GS India Equity R Inc GBP

Analyst Report
Morningstar's Take
|29/06/2023

by Ramanand Kothari
Goldman Sachs India Equity remains an attractive offering led by an impressive lead manager and a well-codified, time-tested investment approach. While the analyst team is showing signs of stability, we would prefer to monitor its stability over a slightly longer period of time. The Morningstar Medalist Ratings for the cheaper share classes, including the clean R Acc USD share class, stays at Bronze, while the more expensive share classes remain Neutral.

Lead manager Hiren Dasani is a seasoned investor and firm veteran who took charge of this strategy in April 2017. Dasani’s association runs deep here, as he joined the India equity team in 2007 and had previously been the comanager of this strategy and the head of the India equity research team for four years before becoming the lead. In his 22 years of investing experience, Dasani has gained a solid understanding of Indian companies and the broader market. We remain confident in Dasani as he continues to impress us with his strong passion for investing, commitment to the strategy’s well-established philosophy, investment insights, and how the stock thesis ties back to the investment process during our meetings. Dasani is well-supported by Aman Batra, head of the India equity research, who came across well during our recent years' meetings. Batra brings 22 years of investment experience and shows good insights about portfolio holdings. The strategy draws from an onshore Mumbai-based team of five analysts, which sports 17 years of average investment experience. However, it witnessed two experienced analysts depart suddenly in 2021, putting strain on this compact team. The positions were timely filled with comparable replacements, and the team has been stable since then. However, the smaller team size and notable small- and mid-cap exposure need more direct research efforts, holding back our conviction whether this team can maintain the quality of research.

The team follows a time-tested investment approach that has been in place since its inception and consistently implemented across the cycles. It looks for fundamentally sound businesses at substantial discounts to their intrinsic values. The robust bottom-up research process has helped the team identify mispriced opportunities, especially among the small- and mid-cap names, which have historically made up between 40% and 50% of the portfolio, against 30% in the MSCI India Investable Market Index. It is also assuring to see that the team has refined and standardized the research process in recent years, which should help it in stock coverage and idea generation.

Over Dasani's tenure from 1 May 2017 through 31 May 2023, the R Acc USD clean share class returned 7.3% per year, which closely matched the performance of both the category benchmark MSCI India Index and the manager’s defined MSCI India IMI Index, but outperformed the India Equity Morningstar Category by 2.1%. Notably, strong stock-picking in the small- and mid-cap segment has helped the strategy beat peers during this period.
 
Morningstar Medalist Rating™Remains an attractive offshore India equity choice.
To find out how Morningstar rates a fund click here.
Morningstar Pillars
PeopleAverage
ParentAverage
ProcessAbove Average
 
Morningstar Medalist RatingMorningstar assigns the Medalist Rating to funds that are qualitatively and quantitatively assessed through manager research and algorithmic processes. The assessment turns on three key “pillars” – People, Process, and Parent – that yield an estimate of how well a fund will perform before fees but after adjusting for risk.
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