A lifelong pursuit of leisure
There is no management bestseller on how to optimise leisure, but we can claim to be experts on the subject after listening to Aditya Puri over a two-hour lunch at the ITC Grand Central’s Kebabs & Kurries, write
Shyamal Majumdar and Sidhartha K . The man, who has just been voted India’s best CEO in Finance Asia magazine’s annual poll of investors and analysts, says his management mantra has been inspired by a cartoon he saw in one foreign newspaper. One half of the cartoon showed the boss neck-deep in work while others outside were having a whale of a time. The other half showed the boss taking a nap while others were all glued to their computers.
“I am sure you know which half of the cartoon is my favourite,” the HDFC Bank MD and CEO says, ordering a lassi .Puri must be the only CEO in the world who doesn’t carry a mobile or laptop; leaves office at 5:30 pm sharp; doesn’t work on weekends, giving him enough time to grow exotic vegetables & fruits at his Lonavla farmhouse; takes at least one long annual leave; and skips networking dinners to pursue other interests such as listening to music and reading.
He has recently added one more must to his daily routine: Talking non-stop to his 10-month-old grandson whenever he is around. “Both of us understand each other’s language perfectly,” Puri says with a hearty laugh.
The 58-year old CEO started his drive to optimise leisure rather early in life. A brilliant student, he was deliberately lax in high school so that his father couldn’t force him into an engineering degree, pursuing which required “extra hard work”. He preferred to graduate in commerce from Punjab University and later qualified as a chartered accountant.
He also recounts how his boss at Citi once asked him whether everything was all right since he had been leaving office a bit early. Puri was then posted in Kolkata. “No Sir, I am working very hard and am in office until it’s dark,” Puri told his boss, without realising that evening descends around 4:30 pm in the eastern part of the country during winter. His boss advised him to look at his watch also before leaving.
Puri orders tandoori rotis ,assorted kebabs and achicken dish and says he is an excellent cook. Well, almost. That’s because he knows the recipes but never cooks himself as his idea of cooking is to issue instructions with a beer in hand. “Giving ideas is my job; there are better people to execute it,” he says. Not surprising, as that’s roughly the same principle he follows rigorously in his work life as well.
However, one thing he has never lacked is his passion to make it big in life and to plan for it meticulously. A young Puri quietly resented the fact that he did not have the ‘pull’ —an euphemism for contacts —that was necessary those days to get a good job. His father, an Indian Air Force officer, didn’t know anybody who could get him a good civilian job, but Puri was thrilled when his mother told him one day that he could easily count on the biggest ‘pull’ of them all. Who is that, an eager Puri asked his mother. ‘ Uparwallah ’(God) was the lady’s answer.
His heart sank then, but Puri hasn’t forgotten that conversation and feels that’s what steeled him to the fact that he has to plan his career every step of the way. He left his job as an accountant at Mahindra & Mahindra to join Citibank because he wanted to move around the world —and to stay in a flat that was as big and comfortable as his cousin’s, who was a Citi banker.
The food is delicious and Puri looks pleased with his choice of the menu. He also remembers the stunned look on his boss’s face when he chose Saudi Arabia over New York as his first foreign posting. The reason was simple: There was a 60 per cent hardship allowance for Saudi Arabia which meant that he could save his entire salary.
Later in life, he decided to go down two notches in the hierarchy to take up a marketing job as he knew an operations job alone wouldn’t take him too far in the bank. The meticulous planning paid off and he soon found himself as the country head of Citi Malaysia. The job gave him many things, one of them being a one-and-a half-acre mansion in one of Kuala Lumpur’s tony localities.
He was also one of the top 50 in Citi to get stock options.
Life, however, changed in 1994 when he met HDFC Chairman Deepak Parekh who offered him the job of heading HDFC Bank, which had just got alicence. What sealed the deal was his father’s illness (“As the eldest son, I didn’t want to live with the guilt of enjoying the material comforts of a Citi job in Malaysia when my father needed me the most”) and Parekh’s assurance that he would get a free hand to run the bank. Nothing else mattered; neither the stock options, nor the tiny Mumbai flat and the makeshift office that consisted of Puri, his table and the many rats that would often feast on the cables.
It’s time for dessert and Puri opts for mango while ordering falooda for us. We realise we haven’t spoken a word about HDFC Bank as yet and that time is running out. Puri, however, makes up for the lost time and gives a fascinating account of what he calls common-sense banking. HDFC Bank, he says, has never let a retail customer over-borrow and has not lent to companies that over-extended themselves.
The bank gets most of its funding from retail depositors, sticks to its credit standards and pricing and follows plain conservative banking. HDFC Bank has been growing at over 30 per cent every year since its inception 15 years back. Many other banks have done so, too, but unlike them, HDFC Bank has never given up its risk-reward balance. Its focus, says Puri, is neither entirely top-line nor bottom-line, but on its customer base.
The bank is also a major player in settlement of commodities and has launched a ‘Kisan Gold Card’ under which farmers who borrow money for buying seeds and fertilisers are required to deposit their produce in an accredited warehouse. The bank, Puri says, is touching people’s lives in rural areas in many other ways, one of them being the hugely successful jewellery loan scheme which monetises idle assets.
The lunch is over, and Puri returns to his favourite topic of how he has enough time on his hands — always. But dig a little deeper, and the CEO in him takes over. Despite the distance he keeps from backbreaking work, Puri says he knows exactly what is happening at each of the bank’s 1,400-plus branches. “If there is an over-withdrawal of cash at some branch, the information reaches me within an hour —wherever I am. For that, you don’t need cell phones; you only need to put proper systems in place.” Though he doesn’t attend networking dinners, he makes it a point to meet clients at their offices during office hours. “Besides, I have reached a stage in life where I don’t have to network any longer; people need to network with me,” he says, as we wait at the portico for his BMW to come in.
Quickly realising this is contrary to his leisure optimisation theory, Puri says he doesn’t need to plan for life after retirement as he has already “retired himself from work”. For a change, he doesn’t sound too convincing.
India’s top bank CEO has fine-tuned his work so efficiently that he has oodles of time for his favourite pastimes
LUNCH WITH BS ADITYA PURI
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
Planning counts, plans don't
Planning counts, plans don’t’
NIIT Chief Narrates The Story Of A Successful Enterprise
Shelley Singh NEW DELHI
IN THE ongoing Power of Ideas programme, the 254 participants who have made it to the final shortlist are fine-tuning their business plans before they meet investors for funding. They would do well to look at how successful entrepreneurs penned their own plans. Let’s hear from the pioneer of computer learning in India. Back in the winter of 1981, Rajendra S Pawar, chairman, NIIT, wrote the first plan about bringing computers and people together. That plan translated into the company which heralded computer training in India and later got into software services, as well. The 15-page business plan, written in pencil on paper (the kind used in dot matrix printers with holes on the sides) by Mr Pawar in the cool climes of the Uttarakhand hills with ripe fresh apples all around led to the company starting operations in five cities — Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai in 1982 and Kolkata and Bangalore in 1983. Those were early days and soon, the three co-founders Mr Pawar, Vijay K Thadani and P Rajendran were writing another plan in 1984-85. This time it ran into a few 100 pages and “was a vision document that looked 10 years ahead,” recalls Mr Pawar. In the pre-reforms, pre-globalisation era, Mr Pawar was able to peer into the future and realise that computers will be important, but people will not know how to use them and what to do with them. It was this gap that was filled via NIIT. The Rs 1,148-crore company has trained over five million learners at over 8,000 education centres across 40 countries over the years. Today, when we ask him about the business plans that young entrepreneurs should have, the pioneer is quick to say, “Planning is more important than the business plan itself. When you are conceptualising a business, the plan will probably be the third or the fourth step. Entrepreneurs have to visualise an opportunity, see the gaps in the future and understand what is the unmet need they are trying to fulfil via their proposed business endeavours.” In essence, budding entrepreneurs should visualise the future and then work backwards. At the same time, they need to look at both the demand side and the supply side of the business. And one key point from Mr Pawar is that, “entrepreneurs must have their head in the clouds and feet on the ground.” Well, you should think big and be sure that you can deliver. “An entrepreneur must look at the unsolved problem with head in the clouds and feet on the ground to be able to meet the demands of that future. You have to bounce to-and-fro ferociously between the ground and the clouds to build a successful organisation,” Mr Pawar points out. In a plan, while numbers (such as revenue projections, profits, employees and so on) are important, visualising the future and working towards that goal is more significant. The right time and a bit of luck is also important. In NIIT’s case, it was Rajiv Gandhi’s emphasis on technology that helped the company and later the Y2K problem and the whole reforms process acted as a catalyst. There are plans that fail too. “Little failures are part of the game. Plans should be constantly evolving, a static plan will fail. Also, if you think like a manager it may not work as managers work to small tolerances while entrepreneurs work to huge tolerances. Don’t forget that an entrepreneur by definition pushes the envelope, goes into unchartered territory and builds a team with great chemistry. Humility is also the key.” Else, the best laid plan sans any planning might just remain on paper.
NIIT Chief Narrates The Story Of A Successful Enterprise
Shelley Singh NEW DELHI
IN THE ongoing Power of Ideas programme, the 254 participants who have made it to the final shortlist are fine-tuning their business plans before they meet investors for funding. They would do well to look at how successful entrepreneurs penned their own plans. Let’s hear from the pioneer of computer learning in India. Back in the winter of 1981, Rajendra S Pawar, chairman, NIIT, wrote the first plan about bringing computers and people together. That plan translated into the company which heralded computer training in India and later got into software services, as well. The 15-page business plan, written in pencil on paper (the kind used in dot matrix printers with holes on the sides) by Mr Pawar in the cool climes of the Uttarakhand hills with ripe fresh apples all around led to the company starting operations in five cities — Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai in 1982 and Kolkata and Bangalore in 1983. Those were early days and soon, the three co-founders Mr Pawar, Vijay K Thadani and P Rajendran were writing another plan in 1984-85. This time it ran into a few 100 pages and “was a vision document that looked 10 years ahead,” recalls Mr Pawar. In the pre-reforms, pre-globalisation era, Mr Pawar was able to peer into the future and realise that computers will be important, but people will not know how to use them and what to do with them. It was this gap that was filled via NIIT. The Rs 1,148-crore company has trained over five million learners at over 8,000 education centres across 40 countries over the years. Today, when we ask him about the business plans that young entrepreneurs should have, the pioneer is quick to say, “Planning is more important than the business plan itself. When you are conceptualising a business, the plan will probably be the third or the fourth step. Entrepreneurs have to visualise an opportunity, see the gaps in the future and understand what is the unmet need they are trying to fulfil via their proposed business endeavours.” In essence, budding entrepreneurs should visualise the future and then work backwards. At the same time, they need to look at both the demand side and the supply side of the business. And one key point from Mr Pawar is that, “entrepreneurs must have their head in the clouds and feet on the ground.” Well, you should think big and be sure that you can deliver. “An entrepreneur must look at the unsolved problem with head in the clouds and feet on the ground to be able to meet the demands of that future. You have to bounce to-and-fro ferociously between the ground and the clouds to build a successful organisation,” Mr Pawar points out. In a plan, while numbers (such as revenue projections, profits, employees and so on) are important, visualising the future and working towards that goal is more significant. The right time and a bit of luck is also important. In NIIT’s case, it was Rajiv Gandhi’s emphasis on technology that helped the company and later the Y2K problem and the whole reforms process acted as a catalyst. There are plans that fail too. “Little failures are part of the game. Plans should be constantly evolving, a static plan will fail. Also, if you think like a manager it may not work as managers work to small tolerances while entrepreneurs work to huge tolerances. Don’t forget that an entrepreneur by definition pushes the envelope, goes into unchartered territory and builds a team with great chemistry. Humility is also the key.” Else, the best laid plan sans any planning might just remain on paper.
Jim Rogers Interview-- Fund Managers can become Farmers
FUND MANAGERS CAN BECOME FARMERS
Even if you are outright bearish, don’t SHORT THE MARKET. Stocks could touch crazy levels, but they may be in CURRENCIES WHICH ARE WORTHLESS. Indeed, a sovereign default and currency turmoil COULD RATTLE WORLD MARKETS in a year or two. In a chat with ET, global investor JIM ROGERS says cotton, silver and sugar can be hot picks. Read on...
At one stage we were inundated with gloomy forecasts, which were further reinforced by the IMF and World Bank. And then suddenly stocks surged — something most were not prepared for. How risky is the market today? Central banks all over the world have printed huge amounts of money, and the real economy is not strong enough for all this money to be absorbed... so, it’s going into stocks and real assets such as commodities. It’s a mistake what they are doing. It’s giving short-term pleasure, but there’s long-term pain as we are going to have much higher inflation, much higher interest rates and a worse economy down the road. The American bond market is already beginning to go down dramatically as people realise that the American government has to sell huge amount of bonds, and secondly, there is going to be inflation, serious inflation, as it was always in the past when you had governments printing huge amounts of money. Stocks are rising even as fiscal deficit is widening. Somewhere it has to snap... It’s going to snap. Later this year, next year, we are going to have currency problems, maybe even a currency crisis. I don’t know with which currency — maybe with the pound sterling, maybe with the US dollar, who knows. It maybe with something none of us have at the moment. When you have a currency crisis, stocks will be affected, many things will be affected. It is not sound, what’s happening out there in the world. In the 1930s, we had a huge stock market bubble which popped. And then politicians started making many mistakes. They became protectionist. They made solvent banks take over insolvent banks and then both banks failed in the end. They are doing many of the same mistakes now. What’s different this time is that we are printing huge amounts of money which they did not print at that time. So, we are going to have inflation this time. What do you do? No politically-elected government can afford so much pain, unemployment and hardships... America could have. America just had an election. The guy was elected in November and he could have come in the beginning of a four-year term and said the guys before me were hopeless idiots. They ruined things. We have to solve this problem. We have to take some pains now. But don’t worry, we will get through this pain, and in two to three years or four years, things would be fine. And he could have been reelected. If the pain comes in 2010, 2011 or 2012, there will be nobody he can blame. Especially, if things go bad later, the opposition will say, wait a minute, 2009 looked good. The next guy is going to say you did it... But you are right. It’s very difficult for an elected government. You have a newlyelected government in India. Whenever you have a new government they can take some of the pain. You recently said that you would invest in China and Sri Lanka but not in India. Aren’t you betting on the new government in India? I was trying to make a point that if anyone wants to invest in this particular part of the world, the best place would be Sri Lanka. Because it looks like the 30-year war is coming to an end. Throughout history, if you go to a place after the war ends you usually find everything very cheap, everyone is demoralised, people are just depressed and there are enormous opportunities if you have energy. In my view, investing in Sri Lanka in May 2009 is probably a better bet than Pakistan, Bangladesh, India or some of the other countries nearby. Let’s hope the new Indian government does something. I have heard wonderful things from Indian politicians for 40 years. And rarely do they produce. It’s not the first time that the Congress party has been in the power. If they mean it, India’s going to be one of the greatest development stories in the next 20 years. But I don’t know if they mean it. What kind of reforms? Why isn’t the currency convertible, why isn’t foreign capital encouraged, why isn’t foreign expertise encouraged, why is it so protectionist? Why are farmers only allowed to own five hectares? India should be the greatest farming nation in the world. You have the soil, the weather, you have everything and yet an Indian farmer can own only five hectares. How can an Indian farmer compete with a guy in Ireland who can own 1,000 hectares or a guy in Brazil who can own 5,000 hectares? Smart people don’t become farmers. Because what’s the future? Whenever prices start going up, Indian politicians ban futures trading, as if futures trading makes prices go up. It’s the craziest and the most absurd thing in the whole world. Prices go up because there is a reason for prices to go up. Last year you were buying only Chinese stocks. Why? The market collapsed in October-November. That’s when I bought more Chinese shares. I have not bought any Chinese shares since then. I have not bought shares anywhere in the world since then. My way of participating in what’s going on now is to buy commodities. In my view, commodities are the only place where fundamentals are improving. Farmers can’t get loans for fertilisers now, even though inventories of food are the lowest in decades. Nobody can get a loan to open a mine. So, you will have supplies of everything continuing to decline. What else are you looking at while investing? There are some industries in India that would do exceedingly well in the next few years, one of which is water. You have a horrible water problem. China also has a horrible water problem. So, I bought water companies in China. There are some great opportunities if America falls off the face of the earth. China is spending hundreds of billions of dollars to solve the agricultural problem. So, I am buying agricultural stocks and water stocks in China. There are other industries in India which have a great future. I am very bullish on Indian tourism. Wherever I go for speeches around the world I tell people, if you have to go to one country in your lifetime, you should go to India. Your government is going to re-build the military, they say. So, there’s going to be great opportunities here. Also, they may build the infrastructure. So, I see many opportunities in India. The possibility of a sovereign default in the developed world could further depress sentiments. You think it’s possible? In 1918, the UK was the richest and the most powerful country in the world. Within one generation it was in shambles, within two-and-a-half generations it defaulted. The UK defaulted in 1970s and had to be bailed out by the IMF. Many of the countries in the developed world are in serious trouble right now. Iceland has already defaulted. I think there could be a currency crisis because of sovereign debt problems later this year, next year or 2011. Developed nations have defaulted before. Remember the Asian crisis. It was a default of one kind or the other. It has happened before and it will happen again. Are you worried about any particular market or region? I am glad that I have no investments in the UK. Neither long, nor short. I am convinced that it’s in trouble. I am worried about the US. I have sold nearly all of my US dollars. I always had some as I am an American citizen. But I see serious problems developing there. Those two of the big developed countries are the ones that I see with the most likely problems. But the problem is that it never works that way. Everybody is sitting here watching the UK and US and it may happen in say Portugal or some place we haven’t thought of and it will come suddenly to surprise us all. If US unemployment touches the 10%-mark, it would further impact retail sales. How bad could this be for Asia? Let’s pick on China for a minute. If you sell to Wal-Mart in the US and if you are a Chinese supplier you know there is a problem. And you are going to be suffering. Any company that deals with the West is going to have problems. On the other hand, companies that are in the water-treatment business in Asia will care less if the West disappears. They are too busy making money, too busy going to work everyday. What kind of commodities will smart money chase? Can money be made in crude? I own gold but think silver is better right now. Natural gas is cheaper than oil right now, but I own them all. If you want to buy crude, you should probably buy cotton. Because all farmers in the US are planting corn to turn into energy. That means they are not going to plant any cotton. The best way to play crude oil is to buy cotton. Right now, there are huge subsidies around the world for farmers to plant corn, maize, for instance, so that they can be converted into energy. If energy prices go higher, there will be even more of that. If everybody plants his fields with soya, corn or palm oil to turn it into oil or energy then no one is going to plant cotton. And you can make a lot more money in cotton than oil. Between oil and gold, buy cotton. Between oil and gold buy silver. The other way to invest in oil is to buy sugar as everybody is converting a lot of sugar into energy. Silver is so much cheaper on a historic basis. And gold is near its all-time high. Silver is 75% below its all-time high. So, I would suspect that silver and cotton are going to do better than gold and oil. Global population is close to its peak and genetically-modified crops will increase productivity. What makes you so bullish on agriculture? It doesn’t matter. The world has been consuming more than it produced. Food inventories are at a multi-decade low. And we haven’t had any bad weather. We had isolated cases of droughts and things. That may never happen again. But if it does, the prices of food would go through the roof. If there is climate change taking place, the best way to participate is through agriculture or through agriculture products. There are many positive things happening. Right now, there is a shortage of everything in agriculture — seeds, fertilisers, tractors, tractor tyres. We have a shortage of farmers because farming has been a horrible business for the past 30 years. What kind of a market are you witnessing now? It’s a bear market rally. I was going to say I don’t think S&P 500 will see new highs. But I have to quickly temper that by saying against the dollar because the S&P 500 could triple from here if they print enough money and the value of the US dollar collapses, then S&P could go to 50,000, Dow Jones can go to 1,00,000. Which is one reason why I am not shorting stocks right now. Because there is a possibility of this sort of a thing. There is a possibility that stocks could go through unheard of levels, but would be in worthless currency. That naturally brings us to the debate on a new international reserve currency Several countries have raised the issue once again. The US dollar is terribly flawed right now. Something has to be done to the US dollar and something will be done just as something was done about the pound sterling. After World War II, people stopped using the pound sterling and converted to the dollar for many reasons. Something’s going to be done about the dollar. We are much closer to be doing something about it or will be forced to do something about it. India was forced to change in 1991 and the world will be forced to change the currency situation in the foreseeable future. There is already an underlying fear that this mountain of cash will chase assets and eventually force central banks to mop up liquidity. How do you think this would play out? I know they all say, ‘Don’t worry, we will reverse gears and take the excess liquidity out in time.’ I don’t believe them for a minute. No one has ever done it that way. When central bankers started trying to, it caused so much pain that they quickly reversed or have got rid of that central banker and put somebody else in. I just don’t think they could do it. That’s why I am worried about the bond market and the inflation. If all central banks do it together, that’s going to lead to higher unemployment, riots in the streets, civil unrests. Your track record as an investor has been more than impressive. But in today’s market can you replicate your performance of the past 20 years? One can. I probably cannot as I am not spending enough time at it. But it can be done. There are going to be people who we will read about in 20 years having made legendary fortunes starting now. In the 1930s there were people who built huge fortunes and laid the foundations like Templeton. He started in the 1930s. He saw opportunities and took advantage. These are people who saw great advantages and opportunities in the 1930s, acted and became fantastic suc cesses. There may be somebody out there now. I don’t know who she is. Maybe she is in Brazil, China or India. What will you tell a confused fund manager who seeks your advice? Become a farmer. The world has tens of thousands of hotshot fund managers right now. If I am correct, the financial communi ty is not going to be a great place to be in for the next 30 years. We have many periods in history when financial people were in charge, we had many periods when people who produced real goods were in charge — miners, farmers, etc. The world, in my view is changing and is shifting away from the fi nancial types to producers of real goods, and this is going to last for several decades as it always has. This may sound strange but it always happens this way. Ten years from now, it may be farmers who will drive the Lamborghinis and the stock brokers will drive tractors or taxis at best. Interviewed by George Smith Alexander & Sugata Ghosh
Even if you are outright bearish, don’t SHORT THE MARKET. Stocks could touch crazy levels, but they may be in CURRENCIES WHICH ARE WORTHLESS. Indeed, a sovereign default and currency turmoil COULD RATTLE WORLD MARKETS in a year or two. In a chat with ET, global investor JIM ROGERS says cotton, silver and sugar can be hot picks. Read on...
At one stage we were inundated with gloomy forecasts, which were further reinforced by the IMF and World Bank. And then suddenly stocks surged — something most were not prepared for. How risky is the market today? Central banks all over the world have printed huge amounts of money, and the real economy is not strong enough for all this money to be absorbed... so, it’s going into stocks and real assets such as commodities. It’s a mistake what they are doing. It’s giving short-term pleasure, but there’s long-term pain as we are going to have much higher inflation, much higher interest rates and a worse economy down the road. The American bond market is already beginning to go down dramatically as people realise that the American government has to sell huge amount of bonds, and secondly, there is going to be inflation, serious inflation, as it was always in the past when you had governments printing huge amounts of money. Stocks are rising even as fiscal deficit is widening. Somewhere it has to snap... It’s going to snap. Later this year, next year, we are going to have currency problems, maybe even a currency crisis. I don’t know with which currency — maybe with the pound sterling, maybe with the US dollar, who knows. It maybe with something none of us have at the moment. When you have a currency crisis, stocks will be affected, many things will be affected. It is not sound, what’s happening out there in the world. In the 1930s, we had a huge stock market bubble which popped. And then politicians started making many mistakes. They became protectionist. They made solvent banks take over insolvent banks and then both banks failed in the end. They are doing many of the same mistakes now. What’s different this time is that we are printing huge amounts of money which they did not print at that time. So, we are going to have inflation this time. What do you do? No politically-elected government can afford so much pain, unemployment and hardships... America could have. America just had an election. The guy was elected in November and he could have come in the beginning of a four-year term and said the guys before me were hopeless idiots. They ruined things. We have to solve this problem. We have to take some pains now. But don’t worry, we will get through this pain, and in two to three years or four years, things would be fine. And he could have been reelected. If the pain comes in 2010, 2011 or 2012, there will be nobody he can blame. Especially, if things go bad later, the opposition will say, wait a minute, 2009 looked good. The next guy is going to say you did it... But you are right. It’s very difficult for an elected government. You have a newlyelected government in India. Whenever you have a new government they can take some of the pain. You recently said that you would invest in China and Sri Lanka but not in India. Aren’t you betting on the new government in India? I was trying to make a point that if anyone wants to invest in this particular part of the world, the best place would be Sri Lanka. Because it looks like the 30-year war is coming to an end. Throughout history, if you go to a place after the war ends you usually find everything very cheap, everyone is demoralised, people are just depressed and there are enormous opportunities if you have energy. In my view, investing in Sri Lanka in May 2009 is probably a better bet than Pakistan, Bangladesh, India or some of the other countries nearby. Let’s hope the new Indian government does something. I have heard wonderful things from Indian politicians for 40 years. And rarely do they produce. It’s not the first time that the Congress party has been in the power. If they mean it, India’s going to be one of the greatest development stories in the next 20 years. But I don’t know if they mean it. What kind of reforms? Why isn’t the currency convertible, why isn’t foreign capital encouraged, why isn’t foreign expertise encouraged, why is it so protectionist? Why are farmers only allowed to own five hectares? India should be the greatest farming nation in the world. You have the soil, the weather, you have everything and yet an Indian farmer can own only five hectares. How can an Indian farmer compete with a guy in Ireland who can own 1,000 hectares or a guy in Brazil who can own 5,000 hectares? Smart people don’t become farmers. Because what’s the future? Whenever prices start going up, Indian politicians ban futures trading, as if futures trading makes prices go up. It’s the craziest and the most absurd thing in the whole world. Prices go up because there is a reason for prices to go up. Last year you were buying only Chinese stocks. Why? The market collapsed in October-November. That’s when I bought more Chinese shares. I have not bought any Chinese shares since then. I have not bought shares anywhere in the world since then. My way of participating in what’s going on now is to buy commodities. In my view, commodities are the only place where fundamentals are improving. Farmers can’t get loans for fertilisers now, even though inventories of food are the lowest in decades. Nobody can get a loan to open a mine. So, you will have supplies of everything continuing to decline. What else are you looking at while investing? There are some industries in India that would do exceedingly well in the next few years, one of which is water. You have a horrible water problem. China also has a horrible water problem. So, I bought water companies in China. There are some great opportunities if America falls off the face of the earth. China is spending hundreds of billions of dollars to solve the agricultural problem. So, I am buying agricultural stocks and water stocks in China. There are other industries in India which have a great future. I am very bullish on Indian tourism. Wherever I go for speeches around the world I tell people, if you have to go to one country in your lifetime, you should go to India. Your government is going to re-build the military, they say. So, there’s going to be great opportunities here. Also, they may build the infrastructure. So, I see many opportunities in India. The possibility of a sovereign default in the developed world could further depress sentiments. You think it’s possible? In 1918, the UK was the richest and the most powerful country in the world. Within one generation it was in shambles, within two-and-a-half generations it defaulted. The UK defaulted in 1970s and had to be bailed out by the IMF. Many of the countries in the developed world are in serious trouble right now. Iceland has already defaulted. I think there could be a currency crisis because of sovereign debt problems later this year, next year or 2011. Developed nations have defaulted before. Remember the Asian crisis. It was a default of one kind or the other. It has happened before and it will happen again. Are you worried about any particular market or region? I am glad that I have no investments in the UK. Neither long, nor short. I am convinced that it’s in trouble. I am worried about the US. I have sold nearly all of my US dollars. I always had some as I am an American citizen. But I see serious problems developing there. Those two of the big developed countries are the ones that I see with the most likely problems. But the problem is that it never works that way. Everybody is sitting here watching the UK and US and it may happen in say Portugal or some place we haven’t thought of and it will come suddenly to surprise us all. If US unemployment touches the 10%-mark, it would further impact retail sales. How bad could this be for Asia? Let’s pick on China for a minute. If you sell to Wal-Mart in the US and if you are a Chinese supplier you know there is a problem. And you are going to be suffering. Any company that deals with the West is going to have problems. On the other hand, companies that are in the water-treatment business in Asia will care less if the West disappears. They are too busy making money, too busy going to work everyday. What kind of commodities will smart money chase? Can money be made in crude? I own gold but think silver is better right now. Natural gas is cheaper than oil right now, but I own them all. If you want to buy crude, you should probably buy cotton. Because all farmers in the US are planting corn to turn into energy. That means they are not going to plant any cotton. The best way to play crude oil is to buy cotton. Right now, there are huge subsidies around the world for farmers to plant corn, maize, for instance, so that they can be converted into energy. If energy prices go higher, there will be even more of that. If everybody plants his fields with soya, corn or palm oil to turn it into oil or energy then no one is going to plant cotton. And you can make a lot more money in cotton than oil. Between oil and gold, buy cotton. Between oil and gold buy silver. The other way to invest in oil is to buy sugar as everybody is converting a lot of sugar into energy. Silver is so much cheaper on a historic basis. And gold is near its all-time high. Silver is 75% below its all-time high. So, I would suspect that silver and cotton are going to do better than gold and oil. Global population is close to its peak and genetically-modified crops will increase productivity. What makes you so bullish on agriculture? It doesn’t matter. The world has been consuming more than it produced. Food inventories are at a multi-decade low. And we haven’t had any bad weather. We had isolated cases of droughts and things. That may never happen again. But if it does, the prices of food would go through the roof. If there is climate change taking place, the best way to participate is through agriculture or through agriculture products. There are many positive things happening. Right now, there is a shortage of everything in agriculture — seeds, fertilisers, tractors, tractor tyres. We have a shortage of farmers because farming has been a horrible business for the past 30 years. What kind of a market are you witnessing now? It’s a bear market rally. I was going to say I don’t think S&P 500 will see new highs. But I have to quickly temper that by saying against the dollar because the S&P 500 could triple from here if they print enough money and the value of the US dollar collapses, then S&P could go to 50,000, Dow Jones can go to 1,00,000. Which is one reason why I am not shorting stocks right now. Because there is a possibility of this sort of a thing. There is a possibility that stocks could go through unheard of levels, but would be in worthless currency. That naturally brings us to the debate on a new international reserve currency Several countries have raised the issue once again. The US dollar is terribly flawed right now. Something has to be done to the US dollar and something will be done just as something was done about the pound sterling. After World War II, people stopped using the pound sterling and converted to the dollar for many reasons. Something’s going to be done about the dollar. We are much closer to be doing something about it or will be forced to do something about it. India was forced to change in 1991 and the world will be forced to change the currency situation in the foreseeable future. There is already an underlying fear that this mountain of cash will chase assets and eventually force central banks to mop up liquidity. How do you think this would play out? I know they all say, ‘Don’t worry, we will reverse gears and take the excess liquidity out in time.’ I don’t believe them for a minute. No one has ever done it that way. When central bankers started trying to, it caused so much pain that they quickly reversed or have got rid of that central banker and put somebody else in. I just don’t think they could do it. That’s why I am worried about the bond market and the inflation. If all central banks do it together, that’s going to lead to higher unemployment, riots in the streets, civil unrests. Your track record as an investor has been more than impressive. But in today’s market can you replicate your performance of the past 20 years? One can. I probably cannot as I am not spending enough time at it. But it can be done. There are going to be people who we will read about in 20 years having made legendary fortunes starting now. In the 1930s there were people who built huge fortunes and laid the foundations like Templeton. He started in the 1930s. He saw opportunities and took advantage. These are people who saw great advantages and opportunities in the 1930s, acted and became fantastic suc cesses. There may be somebody out there now. I don’t know who she is. Maybe she is in Brazil, China or India. What will you tell a confused fund manager who seeks your advice? Become a farmer. The world has tens of thousands of hotshot fund managers right now. If I am correct, the financial communi ty is not going to be a great place to be in for the next 30 years. We have many periods in history when financial people were in charge, we had many periods when people who produced real goods were in charge — miners, farmers, etc. The world, in my view is changing and is shifting away from the fi nancial types to producers of real goods, and this is going to last for several decades as it always has. This may sound strange but it always happens this way. Ten years from now, it may be farmers who will drive the Lamborghinis and the stock brokers will drive tractors or taxis at best. Interviewed by George Smith Alexander & Sugata Ghosh
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)