Note: This interview was originally published in the December 2015 issue of our premium newsletter – Value Investing Almanack (VIA). To read more such interviews and other deep thoughts on value investing, business analysis and behavioral finance, click here to subscribe to VIA.
Mr. Huzaifa Husain is the Head of Indian Equities at PineBridge Investments based in Mumbai. Since he joined the asset management company in 2004, Mr. Husain has been a key member of the team advising the PineBridge India Equity Fund (a Dublin domiciled India offshore fund). Prior to this, he was an Equity Analyst at Principal Mutual Fund and SBI Mutual Fund. Mr. Husain received a Post Graduate Diploma in Management (PGDM) from Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Bangalore and a B.Tech from the Institute of Technology (Banaras Hindu University).
In this interview for the Value Investing Almanack, Mr. Husain shared how he found his calling in value investing, and reveals key insights about his investment strategy and the underlying thought process.
Excellent interview vishal one must read before starting investment.
Thanks and regards
Nitin
It was very insightful interview Vishalbhai.
He rightly pointed out one matter that reading investing books without reading history of business is quite dangerous.
I would like to takeaways 2 learnings from here.
1. Making money investing in poor business is worse than loosing money in them.
2. The work an equity research analyst he did is quite extensive and it goes beyond annual reports, quarterly results and other chit-chats about the company. I never thought this way. I knew that understanding the industry is important but this interview opened a new area of work for me.
Thank you for doing this interview. 🙂
Hi Vishal,
Season’s Greetings to you and all Tribe Members!
It is one of the best interview I’ve ever read.
Excellent example by Mr. Huzaifa Husain,”Making money by equity investing is very difficult. Treat the stock market as a bazaar. Go with a list of things to buy. Make the list at home just as one would make a grocery list based on your nutritional needs. Don’t make decisions by watching the changes in the prices of stocks just as one would not decide to buy lemons because their prices are going up. Spend a lot of time deciding what to put on that list. One way to do it is to inculcate a phenomenal amount of curiosity in researching companies.”
“It is dangerous to read books especially on investing without reading about business history. It may cloud one’s view. Hence, I would recommend all budding investors read annual reports of companies for as far back as they can find. Read them across various companies over various time frames. They should be able to understand how companies have behaved over business cycles, how their valuations have changed, why did they succeed, why did they fail, etc.”
Thank you very much for sharing and clearing some clouds,
Thanks for this insightful interview.
Hi Vishal,
Could you please ask Huzaifa Husain below question.
Do you consider Shariah Laws before investment? If not then why?Wont it be against the Islam?
If yes , then how strictly do you follow shariah law, what are the filters do you apply to invest?
Thank you Vishal sir for the great interview.it again reminds me why reading annual reports are more important than anything else.
Thank you soo much.
Hope to get more such interviews from you.
Sir, will you write some posts on your blog , on how to analyze a particular sector or industry.your analysis on cement sector was amazing.but I couldn’t find the other part on banking sector.
Or suggests some books for the same.
Thank you.
excellent interview in quite some time..
Great interview Vishal. The sequential application of checklists is a very good point. At times, it may be worth considering switching the 3 around. I am talking about unethical managements here, but if you are more balance sheet focussed then it is perhaps worthwhile.
Keep up the great work …
I meant “not talking about unethical” … The word “not” was missed out