'Infosys stock fell 40%': Top fund manager Sunil Singhania recounts first day at MF when Sensex crashed

Sunil Singhania, founder, Abakkus Asset Manager LLP on Wednesday recounted his first day at a mutual fund when he saw Sensex crash. 

Speaking at BT500 Wealth Creators Summit, Singhania said April 10, 2003 was the first day he joined work at a mutual fund (after working at equities) and on that very day Infosys fell 40% and Mastek fell 50% with Sensex falling to 2,600. 

"My boss said 'kya panauti (ill omen) hain'. I said it can't fall further and this is a good base," said Singhania.

He was speaking at a session titled "The Road Ahead for Indian Markets" along with Navneet Munot, MD & CEO, HDFC AMC and AMFI chairman; and Swarup Anand Mohanty, VC & CEO, Mirae Asset Managers (India).

Singhania also spoke about his investment strategy.

"Do all your research before you buy, not after you buy and invest as if you are becoming a partner in the business and a partner can't be for 2 days or 5 days, a partner is perpetual," he said. 

"Our analysts (at Abakkus) are very focused, we are here to create wealth from a longer-term perspective, we are not traders, we don't intend to create wealth on a day-to-day basis," he added. 

Singhania said 2003 was a good time to invest in smaller compamies. 

"I'm a balance sheet person, I read 1200 balance sheets every year. At that time, mutual funds never looked at smaller companies. It felt like driving on a German highway at 250 kms with no car in sight. Our mutual fund had Rs 100-crore AUM and later we became 50-60% larger than HDFC mutual fund," he said. 

He said nowadays there are far more analysts and many more analysts on Twitter. "Even people with 100 followers mention a stock and that rises 20% in no time," he observed. 

"In markets you only need two things: liquidity at right time and patience," Singhania said.