Indian Investor Quotes

Most of us know how much we earn every month, but not many of us are clear about where our money gets spent. This exercise should show you clearly how you should manage your finances to achieve your goals.

In the aggregate, real wealth was made, not by the crooks, but by long-term investors, who overlooked the cacophony of the stock market and instead focused on the fundamentals of businesses, and that of India.

to begin funding in 2024, India’s National Quantum Mission has allocated a substantial Rs 6000 crores over the next eight years. While this is a significant investment for India, it is the first notable investment into quantum technology in India. In contrast to other nations, India has seen notably much much lower industry investment and investor interest in quantum technology. When it comes to startup funding in this sector, Indian companies have collectively managed to raise less than Rs 50 crores as of December 2023. This sum is minuscule compared to the global quantum computing startup scene, where funding has exceeded this amount by nearly thousand times in the same period.

Indian Express (Indian Express) - Clip This Article at Location 721 | Added on Sunday, 30 November 2014 20:28:42 Fifth column: Hope and audacity Ministers, high officials, clerks and peons now report for duty on time and are no longer to be seen taking long lunch breaks to soak in winter sunshine in Delhi’s parks. Reform is needed not just in economic matters but in every area of governance. Does the Prime Minister know how hard it is to get a passport? Tavleen Singh | 807 words At the end of six months of the Modi sarkar are we seeing signs that it is confusing efficiency with reform? I ask the question because so far there is no sign of real reform in any area of governance. And, because some of Narendra Modi’s most ardent supporters are now beginning to get worried. Last week I met a man who dedicated a whole year to helping Modi become Prime Minister and he seemed despondent. When I asked how he thought the government was doing, he said he would answer in the words of the management guru Peter Drucker, “There is nothing quite so useless as doing with great efficiency something that should not be done at all.” We can certainly not fault this government on efficiency. Ministers, high officials, clerks and peons now report for duty on time and are no longer to be seen taking long lunch breaks to soak in winter sunshine in Delhi’s parks. The Prime Minister’s Office hums with more noise and activity than we have seen in a decade but, despite this, there are no signs of the policy changes that are vital if we are to see real reform. The Planning Commission has been abolished but there are many, many other leftovers from socialist times that must go. Do we need a Ministry of Information & Broadcasting in an age when the Internet has made propaganda futile? Do we need a meddlesome University Grants Commission? Do we need the government to continue wasting our money on a hopeless airline and badly run hotels? We do not. What we do need is for the government to make policies that will convince investors that India is a safe bet once more. We do not need a new government that simply implements more efficiently bad policies that it inherited from the last government. It was because of those policies that investors fled and the economy stopped growing. Unless this changes through better policies, the jobs that the Prime Minister promises young people at election rallies will not come. So far signals are so mixed that investors continue to shy away. The Finance Minister promises to end tax terrorism but in the next breath orders tax inspectors to go forth in search of black money. Vodafone has been given temporary relief by the courts but the retroactive tax remains valid. And, although we hear that the government has grandiose plans to improve the decrepit transport systems, power stations and ports it inherited, it continues to refuse to pay those who have to build them. The infrastructure industry is owed more than Rs 1.5 lakh continued... crore in government dues and this has crippled major companies. No amount of efficiency in announcing new projects will make a difference unless old dues are cleared. Reform is needed not just in economic matters but in every area of governance. Does the Prime Minister know how hard it is to get a passport? Does he know that a police check is required even if you just want to get a few pages added to your passport? Does he know how hard it is to do routine things like registering property? Does he know that no amount of efficiency will improve healthcare services that are broken? No amount of efficiency will improve educational services that have long been in terminal decline because of bad policies and interfering officials. At the same time, the licence raj that strangles private investment in schools and colleges remains in place. Modi’s popularity with ordinary people has increased since he became Prime Minister, as we saw from his rallies in Kashmir last week, but it will not la

Meanwhile, on Raghav’s wish list was a film company. He was a Hindi film buff, but he was not in any way star-struck. He simply thought it was a good business idea, and that the time was right. Vandana, who had a lot of connections in the film industry, was to be a part of the venture. Raghav launched the film company as a personal venture, though TV18 was a minority investor, with a holding of 20 per cent. In June, the Indian Film Company raised Rs 400 crore at London’s Alternative Investment Market, much to Raghav’s amazement. ‘Almost any guy with even half a track record and a gleam of new economy, media or technology in his eye could go to London, float a company which hardly did anything, probably even if revenues were zero, and pick up equity. We did exactly that with our film fund. We had no track record in the film business. Zero.’ But investors were more than willing to throw money around in 2007.

When Jamsetji Tata tried to set up India’s first modern steel mill in the face of implacable British hostility at the turn of the century (he began petitioning the British for permission in 1883, and raised money from Indian investors; after repeated denials and delays it finally began production in 1912 under his son Dorabji), a senior imperial official sneered that he would personally eat every ounce of steel an Indian was capable of producing. It’s a pity he didn’t live to see the descendants of Jamsetji Tata taking over what remained of British Steel, through Tata’s acquisition of Corus in 2006: it might have given him a bad case of indigestion.

At that point in time, Gokul Rajaram was a legendary éminence grise in the ad-tech world. The so-called godfather of AdSense, Google’s secondary gold mine after AdWords, Gokul was a constant presence on the conference circuit, and an omnipresent adviser or investor in just about every advertising technology company worth talking about. He too had come to Facebook via a small acqui-hire, though really that had been just a career breather between his time at Google and his hiring at Facebook. University at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), followed by an American MBA, he was your standard-issue Indian techie, and probably that country’s most valuable export after steel and Tata Motors. “What’s the first thing you would change about Facebook Ads if we hired you?” There was about as much polish and prologue to Gokul as that of a North Korean diplomat. “I’d build a conversion-tracking system. It’s unbelievable you don’t have one yet.” A conversion-tracking system is software that tells you if an advertisement has worked in driving a conversion (or “sale” in marketing-speak), and lets you retweak your marketing campaigns based on performance. An ads system without conversion tracking is like a car without rearview mirrors; nay, it’s like a car without even rear or side windows. All you can see is forward, merrily driving along, not even understanding what’s behind you or what you just ran over. It’s a danger to yourself and others, and it was a sign of just how out-of-touch Facebook Ads management was that this somehow never got prioritized. From Gokul’s smile the conclusion was clearly . . . right answer! And so the conversation went, traversing various potential aspects of the Facebook Ads system, and what the company needed to build. It was a giddy Gokul—I’d soon learn he was almost always giddy—who escorted me out the door. The boys and I had arrived separately, assuming we’d get out at different times, and separately did we go back to the GrokPad. There, we compared notes. MRM and Argyris weren’t exactly rousing in their reviews of the experience. In fact, it was clear that the fascist vibe the company gave off had very much rubbed them the wrong way. They had never really liked Facebook, as either product or company, going back to our visits to their developer events. The daylong hazing had done nothing to charm them.

Nowadays, most banks offer stock trading services and it would be a good idea to start your enquiries with your bank.

We the Indians are becoming stronger. Not long time back we required at least two strong young men to carry groceries worth Rs 200. But times change. Now a five year old boy can effortlessly carry items worth same two hundred rupees.

Using a familiar template, the King had authorized a group of Virginians to form the Ohio Company, granting it the right to settle half a million acres and sell this land to other private investors. Given that the primary economic activity of the French in the region was trading with the Indians, they had established trading posts where Indians could bring their furs. To protect this valuable trade, they started building forts to support a military presence. In response, with commercial interests and colonial interests often one and the same, the Virginians built their own presence to rival that of the French.

The best investment you can ever make in your life is in yourself.

The company was now the product, and investors were now the customers.

Given the inefficiency of the Indian bureaucracy to effectively implement national objectives, a possible approach (as suggested by Prof. Kelkar once), to salvage the existing PSEs (including all its stakeholders) and to protect the State’s investment in them, would be to transfer all Government’s share in all PSEs to a holding company set up under the Disinvestment Act, at once. 8.4.4 Government should disinvest majority of its share (55 %) in the holding company to Indian mutual funds, and insurance companies through the book-building route, twenty per cent of its share to small investors through IPO (Initial Public Offer), five percent of its share to foreign institutional investors, ten per cent of its share through ADR/GDR in the foreign capital market (this would lead to improved corporate governance as listing in foreign markets, particularly NYSE has stringent requirements), and retain just ten per cent of share in the holding company. 8.4.5 The holding company should be managed by a reputed professional board (initially appointed by the Government through wide consultations and subsequently confirmed by the shareholders of the holding company). The Board would be responsible to its shareholders. The Board of the individual PSEs (which would no longer be a PSE as they would become subsidiaries of the holding private company) would be appointed by the holding company and be responsible to the Board of the holding company.

Most of the things we fear never happen. Or if they do happen, they are rarely as bad as we fear they will be.

Before wrapping up this chapter, let us look at one of the deadly scams in the Indian primary market history. There was company named ‘MS shoes east’. Shares of this company traded in Rs 150-200 range throughout the year 1994. But towards December 1994 it spurted to Rs 500 without any justifiable rationale behind the raise. Its promoter Pavan Sachedeva and his broker artificially manipulated the stock price to this level.   By February 1995, the company devised an expansion plan for an estimated expense Rs 700 crores. It proposed to raise around Rs 428 crores by means of Fully convertible bonds. These bonds were to be sold at Rs 199 each through public issue. The idea was to provoke people to subscribe the issue with a hope of converting this bond of Rs 199 to a share of Rs 500.   Well, his brokers was constantly buying the stocks from the open market to maintain the price at that high level. But the situation had already worsened. He had bought too much and had too little money at hand that he could not pay the stock exchange for all the purchases he made. BSE could not give money to the sellers of that security. Things turned out to be serious. You may find it hard to believe  - the BSE was shut down for three consecutive days without any business.   Before this drama came to light, FCD ('Fully Convertible Debenture) public issue was a big success and it almost stole the show. Delighted by the overwhelming response from the investing community, MS Shoes had announced to close the public issues few days before the stipulated time. The world came to know that the cruel plan of manipulating the stock price was only to push the bond issue successfully. Even the authorities woke up to the problem. The company was issued a notice. And also it allowed the investors to take back their FCD application. Almost all the investors took back. Even the underwriter refused to buy the unsold portion of the issue because the company had voluntarily announced to close the issue before the end date. The ruling was in favor the underwriter. Sachedeva declared himself to be innocent. MS shoes office resembled a mourning house with  deserted look.   There was one Sachedeva who came to light. There were and probably still are more of them out there.

The new players in the financial markets, the kingpins of the future who had the capacity to reshape those markets, were a different breed: the Chinese guy who had spent the previous ten years in American universities; the French particle physicist from Fermilab; the Russian aerospace engineer; the Indian PhD in electrical engineering. “There were just thousands of these people,” said Schwall. “Basically all of them with advanced degrees. I remember thinking to myself how unfortunate it was that so many engineers were joining these firms to exploit investors rather than solving public problems.

Inflation and Investment We the Indians are becoming stronger. Not long time back we required at least two strong young men to carry groceries worth Rs 200. But times change. Now a five year old boy can effortlessly carry items worth same two hundred rupees.

In return for the service and to cover the annual cost for fund management and other expenses, the mutual fund levies fund management charges (FMC). The FMC levied varies across schemes from around 0.75% to 2.50% (the

several marquee investors have invested billions of dollars on Indian start-ups which have burnt all the cash without creating any value. Now these investments are expectedly going bad and the investors want to save their money at any cost, including seeking support from the government. Their patriotic story is that they are saving India—and Indian companies, which are actually owned by American, Chinese, Japanese and Russian investors—from American companies. Quite weird.

This strategy, together with the partial dismantling of measures to fight poverty, partly explains the continuous rise of inequalities in India. However, some of the rich have become richer for other reasons as well, including the close relationship between the Modi government and industrialists. FROM CRONY CAPITALISM TO COLLUSIVE CAPITALISM While the Modi government is not responsible for the enrichment of Indian tycoons, which began in most cases prior to the BJP victory in 2014, it continued to help them. In Gujarat, the Modi government had apparently granted unwarranted advantages to industrialists, including the sale of land below market prices, dispensations from environmental standards, unjustified tax rebates, interest-free loans, and so on.136 After forming the central government, the NDA government allegedly shielded Indian industrialists from banks to which these men owed billions. Such collusion has contributed to destabilizing a banking system undermined by dubious debts—particularly those held by these big investors, who do not pay back their loans.137 Even if the problem began under the previous government, it has persisted in part owing to collusion between businessmen and the ruling class. The government’s cronies continued to receive huge loans from public-sector banks (whose heads have trouble disobeying the government),138 which they proved unable to pay back. In May 2018, nonperforming assets (NPAs) vested in public banks—in other words, loans for which the borrower had not made payment on either the interest or the principal in at least ninety days—accounted for 12.65 billion dollars, or about 14 percent of their total loans (compared to 12.5 percent in March the previous year139 and only 3 percent in March 2012).140 A small number of borrowers were largely responsible for this evolution, among whom were prominent large industrialists.141 In 2015, in a fifty-seven-page document, Credit Suisse gave a detailed analysis of the astounding level of debt of ten Indian corporations that continued to borrow even though all the red flags had gone up.142 In 2018, 84 percent of the dubious loans were owed by major corporations, and twelve of them accounted for 25 percent of the outstanding NPAs.143 Among them is the group owned by Gautam Adani, a supporter of Prime Minister Narendra Modi since 2002.144 In 2015, the group increased its debt level by 16 percent to acquire a seaport and two power plants. Consequently, its debt soared to 840 billion rupees (11.2 billion USD), compared to only 331 billion rupees (4.41 billion dollars) in 2011.145

The valuations of private and public companies were soaring, and there seemed to be a consensus that the gold rush was beginning. Amid this infrastructure mania, Reliance Power launched an IPO in January 2008 that was oversubscribed seventy-two times! It made the company’s owner, Anil Ambani, the richest Indian. Despite having a power capacity of less than 1,000 megawatts at the time of the IPO, the company’s value was about $35 billion. Did this lead to a large number of IPOs for infrastructure businesses that investors lapped up hungrily? Does the sun rise in the east? Both private and public equity investors in the hyped-up story of Indian infrastructure forgot or chose to ignore some uncomfortable truths: Every infrastructure business is held hostage to the whims and fancies of the government; the government hates to be a paying customer—underpayment and late payment are the rule, not the exception; and even if the government behaves well, the returns on these projects are capped according to law. So why would we want to spend a single minute debating if any power business is worth investing in?

WHEN WE ALLOW the climate crisis a moral dimension, certain things lost in the haze become clearer, including its relationship to other fundamental injustices. For example, the seemingly utilitarian reasoning of energy companies and investors can be compared to that of the apologists for slavery in nineteenth-century America, who also saw it as an apolitical, economic issue with technocratic solutions. Only by viewing enslaved people as nonsubjects could someone like Henry Lascelles, Second Earl of Harewood, have spoken plausibly of a “progressive state” of “improvement in the slave population” at an 1823 meeting about his West Indian plantations. Amelioration was technical, a question of how to use objects better; abolition was moral, a question of who was a subject.

Startups require a a freewheeling environment, devoid of any stifling policies where angel investors and VCs can put up capital to nurture wild dreams of young inexperienced entreprenurs. Policy framework has to acknolwledge that. Indian bureaucracy is a successor to British Civil Service, who job it was to suppress Indian spirit and extract revenues.

the plan was a scheme to bilk money from the investors in return for selling them Louisiana. Law was given a monopoly on trade, as well. Later, when it turned out that Law’s company was merely a large confidence game, many of the settlers decided to ignore this and stay on. During the first year of Law’s operation, he decided that a town should be founded at a spot that could be reached from both Lake Pontchartrain and the Mississippi River. In 1718, this town became La Nouvelle Orleans. Development of the city began that year, but work was slow, thanks to brutal heat and the rising and falling waters of the Mississippi. There was talk of moving the city because of the danger of flooding, so levees were constructed, which spread out as the city and the plantations of the area grew. But rising water was not the only danger that could be found at the mouth of the Mississippi. In many early documents, writers spoke of the monsters that dwelt in the murky waters, and the Indian legends told of gigantic beasts that waited to spring upon unwary travelers. “May God preserve us from the crocodiles!” wrote Father Louis Hennepin. Meanwhile, John Law was having problems holding up his end of the bargain that he made with the French. In order to get his money, he had promised his investors that he would have a colony of six thousand settlers and three thousand slaves by 1727. His problem, however, was a shortage of women. The colony’s governor, Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne, Sieur de Bienville, wrote, “The white men are running in the woods after the Indian girls.” About 1720, one solution to cure the shortage of women arrived when the jails of Paris were emptied of prostitutes. The ladies of the evening were given a choice: serve their term in prison or become a colonist in Louisiana. Those who chose the New World quickly became the wives of the men most starved for female companionship. The prisons also served as a source for male colonists. Many thieves, vagabonds, deserters and smugglers also chose to come to Louisiana to avoid prison time. They made for strange company when mixed with aristocrats, indicted for some wrongdoing or another, who also chose New Orleans over the Bastille. New Orleans also lacked education and medical care. Despairing over the conditions, Governor Bienville coaxed the sisters of Ursuline to come from France and assist the new city. The first Ursulines arrived in 1727 and set to work caring for orphans, operating

The Sunday Guardian, in its issue of 22 August, 2010 stated, on the basis of credible information, that a settlement took place at the Ritz Hotel in Paris and that it was worked out by Warren Anderson and a personal friend and representative of the then prime minister of India. Under this unofficial settlement, the government wanted to be paid secretly, under the table. When Union Carbide officers raised serious doubts regarding the Supreme Court’s acceptance of this unfair and corrupt settlement, they were assured that the Supreme Court was not their worry. The negotiators would manage everything. And manage, they did. The entire manifestly illegal and corrupt settlement did go through the judicial filter. A somnolent Supreme Court permitted composition of non-compoundable offences and quashed proceedings without falling under the well settled rule of quashing jurisdiction. Surely, if there was an honest and real negotiated settlement between Union Carbide and the Indian government it would require large and complex correspondence evidencing genuine bargaining prior to the settlement being finalized. Such huge claims are not settled by a telephonic talk of which no record exists. It is worth recalling here an interesting faux pas that occurred in connection with the financial settlement of the Bhopal gas tragedy. When N.D. Tewari became external affairs minister, he went to the United States to plead with potential investors to come to India. The consul general of India was present at the meeting addressed by the minister. The minister innocently referred to the Bhopal gas tragedy and the inadequate compensation received from Union Carbide. A Union Carbide representative present in the audience, stood up and caused consternation by declaring in public that Union Carbide had paid almost everything that India had asked for, but a large part of the amount was paid as out of court settlement, ostensibly for the purposes of the Congress party. If the Indian government denies the truth of the story that some people in or connected with the government swallowed a big fortune, they must produce the documents which were exchanged during the pre-settlement negotiations and until their final termination. The government must produce them even now. The people of this country are entitled to know how a claim of $3.3 billion came to be settled for a paltry amount of $475 million. However, neither has the government given any explanation, nor has the story been refuted till today.