Real investing requires a lot of grit and stubbornness

Can you tell us what brought you to the world of investing and what made you stay on? In 1992, after clearing class 12, I began reading The Economic Times on a daily basis - I read stories of stocks soaring, the stories of money being made by certain individuals. This got me interested in stocks and stock markets. I tried to find the answers to a very basic question- what makes stocks move? This was the beginning of my investing journey. You manage the India Zen Fund, which is a long only bottom up approach equity fund. Why the bottom up approach? The India Zen Fund is now the Motilal Oswal India Fund (MOIF), which is the replica of the Next Trillion Dollar Opportunity PMS Strategy (NTDOP) on the offshore platform. Over the last 25 years, I have understood quite well that only the long term approach to equity investing suits my temperament. I have tried out a whole lot of other things in the stock market, but I found that only this method works best. Essentially, if you want to make money from stocks, you have to predict how much money a company will make over a long period of time. Essentially the stock price is nothing but the present value of future cash flows. Hence, the bottom up approach to equity investing. Can you take us through your stock-selection process? Ideally, I look out for structural businesses as opposed to cyclicals and global cyclicals. These companies should have exhibited an ROCE (return on capital employed) of more than 15 per cent for some time period (15 percent, because the cost of capital in India on a thumb rule basis is about 14 to 15 percent). After that comes figuring out the growth that the company will exhibit in the future, keepin