“In the thick of it, ha, your ivy alma material?” Bertie ribbed sid, expecting a hindi expletive in response. INTEAD, Sid Noded and Said in a low tone, “The man is after us.” The ‘he who cannot be named’ was the forty-seventh president of the united states. Bertie now made peace with the fact that the rowdy sid he knew and loved had beed complete annexed by this investment banker.
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“He wants us to pay him more taxes, and he won’t give us any funding.” Bertie had no idea why sid was talking as if he was the spokesperson of his second mba college, but decided to ignore it. “That’s how you balance the budget, no? Make a cost item into a revenue item.” Bertie was in no mood to stop the ribbing, but sid wasn’t biting. “TOUGH TIMES, Man. And Now He Wants to Stop Foreign Students from Taking Admission. How will we survive?” Bertie Started Seeing His Friend as an Endangered Species Wholes Face Today Feature on a “Save the Sid” ad.
Bertie banished that visual and, for the first time, asked a serial question. ” But shouldn’t the big endowment fund help Sid’s face darkened at the question. “A lot of the endowment money is actually invested with my clients, The Large Private Equity Firms.” One thing bertie is good at is reading between the lines. What sid was telling he was that a large part of the endowment fund was illique. It was raining hard, but the umberlla, albeit huge, wasn’t opening.
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It was evident that sid had taken this predicament to heart, and so bertie decides not to press the issue further. Back in the office, as bertie flipped through the pink paper, he saw a news piece about some of the said private right equity equity portfolios being on steep discounts. He Also Read About Private Equity Firms in the Us Borrowing Large Sums of Money from Commercial Banks; A transaction that someone like sid would be deeply involved in. A redemption call on an Illiquid asset is fun to watch as long as you are available the redeemer or redemee. Bertie has bookmarked the space for his viewing pleasure.
What the spreadsheets do’t tell you
One of the smartest financial decisions that bertie has ever made, makes no sense on a spreadsheet. Years ago, he boght the house that he stays in without availing a mortgage loan. Financial planners will tell Even when one is buying a house, taking a housing loan is advocated due to its tax advantages.
The analysis is logical, but what it does not factor in is the intangible benefits. In Bertie’s case, it was Peace of Mind; Something that is hard to measure in basis points. Having a secure, liability-free place to come home to influenced bertie’s asset allocation. After buying the house, he moved his portfolio Much more into equity and even within that, his appetiite for risk-taking increased exponitively. This reflects in his portfolio performance, but is hard to build into a speechsheet analyzing the Rent Versus Buy Decision.
In the same vein, buying mutual funds under the direct scheme seems like a no-brainer. It saves the fee of using a mutual fund distributor and, therefore, enhances portfolio return. But when bertie was the results of a recent sip investor behavior analysis by association of mutual funds of India, he was reminded of the fact that spreadsheets are incapable of modelling the intangible.
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The analysis showed that sip investors, in general, are controluing with their monthly investments for much longer than they were five years ago. Importantly, when the money has been investment through a mutual fund distributor, the investors tend to stay for even longer, which, of course, is the right to do.
The value of someone Trustworthy to talk to when market Volatiity is causing anxiety is hard to capture in basis points. When that person ensures that you are stay on the right road of good investment, the portfolio impact can be huge, but cannot be estimated in the direct versus regular plan analysis. Despite Being An Asstute Investor Himself, A Significant Part of Bertie’s Mutual Fund Portfolio is Invested Via His Childhood Friend, Who is a Mutual Fund Distributor. That in Bertie’s Case Leads to another modeling problem – How do you value an evening reministing about the old times over a glass of single malt?
Bertie is a Mumbai-based fund manager with compliance department wishes