India’s superstar investors have over the past decade, become famous for their stock picks and proven track record. Retail investors closely follow their investments and the sectors they favour, drawing inspiration from their investing strategies. A Kacholia buy for instance, can move the price of the stock the next day by a fair amount. In this edition of Chart of the Week, we take a look at superstar investors’ public portfolio holdings from December 2015 to June 2023 and analyse their preferred sectors and investing strategies.
Trendlyne's superstar dashboard shows that superstars have significantly invested in retailing, software & services, textiles, apparels & accessories, and banking & finance. Notably, Indian retail sales recorded strong growth, of 34% YoY in FY23.
The textiles, apparels & accessories sector outperformed the Nifty 50 by 23.3 percentage points in the past year. On the other hand, the software & services sector saw a moderate growth of 9.2%, underperforming the Nifty 50 by 11.9 percentage points. Meanwhile, the banking & finance sector rose 35.4% over the same period. Prominent investors like Jhunjhunwala (now managed by RARE Enterprises), Kedia, and Damani saw significant changes in their net worth from June 2018 to June 2023, with a noticeable slowdown from Dec 2021 to Sep 2022.
Radhakishan Damani, the promoter of retail chain DMart and the third richest Indian according to Forbes 100 richest Indian 2022, holds the biggest public stock portfolio among superstar investors. As of June 2023, this superstar investor’s net worth stood at Rs 1.8 lakh crore. The majority of his holdings are in retail (97.1%), food, beverages & tobacco (1.2%), and cement & construction (0.8%). In December 2015, he ranked 3rd in net worth, but after DMart went public in March 2017, his net worth soared to Rs 35,827 crore. During the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020, Damani gained the pole position in portfolio net worth, surpassing Premji and Associates. Damani is a largely passive investor who has exited only four positions in the past two years: Man Infraconstruction, Prozone Intu Properties, Food & Inns, and Metropolis Healthcare. He has also trimmed holdings in three companies from December 2021 to March 2023: United Breweries in March 2023, Avenue Supermarts in March 2022, and India Cements in December 2021.
Another superstar investor who ranks high in net worth is Premji and Associates with a net worth of Rs 1.5 lakh crore as of June 2023. Its portfolio consists of only three stocks, with Wipro accounting for over 99% of the total holding. This means that this superstar investor’s public holding value completely depends on Wipro’s share price. Premji and Associates holds a 72.9% stake in Wipro as of March 2023. Damani overtook Premji in 2019 due to a 2% muted growth in revenue in the IT sector, during which Wipro lost 10% of its share value. The superstar investor’s net worth fell in 2022 as Wipro underperformed amid high inflation and rising rates, which led to slowed revenue growth and deal wins.
The late Rakesh Jhunjhunwala, also known as the big bull, has a portfolio consisting of 29 stocks, currently managed by Rare Enterprises. Its preferred sectors include textiles, apparels & accessories (36.6%), banking & finance (25.3%), and retail (10.3%). Despite the investment slowdown, Rare made additions to the portfolio in March 2023, including a 1.9% stake in Sun Pharma ARC and a 5.2% stake in Raghav Productivity Enhancers. Rare Enterprises also increased its stake in Jhunjhunwala's top pick, Titan, by 0.1%, while reducing stakes in Edelweiss Financial Services, Autoline Industries and Singer India by 0.2%, 0.4%, and 1% respectively in March 2023. Over the past year, Jhunjhunwala’s portfolio exited eight positions, with popular names like Delta Corp, TV18 Broadcast and Indiabulls Real Estate among them.
Like Jhunjhunwala, Akash Bhansali also prefers textiles, apparels & accessories (9.9%) and banking & finance (8.9%). However, Bhansali stands out with a significant investment in the chemicals & petrochemicals (50.3%) sector. He holds substantial stakes in Sudarshan Chemicals (8.1%) and Gujarat Fluorochemicals (4.9%), which serve as the main drivers of his portfolio.
Ashish Kacholia prefers textiles, apparels & accessories and general industrial chemicals & petrochemicals. His portfolio has a mix of small-cap and mid-cap stocks. In March 2023, he added micro-cap stocks like Aditya Vision (1.1%), Virtuoso Optoelectronics (5.4%), DU Digital Global (5%). Kacholia actively manages his investments, regularly adding new stocks, increasing stakes, and exiting positions. In the past year, he entered and exited 7 positions, including popular ones such as VRL Logistics, Marksans Pharma, and Mahindra Logistics.
Sunil Singhania’s Abakkus Fund holds 24 out of 27 stocks from small-cap and mid-cap companies, with a focus on software & services (22.1%), consumer durables (14%) and cement & construction (12.5%). During the March 2020 quarter, Singhania’s portfolio fell by 24.3% due to the downturn in software stocks. Currently, he has added a 2.3% stake in Uniparts India and increased his stakes in IT consulting firm Mastek and commercial, services & supplies company Technocraft Industries by 0.2% each, reaching 2.3% and 3.2% respectively. In contrast, he has reduced his stakes in Tracxn Technologies and The Anup Engineering by 0.4% and 0.2% respectively. These quarterly updates in Singhania's portfolio make him an active investor.
Vijay Kedia focuses mainly on the telecom services (26.3%) sector, while Nemish Shah’s portfolio is dominated by the general industrial (62.8%) sector and Ashish Dhawan favours the banking & finance (46.14%) sector.
