Bullish on quasi-monopolistic franchises like Asian Paints, Pidilite, Nestle: Saurabh Mukherjea

If you want to make money from FMCG whether it’s today or five years from now you need to invest in fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) companies with quasi-monopolistic franchises, Saurabh Mukherjea of Marcellus Investments told CNBC-TV18 in an interview on Tuesday.

"That’s why we continue to have Asian Paints, Pidilite and Nestle in our portfolio and beyond that, we do not have that much by way of FMCG,” he said.

Marcellus owns Asian Paints, Pidilite and Nestle in the portfolio, he said. He had the same approach for financials as well.

“The lenders that we love to have in our portfolios like HDFC Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Bajaj Finance have vindicated our faith quarter after quarter. We added Axis Bank also last year and it seems to be doing a fine job. We have added second line lenders like AU Small Finance Bank and Aavas Financiers in our portfolio,” he said.

He believes in building a portfolio with high-quality lenders. “We have built a portfolio of high-quality lenders where there are rock-solid market leaders and the best second liner like Aavas and AU Finance fits that bill for us,” he added.

“Banks and non-banking financial companies (NBFCs) is overdue a consolidation and we are seeing that in full force. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) data shows that over the last 12 months 80 percent of incremental lending in the country has been in the hands of 6-7 private sector banks and that consolidation in Indian lending will play out over the next couple of years as COVID gradually ebbs away,” he said.

For the entire interview, watch the video