How Dinesh Balachandran pulled off SBI Contra Fund's spectacular show

Dinesh Balachandran, Fund Manager - Equity at SBI Mutual Fund, stands out from his peers with a journey that's nothing short of exceptional. Of late, he has gathered massive eyeballs owing to the remarkable performance of SBI Contra Fund, which he took over a few years ago. In this exclusive interview, he reveals the keys to his success, his stock picking strategy, and his views on new-age stocks and gold as an investment option. Here is an excerpt from the interview. Your career path as an equity fund manager is quite unique. Starting on the fixed income side and dedicating over a decade to it, please tell us more about your professional journey. I started my career in the US. I was pursuing my postgraduate education in engineering, initially heading towards earning a PhD and doing something related to engineering. Then, for some reason, I got intrigued by the world of investments and was able to take a few related classes at MIT Sloan. I found them quite engaging, which further sparked my interest in investments. At the time, I didn't have any formal background in finance. However, Fidelity Investments, which is one of the largest mutual fund companies, came to our campus for recruitment. They took a chance on me, and that's how I entered the field of investments as a profession. I began my career working on the quant side for fixed-income analysis. Over a decade in the US, I covered various aspects of the fixed-income market, including municipal bonds, corporate bonds, structured finance, corporate credit, and more. In 2011, I decided to move back to India, where I happened to meet Navneet, and he convinced me to join SBI Mutual Fund. Due to my background in fixed income, I started working in the fixed income team here as well. After a while, I expressed my interest in exploring something different since I had been closely involved with fi