Samir Arora vs Pulak Prasad: 'Itne paas, phir bhi itne door'

You would think that if two investors ran billion-dollar India-focused funds out of the same city (Singapore), they would at least have a few things in common: a shared worldview, a preference for certain kinds of stocks, maybe even a similar framework for thinking about risk.

But Samir Arora and Pulak Prasad are a study in contradiction—'itne paas, phir bhi itne door'.

Samir Arora's investing philosophy

The founder of Helios Capital believes in the process. And more importantly, in filters. He doesn't chase multibaggers or future narratives. He filters out the obvious mistakes, such as bad governance, poor capital allocation, potential disruption and unsustainable valuations. His eight-factor checklist (theme, industry, disruption risk, management, governance, accounting, near-term triggers and valuation) is more about saying no than saying yes. If a stock makes it through that sieve, it's earned its place.

He operates with a rolling two-to-three-year lens. Long enough to let earnings play out. Short enough to adapt. If the stock delivers, he holds on. If not, he moves on, with no ceremony and certainly no sentimentality.

It's not about finding the next Google. It's about not ending up with the next Yes Bank.

Pulak Prasad's investing philosophy

Pulak Prasad, on the other hand, doesn't believe in selling—unless something breaks.

As the founder of Nalanda Capital and the author of 'What I Learned About Investing from Darwin', Prasad is someone who truly invests like a biologist. He looks for businesses that are evolutionarily fit: robust, debt-free, high ROCE, culturally stable and structurally simple. If the company has shown the ability to survive over time (and at high returns on capital), he's interested. If not, he moves on quietly.

He doesn't model the future. He interrogates the past. Because he believes the present, built on actual performance, is a better clue than any forecast.

And once he buys, he holds—for years and sometimes decades. His team doesn't spend time thinking about when to sell. Instead, they obsess over whether the business still deserves to be owned.

Opposing but equally rewarding investing styles

Now, here's the thing. Both approaches work. Arora's strategy is built on picking battles wisely. Prasad's looks like a long-term marriage. But both are grounded in the one thing most investors lack: clarity.

That's where most people slip. Not because they bought the wrong stock. But because they didn't know what they were doing when they bought it. We mimic styles, copy portfolios, dabble in momentum one month and value the next. We are always asking, "what should I buy?". Rarely do we ask, "what kind of investor am I?"

Arora and Prasad don't agree on much. But they are both clear on who they are, what they want, and what they are willing to walk away from. They are not trying to be each other. And they are certainly not trying to be everyone else. And that's the lesson.

Clarity beats cleverness. Philosophy beats prediction. And in a world where capital is abundant but conviction is rare, maybe the real alpha lies not in picking the best stocks, but in selecting the lens you'll stick with when stock-picking stops being easy.

Also read: Feeling jittery? This fund manager isn't

This article was originally published on April 23, 2025.