Sonal Minhas
Sonal’s decade long career spans across entrepreneurship, investment management and investment banking. In his last role, Sonal was leading a food-tech venture, which he exited/sold in 2018. He has led consumer, financial services and B2B investments at SAIF Partners (Elevation Capital) and AIF Capital. During his investing career that includes both public and private investing, he has actively led investments, represented his funds on the boards of portfolio companies, very closely worked with managements and led exits. At SAIF Partners, he has led investments in KDDL, Industry Buying, Blue Star, Orient Electric amongst others. At AIF Capital, he has led/managed successful investments in: Bharti Infratel, RBL and Catholic Syrian Bank.
He has evaluated more than 300 listed and unlisted companies and has identified several multibaggers like Cera Sanitaryware, Relaxo, La Opala, TVS Motors, Indian Terrain, Indigo Paints, NGL Fine Chem, Sharda Cropchem, Mphasis, Canfin Homes and RBL.
He has a Post Graduate Diploma in Management from Indian School of Business, where he was a Dean’s scholar and was awarded the Torch Bearer award for winning the maximum number of competitions across B-schools in India, and has done his Civil Engineering from IIT Kanpur.
He has been actively managing his personal portfolio of investments in Indian listed companies since 2007.
What I am looking for in a management team?
We know that companies shape/form changes over time. What stays constant however is the promoter’s aggression/hunger and the intent to create and share value. It is mandatory for me to meet the promoter to assess his value creation trigger. My entrepreneurial experience comes handy in assessing if a management team can execute a plan.
What is the single most important thing for success in investing?
Prior success is your worst enemy. I try to look for non confirming data through my scuttlebutt. This helps me question what is publicly known or I have a bias for.
How do I make hold vs sell call?
I try to allocate more capital to companies demonstrating better than expected business performance.. Every quarter I forcerank my portfolio and sell the worst performers. This way the portfolio remains concentrated. I love to stay out of the market when it most heated up. I did this in 2007 and 2018 and have built a framework now to replicate this for future cycles.
One book on investing I will recommend ?
The Most Important Thing by Howard Marks is my favourite as I follow his style of investing. I like investors whose span is beyond equity markets.
How do I track disruption in a sector?
I track the private and tech peers closely. Both Anubhav and I have a network of entrepreneurs who share grounds up data.
Does your framework change in a bull or a bear market?
My portfolio is more consolidated in a bull market. In a bear market, I try to look for positive longer term information to stay away from inertia or inaction bias.