Lapis India Capital

Public Equity

The rice and chess story
"Compound interest [return] is the eighth wonder of the world. He who understands it, earns it ... he who doesn't, pays it" – Albert Einstein

Lapis invests its own capital in public equity markets in India.

Investing in 'Compounders' - businesses that compound earnings and cashflows with high returns on capital over long periods of time - forms the cornerstone of Lapis’ public equity investment philosophy and strategy. All investments we make are in businesses that are ‘Compounders’ or have the potential to become 'Compounders'.

Within the broader 'Compounders strategy', Lapis employs two sub-strategies to enhance its returns:
  • Excellence sub-strategy: Most businesses, including high quality businesses, go through uncertain times, resulting in phases of slower sales and/or profit growth. During these periods, the market often adopts a short-term view of the business and misprices the long-term sustainability and growth of profits. This sub-strategy takes advantage of this mispricing and seeks to make attractive returns on well discovered large-cap 'Compounders'.
  • Emergence sub-strategy: Institutional investors are usually large cap focused and ignore mid/small-cap stocks because of limited broker coverage, benchmark focus, and perceived higher risk. This sub-strategy focuses on discovering potential ‘Compounders’ that are available at attractive valuations compared to their larger-cap counterparts as they are yet to emerge and become popular amongst the broader investor community.

India is poised for world-leading growth over the next decade. We believe that investing in ‘Compounders’ in the public equity markets in India is amongst the best ways to capitalize on the India growth story and achieve superior long-term returns.

Kunal Rakshit - MD, Public Equity Investments, Lapis India Capital Advisors

Kunal has 17 years of investing and operating experience, including 12 years of public equity and private equity experience. Prior to joining Lapis, Kunal worked at First Voyager Advisors from 2010 to 2016, advising the manager of a Foreign Portfolio Investor focused on public equity investments in India. Before that, from 2007 to 2010, Kunal was with Baer Capital Partners’ private equity business that advised the manager of a US$190 million growth capital India fund. From 2003 to 2006, Kunal was an entrepreneur who built and managed a hypermarket in Pune, India. Kunal started his career as a business leadership trainee at Hindustan Unilever in 2002.

Kunal has a B.A. degree in economics from Amherst College, USA, and an MBA degree from IIM Bangalore. He is also a CFA Charter holder.