Rakshit Ranjan, Portfolio Manager at Marcellus Investment Managers in an interview with CNBC-TV18 said companies are now better prepared with systems and processes to deal with logistical challenges from lockdowns compared to last year.

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“Given the vaccination programmes are underway, I don’t see too many corporates having any material drop in businesses,” he added.

“We are not too concerned on the earnings front. Any disruption is a blessing in disguise for great companies through market share gains hence we are looking forward to next two-three years despite the second wave of COVID-19,” he stated.

Marcellus has added Titan Company into its portfolio. “Titan was always on our radar, it was in our coverage universe for several years. We were waiting for two things to materialize – wedding jewellery front and succession planning. On wedding jewellery front they have started getting the business model right and the momentum has picked up recently."

"Succession planning was happening after 20 years for the first time, we wanted to wait and watch whether it has any adverse impact on the management’s focus, which isn’t there,” he explained.

He also believes that things like COVID-19 are massive blessings in disguise for retailers who are able to tide through the crisis. “Weaker retailers get badly disrupted through such crisis and that needs a massive scope of marketshare gain for the better quality retailers which can manage inventories and cashflows better and come out with massive opportunities to grow in the next three-four years. That is why we bought Titan,” he added.

Dr Lal Pathlabs is a retail play. It is not a diagnostic firm. “It is the ability to open collection centres and laboratories at optimal locations, sizes, managing supply chain behind it and hence a hub-and-spoke model’s execution, which is the biggest strength of Dr Lal Pathlabs. The business model itself is a lot more B2C compared to some of the other competitors. It is executed in a way where franchises make very good return on capital employed for their business, hence it flourishes better,” he mentioned.

He said Dr Lal Pathlabs has accelerated the home collection infrastructure significantly in recent years.

On Bajaj Finance, he stated, “We are quite comfortable with Bajaj Finance and quite excited about the next two-three years prospects.”

For full interview, watch the video…

(Edited by : Bivekananda Biswas)

First Published:Apr 9, 2021 4:38 PM IST