Real estate's tailwinds will be better for next three years: Franklin deputy CIO

R Janakiraman, the Deputy CIO and Senior Portfolio Manager (Equities) at Franklin Templeton Asset Management Company (AMC), has been managing the fund house's small and mid-cap funds since 2008. Not only did he brave the 2008 Global Financial Crisis, but he also witnessed the 2020 debt crisis back home. Given his vast experience, we sat down with him to learn about his investment strategies, mid and small-cap outlook and an outline to improve the performance of the Franklin India Prima Fund. Here's the edited transcript: How will you define yourself as an investor? What kind of stocks or situation excites you? In general, I would classify myself as a careful investor. My approach has been to make returns by investing in good-quality businesses and steady compounders. There are a few operational financial parameters that I seek out when I evaluate businesses. But in this approach, the interesting opportunities come only during bear markets. Those are the times (like in 2012-13 or 2018-19) when such good-quality businesses tend to trade below their intrinsic value. How do you sell stocks from your portfolio? I operate a lot in small-caps, so good-quality businesses and mid and small-caps had a meaningful increase in valuations. Internally, our tolerance level for the valua