"I like commercial air-conditioning business": Mr.Samir Aurora:

It is to be noted that Mr. Samir Arora runs Singapore based Helios Capital and is known for his candid talk.

This is from one of his interviews, with a Television Channel, some months back.

I like commercial airconditioning business for I believe that this is the best way to play creation of urban infrastructure- malls/IT parks/airports/hotels/high rise office blocks etc all need a much higher proportion of commercial airconditioning content. We own the leader in a significant way (also because of its international business and other segments).

I liked real estate sector earlier this year as the stocks were discounting serious liquidity issues- which starting disappearing as companies raised capital. I do not like mid cap real estate companies and I do not consider normal companies which have some valuable piece of land as real estate companies.

Also, in many such cases where a normal company has some real estate and it sells or develops that land, there is no guarantee that they will not invest the proceeds in their mediocre current businesses (some how all companies which were sitting on valuable land parcels were otherwise really mediocre).

Basically what we like are companies that can compound their earnings for a long time with infrequent dilutions. Infrastructure sector offers the possibility of years of growth which will basically be exploited by the same group of companies (in each sector). I do not like areas where the top down growth is not so obvious and not so high (telecom sector for example currently). Within the infrastructure sector I like power sector.

I read 3-4 investment books a month and my all time favorite is “Fooled by Randomness”. Other books I have liked are “Reminiscences of a Stock Operator”, “The Future for Investors” , “Against the Gods”, “The Black Swan”. “When Genius Failed” “Devil takes the Hindmost” etc. These books are for enjoying not only for necessarily learning.

In my fund I do not invest in fixed income or indeed anything other than listed stocks At a personal level, I think that individuals who are not full time investors (and therefore have an independent source of income via job/business etc) can afford to have a high allocation to equities. In fact professional investors (who try to make a living through investments) should have a certain portion allocated to fixed income to provide stability in bad phases.

The problem with the stockmarkets is that retail investors, who have the luxury of being long-term choose to be short-term and institutional investors, who have the resources to be short term, use them to try and achieve long-term success. No wonder none of these groups are successful, and the debate never ends.