal Steel and Power bonds once they were downgraded were transferred to various schemes . You can check the ICICI Multi asset Fund ( erstwhile Dynamic Plan) and find these junk bonds there
Rajiv Pandey
the fact remains that 240 crs were put in a IPO that did not justify valuation on any metric. he is smart enough to know the valuation of the IPO was expensive. He went ahead and invested 240 crs when the market feelers were that the issue was not going to sail through due to valuation concerns. would he have invested an additional 240 crs if it were not a group co in a spot of bother…integrity , honestly boils down to moments such as these dont they????
Water Boy
Dear Mr Subra,
The worst problem with humans are,
I know this and I know that.
Abhijith
Subra Sir – unfortunately this is the one post I don’t agree with.
Santhosh
Dear Subra Sir, In the previous post you have roasted ICICI Securities. In this one you are defending Naren. If he was as honest as you say he should have refused to be a part of this scam…
Kumar
Code of Conduct is of paramount importance in such positions unless it is an inadvertent and incredible error of judgement. Difficult to regain loss of reputation.
Mishraji
Actually, if you look at holding of ICICI MF in AstraZeneca Pharma India Ltd is also one another scam.
AstraZeneca Plc’s (75% in Indian ARM) delisting offer was managed by ICICI Bank. ICICI Pru picked up exactly 6.58% stake which was earlier owned by Elliot Group which have been found of wrongdoing by SEBI.
To know in detail, please read below link.
https://www.sebi.gov.in/enforcement/orders/jun-2014/order-in-the-matter-of-m-s-astrazeneca-pharma-india-ltd-_27139.html