Fidelity India Focus A-GBP

Analyst Report
Morningstar's Take
|31/01/2024

by Ramanand Kothari
Fidelity India Focus benefits from its talented lead manager, an experienced and stable supporting team, and an established, sensible, quality-growth investment approach. The strategy’s People and Process Pillar ratings remain Above Average and Average, respectively.

Lead manager Amit Goel took the helm of this strategy on Feb. 28, 2020, but has been investing in Indian and Asian equities for almost a decade. His successful track record includes managing the Asian equity sleeve of the Fidelity Emerging Markets strategy since July 2014, where he became a comanager in December 2019. He has demonstrated solid stock-picking capability in India, an essential part of his remit, and other Asian countries. Additionally, he took charge of Fidelity Sustainable Emerging Markets (formerly Fidelity Emerging Markets Focus) in May 2021. While monitoring his expanding workload, we maintain our confidence in his Indian stock expertise and draw comfort from the substantial overlap between his two emerging-markets mandates, which also have a 23% allocation in India.

Chandrasekhar Sridhar joined as a nondiscretionary advisor in August 2022. He provides valuable expertise, with 17 years of experience, particularly in the financials sector, which holds significant weight in the index. This addition aids Goel in managing his increasing workload. However, Goel retains the ultimate decision-making authority. Additionally, the stable and well-resourced Mumbai-based analyst team of nine members, with an average industry experience of 14 years and a firm tenure of 10 years, contributes positively to our confidence.

Since assuming control of the portfolio, Goel has seamlessly integrated the quality-growth approach he has successfully applied to manage Asian equities into this single-country mandate. The fundamental bottom-up process looks for high-quality companies in structural growth segments, scalable business models, solid governance, balance sheets, and reasonable valuations. Under his leadership, the portfolio's quality and liquidity have improved, with the active share rising to 65% from 45% compared with the 8% cap of the MSCI India Index. However, Goel remains benchmark-aware and selectively takes a few large active positions. Even after lifting the stock's active limit to 10% from 5%, the new limit is still underutilized. Goel is cautious about the liquidity risk in small-cap names, which makes sense from a risk perspective but limits alpha potential.

Goel is still building his track record on this strategy. Between March 1, 2020, and Dec. 31, 2023, the strategy’s clean Y-Acc-USD share class returned 13.11% per year, lagging the Morningstar India TME Index Morningstar Category benchmark and the broader MSCI India Index by roughly 350 basis points but matching the offshore India equity category. Weak near-term results, notably in 2022 and 2023, led by a combination of subpar stock selection and style headwinds, have had an impact on its trailing one- and three-year results.
 
Morningstar Medalist Rating™Despite short-term performance headwinds, it remains an appealing offshore India equity option.
To find out how Morningstar rates a fund click here.
Morningstar Pillars
PeopleAbove Average
ParentAbove Average
ProcessAverage
 
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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